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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