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Edmund Lockyer
Ewers:
Similar fears had prompted Darling three years earlier to send a detachment of troops and a few convicts under Major Edmund Lockyer to Princess Royal Harbour in King George’s Sound. Lockyer was to take possession, by act of occupation, of the western portion of the continent. He had arrived on Christmas Day 1826 and remained until April 1827, when he handed on his command to Captain Joseph Wakefield. This tiny settlement at Albany (at first called Frederickstown, although the name seems never to have been actually used) continued until it was absorbed into the colony established later at the Swan River. (Ewers: 2)
ADB (no author, 1967):
Edmund Lockyer (1784-1860), soldier and landowner, was born on 21 January 1784 in St Andrew's Parish, Plymouth, Devon, England, the son of Thomas Lockyer, sailmaker, and his wife Ann, née Grose. He entered the army as an ensign in the 19th Regiment in June 1803, was promoted lieutenant early in 1805 and acquired a captaincy in August. At Galle, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), on 12 August 1806 he married a widow Dorothea Agatha Young, née de Ly. She died in Ceylon on 13 September 1816; on 6 October Lockyer married Sarah Morris. He was promoted major in August 1819 and in August 1824 transferred to the 57th Regiment. His service had been in England, Ireland, India and Ceylon. He arrived in Sydney in the Royal Charlotte in April 1825 with a detachment of the 57th; with him were his wife and ten children.
In August 1825 Governor Sir Thomas Brisbane instructed him to proceed to Moreton Bay in the cutter Mermaid, 84 tons, and explore the Brisbane River as far as he could go 'with prudence', and report on the animals, birds, minerals and the 'nature, disposition, complexion etc. of the natives'. Lockyer set out on 1 September and, with John Finnegan, a former castaway who had guided John Oxley in this district in 1823-24, explored the river in a small boat for 150 miles (241 km), about twice as far as Oxley had reached. He discovered the stream that bears his name and the Stanley River, and found coal near the present-day Ipswich. Since there was ample water over the bar the Mermaid was brought to Brisbane, the first sea-going vessel to enter the river. With a cargo of timber Lockyer returned to Sydney on 16 October 1825.
In March 1826 the British government, fearing that the French were planning to establish a colony on the west coast of Australia, instructed Governor (Sir) Ralph Darling among other measures to have King George Sound examined as the possible site of a settlement. Lockyer was appointed by Darling to establish a settlement there and, should the French have already arrived, to land his troops and to inform the French that the whole of New Holland was subject to the British government. Lockyer sailed on 9 November 1826 in the Amity, with Lieutenant Festing, twenty-three convicts and a detachment of twenty of the 39th Regiment under Captain Wakefield, who was to take over the settlement when it had been established. The expedition reached the sound on Christmas Day and next day Lockyer and Festing landed. In a preliminary examination of the area one man was speared by Aboriginals but survived. By 10 January buildings had been erected, a garden dug and 'a quantity of amazing fine fish' caught. That day a boat-load of sealers arrived. Lockyer arrested two of these, having evidence that they had committed outrages against Aboriginals, and sent them to Sydney in the Amity when she departed on 24 January. From the sealers Lockyer learnt that Dumont D'Urville had surveyed King George Sound in November. On 12 February Lockyer with five others set out to walk to Swan River, but it rained heavily, a soldier fell ill and the schooner Isabella arrived on her way to Melville Island bringing instructions to Lockyer to return to Sydney and news that Captain (Sir) James Stirling in H.M.S. Success had already reconnoitred Swan River. Lockyer sailed for Sydney in the Success on 3 April, leaving Wakefield in charge.
References and Links
Ewers, John K. 1971, The Western Gateway: A History of Fremantle, Fremantle City Council, with UWAP, rev. ed. [1st ed. 1948].
Stephens, Robert 1936, 'Major Edmund Lockyer', Early Days, Vol. 2, Part 19: 1-9.
ADB entry (no author, 1967).
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 12 July, 2021 and hosted at freotopia.org/people/lockyeredmund.html (it was last updated on 2 March, 2024), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.