page_title: James Stirling (Royal Navy officer)
section_title: Melville Island and North Australia
hierarchical_section_title: James Stirling (Royal Navy officer) / Australia / Melville Island and North Australia
caption_attribution_description: English: Map showing Melville and Croker Islands to illustrate James Stirling biography.中文（繁體）‎: 梅尔维尔和克罗克群岛
context_page_description: Admiral Sir James Stirling was a British naval officer and colonial administrator. His enthusiasm and persistence persuaded the British Government to establish the Swan River Colony and he became the first Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Western Australia. In 1854, when Commander-in-Chief, East Indies and China Station, Stirling on his own initiative signed Britain's first Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty. Throughout his career Stirling showed considerable diplomatic skill and was selected for a number of sensitive missions. Paradoxically, this was not reflected in his personal dealings with officialdom and his hopes for preferment received many rebuffs. Stirling also personally led the attack in Western Australia on a group of approximately seventy Bindjareb men, women and children now known as the Pinjarra massacre, afterwards threatening to "kill 80% of the [broader] Noongar population of the South West” should they continue to resist.
  Stirling entered the Royal Navy at age 12 and as a midshipman saw action in the Napoleonic Wars.
context_section_description: Stirling's original mission included a task to carry supplies to Melville Island. However, Darling had received further instructions to investigate the formation of a new settlement on the coast to the east of Melville Island.  Accordingly, the Success left Sydney on 19 May 1827 carrying an establishment force for a new settlement and accompanied by the brig Mary Elizabeth.  The two ships separated. The Mary Elizabeth sailed to Melville Island and on 15 June the Success anchored in Palm Bay, on the western side of Croker Island.  Stirling quickly established that the island was unsuitable for settlement and sent a boat across to the mainland to explore Raffles Bay.  The report being favourable, Stirling looked no further and on 18 June he went ashore with his officers to take possession of Raffles Bay and the surrounding territory in His Majesty's name. The establishment force and supplies were landed and Stirling named the settlement Fort Wellington.  A month later, believing all to be well, Stirling set sail for Melville island.
  The Success arrived at Fort Dundas on Melville Island on 25 July and set sail again four days later for Madras, and then to Penang, to report to Admiral Gage, Commander of the Eastern Station. Stirling was keen to return home to see his family and to further his case for a settlement at the Swan River.  However, Gage instructed him to base the Success in Trincomalee Harbour, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where he arrived on 4 January 1828.  There he succumbed rapidly to the tropical climate and on 21 February three Royal Navy surgeons certified that he was so ill he should return immediately to England.
  The settlements at Fort Dundas and Fort Wellington rapidly got into difficulties with outbreaks of scurvy and fever, supply shortages and communication failures. The Melville Island outpost was abandoned in November 1828 and the Raffles Bay settlement was broken up in July 1829.
caption: Melville and Croker Islands on Australia's north coast
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