John Hunter leads an expedition to explore…

John Hunter leads an expedition to explore the Parramatta River early in 1788.

This expedition explores and makes soundings as far as Iron Cove, Five Dock Bay and Hen and Chicken Bay on the Parramatta River.

The Sir William Dixson Research Library in Sydney holds the original copy of the chart of the expedition, entitled Chart of the coasts and harbours of Botany-Bay, Port-Jackson and Broken-Bay, as survey'd by Capt.n John Hunter of H.M.S. Sirius.

The expedition is significant because it may have marked the first contact to take place between the British and the Indigenous owners of the land, the Wangal Clan, in 1788.

William Bradley's log says that this contact took place while Hunter was having breakfast and is remembered in the name of the suburb, Breakfast Point.

Hunter was born in Leith, Scotland, the son of William Hunter, a captain in the merchant service, and Helen, née Drummond, daughter of J. Drummond, a lord provost of Edinburgh.

As a boy, Hunter had been sent to live with an uncle in the town of Lynn in Norfolk, where, and also at Edinburgh, he had received the classical education of the time.

Sent to University of Edinburgh, Hunter had soon left it to join the navy as a captain's servant to Thomas Knackston in HMS Grampus.

He was enrolled in 1755 as able seaman on the Centaur, became a midshipman and served on the Union and then the Neptune.

Hunter passed examinations and qualified for promotion to lieutenant in February 1760.

He was not, however, appointed lieutenant until 1780.

He had been made second-in-command on HMS Sirius when the preparation of the First Fleet was in progress.

Arthur Phillip, the captain of that ship, was in command of the new colony of New South Wales.

Hunter has carried a dormant commission as successor to Phillip if he should have died or was absent.

As with many of the First Fleet officers, he had fought in the American Revolutionary War.