Author(s): George Worgan

History

George Worgan was at the centre of events when the first fleet landed its cargo of convicts and settlers at Sydney Cove in January 1788. Worgan had sailed with governor Arthur Phillip as surgeon of the Sirius and was a careful recorder of the governor's efforts to establish the fledgling colony of New South Wales. Worgan's journal, written on the spot and while events were fresh in his mind, is now acknowledged to be one of the most important eyewitness accounts of the arrival of the fleet. He was present at many of the first meetings between the aboriginal people and the Europeans, recorded Phillip's address to the convicts on their arrival, and took part in many of the first exploratory journeys into the interior. His descriptions of the inhabitants, the native fauna, flora and landscape, are full of the same sense of wonder, surprise and sometimes amusement experience by the first Europeans.