100 Maritime Stories

📖 The Scoop

To commemorate the 200 years since the exploring and naming of the Brisbane River by John Oxley in 1823, David Jones has compiled 100 maritime stories of Queensland. The book is in seven sections covering the early days, colonial era, shipwrecks, wartime and others.

Australia’s First Nations people lived in and around the Brisbane River for thousands of years. Though they did not have a name for the entire river, sections of the river were called ‘Meanjin’, ‘Maiwar’ and ‘Toowong’. Other names have been lost over time. Similarly, the Brisbane River was broken up into reaches by the new arrivals. They include Hamilton Reach, Bulimba Reach, Humbug Reach, Shafston Reach, Town Reach and others.

The first Europeans to discover the Brisbane River was documented by Thomas Welsby in The Discoverers of the Brisbane River, published in 1913. He states that Richard Parsons, Thomas Pamphlet and John Finnegan were the original discoverers though John Oxley gave them no credit for this. In 200 years the river has been the backbone of the city of Brisbane. Today it is used for trade, tourism, transport, pleasure and Brisbane’s water supply.

Genre: History / Australia & New Zealand (fancy, right?)