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Fort Dundas


Fort Dundas was a short lived British settlement on Melville Island between 1824 and 1828 in what is now the Northern Territory of Australia. It was the first of four British settlement attempts in northern Australia before Goyer's survey and establishment of Palmerston, now known as Darwin.

Captain J. J. Gordon Bremer set sail on the HMS Tamar from Port Jackson on the 24 August 1824 to colonise the northern part of Australia. His ship was accompanied by the HMS Lady Nelson, and Countess of Harcourt. The ships transported Captain Maurie Barlow, Lieutenant John Septimus Roe, Lieutenant Everard and 23 men of the 3rd Regiment, a subaltern and 26 men of the Royal Marine, a surgeon, three commissariat workers, three free men seeking adventure and 44 convicts.

The construction of a settlement began upon arrival on 27 September 1824. It was officially proclaimed on 21 October 1824, on Trafalgar Day. It was named Fort Dundas was named for Robert Dundas, the First Lord of the Admiralty.

The intention was to commence and develop trade with the Malays. During the first two years, the settlers never saw a Malay. Furthermore, the settlers had not been able to penetrate more than 20 miles into the island's interior 'due to the hostility of the natives - being in the most savage state of barbarism, and all attempts to concilliate them proving abortive'; such was the report to the British people. The establishment of the settlement caused the border of New South Wales to be moved west from the 135th meridian to the Western Australian border (129th meridian).


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