THE FOUNDER OF AUSTRALIA

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 19 August 1933, Page 2

THE FOUNDER OF AUSTRALIA

In May, 1787, Captain Arthur Phillip, as he then was, sailed to a wild, unexplored land, and founded what is now the Australian Commonwealth. He discovered what he truly named the finest harbour in the world and named it after Lord Sydney; in a temporary wooden lint at the harbour’s edge he drew up plans for a handsome city with broad avenues; he became the first Governor of Australia; he laid the foundations of Australian agriculture. And then lie came back to England, and quietly retired to Bath and was at once forgotten by his countrymen. The position of his grave remained unknown for eighty years. It is duo to the exertions of Mr Douglas Hope Johnston and the generosity of Lord Wakefield that, 144 years later, the memory of this Londoner who made Australia is at last commemorated in his own city. A bronze memorial on the outside wall of St. Mildred’s Church, Bread street, where Phillip was born in 1738, has been presented by Lord Wakefield, Alderman of the Ward of Bread street, and dedicated by the Bishop of London. Mr Douglas Hope Johnston is the great-grandson of Lieutenant George Phillip’s A.D.C.