page_title: Matthew Flinders
section_title: Naming of Australia and discovery of Flinders' 1804 map Y46/1
hierarchical_section_title: Matthew Flinders / Naming of Australia and discovery of Flinders' 1804 map Y46/1
caption_attribution_description: English: A Complete map of the Southern Continent survey'd by Capt. Abel Tasman &amp; depicted by order of the East India Company in Holland in the Stadt House at Amsterdam; E. Bowen, Sculp. [1]
context_page_description: Captain Matthew Flinders was an English navigator and cartographer who led the first inshore circumnavigation of the landmass that is now known as Australia. He is also credited as being the first person to utilise the name Australia to describe the entirety of that continent including Van Diemen's Land, a title he regarded as being "more agreeable to the ear" than previous names such as Terra Australis.
  Flinders was involved in several voyages of discovery between 1791 and 1803, the most famous of which are the circumnavigation around Australia and an earlier expedition where he and George Bass confirmed that Van Diemen's Land was an island.
  While returning to England in 1803, Flinders was arrested by the French governor at Isle de France. Although Britain and France were at war, Flinders thought the scientific nature of his work would ensure safe passage, but he remained under arrest for more than six years. In captivity, he recorded details of his voyages for future publication, and put forward his rationale for naming the new continent 'Australia', as an umbrella term for New Holland and New South Wales – a suggestion taken up later by Governor Macquarie.
context_section_description: Flinders' map Y46/1 was never "lost". It had been stored and recorded by the UK Hydrographic Office before 1828. Geoffrey C. Ingleton mentioned Y46/1 in his book Matthew Flinders Navigator and Chartmaker on page 438. By 1987 every library in Australia had access to a microfiche copy of Flinders Y46/1. In 2001–2002 the Mitchell Library Sydney displayed Y46/1 at their "Matthew Flinders – The Ultimate Voyage" exhibition. Paul Brunton called Y46/1 "the memorial of the great naval explorer Matthew Flinders". The first hard-copy of Y46/1 and its cartouche was retrieved from the UK Hydrographic Office (Taunton, Somerset) by historian Bill Fairbanks in 2004. On 2 April 2004, copies of the chart were presented by three of Matthew Flinders's descendants to the Governor of New South Wales, in London, to be presented in turn to the people of Australia through their parliaments by 14 November, the 200th anniversary of the chart leaving Mauritius. This celebration marked the first time the naming of Australia was formally recognised.
  Flinders was not the first to use the word "Australia", nor was he the first to apply the name specifically to the continent. He owned a copy of Alexander Dalrymple's 1771 book An Historical Collection of Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean, and it seems likely he borrowed it from there, but he applied it specifically to the continent, not the whole South Pacific region.  In 1804 he wrote to his brother: "I call the whole island Australia, or Terra Australis".  Later that year, he wrote to Sir Joseph Banks and mentioned "my general chart of Australia", a map that Flinders had constructed from all the information he had accumulated while he was in Australian waters and finished while he was detained by the French in Mauritius. Flinders explained in his letter to Banks:
  The propriety of the name Australia or Terra Australis, which I have applied to the whole body of what has generally been called New Holland, must be submitted to the approbation of the Admiralty and the learned in geography. It seems to me an inconsistent thing that captain Cooks New South Wales should be absorbed in the New Holland of the Dutch, and therefore I have reverted to the original name Terra Australis or the Great South Land, by which it was distinguished even by the Dutch during the 17th century; for it appears that it was not until some time after Tasman's second voyage that the name New Holland was first applied, and then it was long before it displaced T’Zuydt Landt in the charts, and could not extend to what was not yet known to have existence; New South Wales, therefore, ought to remain distinct from New Holland; but as it is requisite that the whole body should have one general name, since it is now known (if there is no great error in the Dutch part) that it is certainly all one land, so I judge, that one less exceptionable to all parties and on all accounts cannot be found than that now applied.
  Flinders continued to promote the use of the word until his arrival in London in 1810.  Here he found that Banks did not approve of the name and had not unpacked the chart he had sent him, and that "New Holland" and "Terra Australis" were still in general use.  As a result, a book by Flinders was published under the title A Voyage to Terra Australis and his published map of 1814 also shows 'Terra Australis' as the first of the two name options, despite his objections.  The final proofs were brought to him on his deathbed, but he was unconscious.  The book was published on 18 July 1814, but Flinders did not regain consciousness and died the next day, never knowing that his name for the continent would be accepted.
  Banks wrote a draft of an introduction to Flinders' Voyage, referring to the map published by Melchisédech Thévenot in Relations des Divers Voyages (1663), and made well-known to English readers by Emanuel Bowen's adaptation of it, A Complete Map of the Southern Continent, published in John Campbell's editions of John Harris's Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca, or Voyages and Travels (1744–48, and
caption: 1744 Chart of Hollandia Nova – Terra Australis by Emanuel Bowen
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