Flinders Island
was first mapped by Captain Tobias Furneaux in 1773 and
is the by far the largest of the fifty two islands in the
Furneaux Group of islands.
The Furneaux
Group of islands is what remains of the original land bridge
that once joined Tasmania to mainland Australia.
The time of
the flooding of this land bridge is a contentious point
for many scientists but it is believed to have happened
between 12,000 and 18,000 years ago.
It was originally
called Great Island by Matthew Flinders when he sailed around
it in 1797 while looking for the wreck of the “Sydney
Cove” but was re-named Flinders Island in his honour
by Governor King.
The merchant
vessel 'Sydney Cove', en route from Calcutta to the fledgling
colony at Port Jackson, was beached off Preservation Island.
17 of the crew set out in the long boat for help. The long
boat was wrecked off the Victorian coast near Cape Howe
and the crew set out to walk to Sydney Town.
(The three
that survived surely must have been on the first major bushwalk
in Australian history.)
In the late
1700s, the island was settled by sealers and their mostly
Aboriginal wives, but seal stocks soon collapsed, causing
the last sealing permit to be issued in 1828. Many sealers'
families chose to stay in the Furneaux Group, subsisting
on cattle grazing and mutton birding.
In 1833, the
remnants of the Tasmanian Aboriginal population were exiled
to Settlement Point (or Wybalenna, meaning Black Man's House)
on Flinders Island. These 160 survivors were deemed to be
safe from white settlers here, but the relocation scheme
was short-lived and doomed to fail.
In 1847 the
remaining 47 Aboriginals were again relocated, this time
to Oyster Cove, an ex-convict settlement 56 kilometres south
of Hobart.
Grazing leases
for dairy cattle and sheep, and fledgling fishing industries
were launched, but it wasn’t until 1888 that a European
man named George Boyes established the first permanent freehold.
After World
War II, soldiers from Tasmania and New South Wales were
granted settlement rights in return for their labour in
clearing and draining some of the more inhospitable portions
of the island. These soldier settlers created the towns
of Memena and Lackrana, and greatly improved the area’s
agricultural fortunes.
The population
in 2005 was 897 people; the median age being 45. The two
main settlements are Whitemark which has the island's main
airstrip and about 170 inhabitants (2005) and Lady Barron
(approx. 130 inhabitants),
The airport
at Whitemark was opened in 1935 and still services the many
visitors who come to walk the hiking trails of Mt Strzelecki
in the Strzelecki National Park or search for Killiecrankie
diamonds (white topaz) found on the many clean beaches and
in the picturesque valleys.

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