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The Life of George Bass: Surgeon and sailor of the Enlightenment
On 5 February 1802, the 142-ton brig Venus cleared Sydney heads to begin a trading voyage through the islands of the Pacific. On board as captain was one of her owners, the surgeon, navigator, adventurer and now entrepreneur George Bass. Neither Bass nor the Venus completed the voyage. They simply vanished into the Pacific. The questions are many. Was the Venus wrecked on the coast of New Zealand? Did the ship sink in a storm? Or, as some reports suggest, did Bass reach South America only to be incarcerated by the Spanish?
The brilliant and charismatic Bass embodied the Age of Enlightenment. He was a man of intense intellectual curiosity, of wide-ranging talents and contradictions. He had friends among Sydney's political radicals' but was also of the establishment. He was a skilled surgeon who preferred navigation to medicine, a naval officer who put his career on hold in an attempt to make a fortune and a man deeply in love but who abandoned his beloved Bess Bass' for the rewards of an adventurous voyage into commerce. In The Life of George Bass lie all the elements of personality and circumstance that shaped this short but remarkable life.
Miriam Estensen brings to bear exhaustive research in archives and libraries around the world, and her characteristic subtlety and insight to present a richly detailed account of the life and mysterious disappearance of this gifted and very complicated man.
The brilliant and charismatic Bass embodied the Age of Enlightenment. He was a man of intense intellectual curiosity, of wide-ranging talents and contradictions. He had friends among Sydney's political radicals' but was also of the establishment. He was a skilled surgeon who preferred navigation to medicine, a naval officer who put his career on hold in an attempt to make a fortune and a man deeply in love but who abandoned his beloved Bess Bass' for the rewards of an adventurous voyage into commerce. In The Life of George Bass lie all the elements of personality and circumstance that shaped this short but remarkable life.
Miriam Estensen brings to bear exhaustive research in archives and libraries around the world, and her characteristic subtlety and insight to present a richly detailed account of the life and mysterious disappearance of this gifted and very complicated man.
259 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 22, 2025
This chronicle of Bass’s life enriches our understanding of that surgeon and self-confessed sailor (explorer) that we otherwise solely link with Flinders.
As well as having been the first Europeans (together with Flinders) to circumnavigate Tasmania and thus prove it to be an island, he charted many other coastlines, bays and estuaries of Australia. He wrote about and studied the flora, fauna and natural environs of much of what he encountered. He learnt many languages, including those of indigenous clans and was able to converse with the first peoples.
But, ultimately, his love of exploration, coupled with his desire to advance by international trade, led to his demise, when he sailed from Port Jackson on the 5th February 1803 and vanished, never to be seen or heard of again.
He never ceased to read, study and learn. A man of great intellect, assiduous in his exploits, and referred to as being “enlightened”.
George Bass be honoured.
As well as having been the first Europeans (together with Flinders) to circumnavigate Tasmania and thus prove it to be an island, he charted many other coastlines, bays and estuaries of Australia. He wrote about and studied the flora, fauna and natural environs of much of what he encountered. He learnt many languages, including those of indigenous clans and was able to converse with the first peoples.
But, ultimately, his love of exploration, coupled with his desire to advance by international trade, led to his demise, when he sailed from Port Jackson on the 5th February 1803 and vanished, never to be seen or heard of again.
He never ceased to read, study and learn. A man of great intellect, assiduous in his exploits, and referred to as being “enlightened”.
George Bass be honoured.
December 15, 2019
A nice biography of a very gifted, under-rated, man. The easy writing style belies the detailed research behind this book: over 50 pages of end-notes, bibliography, glossary, index etc. I found the account of Bass's achievements of particular interest; the later chapters perhaps have too much detail, some speculative, about his relationship with his wife. They were only together for about 3 months before he sailed again for Australia, never to see her again.
December 27, 2020
Very readable and brisk biography of George Bass, who in a relatively short career (1795-1803) had a number of excellent adventures as part of the British colonization of Australia, including both establishing that Tasmania was an island and being involved in the first circumnavigation of it. He seems to have been a man of the best aspects of the Enlightenment, interested in learning and reason and able to treat native Australians as people worth of respect; because his expeditions came before the worst parts of European / Australian conflict he is not directly complicit in any atrocities and it's hard to know what he would have done in those circumstances. The book paints a vivid picture of Australia as vast but short of good agricultural land and so a set of colonies easily captured by those who have control of resources that matter, mainly food; and also of the thrill of sailing around unknown coasts in a small boat barely fit for the purpose, with a small number of companions, trying to discover and survive. (There's a vignette where they discover a group of escaped convicts marooned on an island but don't have space in the boat to take them anywhere safe -- instead they set the convicts back on the mainland to walk the 500 miles back to Sydney, wishing them luck, and "they were never heard of again").
Seeing the shortage of resources in Sydney / Port Jackson, Bass determined to make his fortune in trade with that colony; he sailed back to London, married Elizabeth in what seems to have been a genuine love match, filled a ship with merchandise including boots, shoes, hats, feathers, glue, looking-glasses, pencils, and screws, and set off back to Sydney bidding Elizabeth a fond farewell. But when he got to Sydney he discovered that others had had the same idea, and the problem in Sydney wasn't a shortage of the goods that he'd brought but a shortage of money to pay for them. He set off across the Pacific, maybe to illegally sell those goods in the Spanish colonies on the west coast of South America, and as far as anyone can tell he and his ship and all the crew were lost in a storm. (This was not uncommon: another sidebar story in the book, about a disagreement between two officers in Sydney, ends in comically deadpan and yet horrifying fashion when "On 29 March 1803 Captain McKellar, carrying Macarthur’s sword and Governor King’s despatches on the duel, sailed in the 103-ton American schooner Caroline, which was headed for New Bedford, Massachusetts, from where McKellar would transship for England. The Caroline disappeared at sea and McKellar was never heard from again.")
I read this for a writing project I'm working on, looking for an understanding of the workings of Australian exploration and for inspiration for fictional events, and found it very satisfying on both fronts. I'm not well-positioned to judge how accurate it is or how reliable its interpretations of events are, but as a reader who isn't a professional historian I thought it was excellent.
Seeing the shortage of resources in Sydney / Port Jackson, Bass determined to make his fortune in trade with that colony; he sailed back to London, married Elizabeth in what seems to have been a genuine love match, filled a ship with merchandise including boots, shoes, hats, feathers, glue, looking-glasses, pencils, and screws, and set off back to Sydney bidding Elizabeth a fond farewell. But when he got to Sydney he discovered that others had had the same idea, and the problem in Sydney wasn't a shortage of the goods that he'd brought but a shortage of money to pay for them. He set off across the Pacific, maybe to illegally sell those goods in the Spanish colonies on the west coast of South America, and as far as anyone can tell he and his ship and all the crew were lost in a storm. (This was not uncommon: another sidebar story in the book, about a disagreement between two officers in Sydney, ends in comically deadpan and yet horrifying fashion when "On 29 March 1803 Captain McKellar, carrying Macarthur’s sword and Governor King’s despatches on the duel, sailed in the 103-ton American schooner Caroline, which was headed for New Bedford, Massachusetts, from where McKellar would transship for England. The Caroline disappeared at sea and McKellar was never heard from again.")
I read this for a writing project I'm working on, looking for an understanding of the workings of Australian exploration and for inspiration for fictional events, and found it very satisfying on both fronts. I'm not well-positioned to judge how accurate it is or how reliable its interpretations of events are, but as a reader who isn't a professional historian I thought it was excellent.
December 23, 2012
Yet another chapter of Anglo/Australian history of which I knew but a small fraction. Presented in an entirely readable format, while learning more of our heritage at the same time.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews