page_title: Kurnell, New South Wales
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Kurnell, New South Wales / History
caption_attribution_description: Kurnell, view from Botany Bay
context_page_description: Kurnell is a suburb in Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is 21.4 kilometres south of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Sutherland Shire along the east coast. Cronulla and Woolooware are the only adjacent suburbs. La Perouse is located opposite, on the northern headland of Botany Bay. The Cronulla sand dunes are on the south eastern headland of Botany Bay. The eastern side of the peninsula is part of Botany Bay National Park, and Towra Point Nature Reserve is located on the western side of the suburb.
context_section_description: Kurnell is the place where Captain James Cook landed on 29 April 1770, making first contact with the original inhabitants of the area, the Gweagal Aborigines whilst navigating his way up the East Coast of Australia on Endeavour. Captain Cook along with his crew stayed at Kurnell for a period of eight days. During their visit they collected botanical specimens, mapped the area and tried to make contact (unsuccessfully) with the indigenous population. When Cook reported back to England he said that the land was suitable for agriculture and was lightly wooded.
  Captain Arthur Phillip, arriving in H.M. Armed Tender Supply on 18 January 1788, before the First Fleet arrived, following Cook's advice. They began to clear land and dig wells, near modern-day La Perouse but a week later, Phillip decided to abandon the site and moved north to Sydney Cove at Port Jackson.
  Cook's landing place is located on the north-eastern part of the national park, just near Silver Beach. Sutherland Point is named in honour of a crew member, Scotsman Forby Sutherland, who died of tuberculosis during their eight days here and was buried on the shore. Cape Solander is named after Swedish botanist Daniel Solander, a colleague of Joseph Banks. Inscription Point was named by the Australian Philosophical Society in 1822 when they secured a plaque to the cliff face to mark the point of the Endeavour's crew first landing.
  Dampier Street, Tasman Street and Torres Street commemorate other navigators in Australia's history.
  The first land grant of 700 acres (283.3 ha) was made in 1815, to Captain James Birnie, who established Alpha Farm. 'Alpha' is the first letter in the Greek alphabet and the name was thought appropriate for the first farm in the area. In 1821 John Connell Junior was also granted land here and used it for timber getting. His father purchased Alpha Farm from Birnie and by 1842 the Connell family's estate was over one thousand acres (4 km²) in size. In 1860, Alpha Farm was sold to Thomas Holt (1811–88), who owned most of the land that stretched from Sutherland to Cronulla. The area was known as Birniemere for a time and Holtmere was once a locality.
  Before the 1920s, Kurnell was used by fishermen as schools of several varieties of fish inhabited the Botany Bay foreshore and the open sea. Fishermen built numerous huts and shacks which sheltered them for the weekend fishing. During the Great Depression, from the late 1920s, many severely affected low-income families took up residence there, in a shantytown.
caption: Captain Cook Memorial Obelisk
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