First Fleeter Buried in Kiama

On 13 May 1778, HMS Sirius set off with a fleet of eleven ships destined for New Holland. While it was a strategic move for the British to claim land in the Pacific ahead of the French and other rivals, it was also an opportunity to relieve pressure on overcrowded British prisons with the establishment of a new penal colony. The fleet consisted of two naval ships, six convict transports and three store ships, and a total of about 1500 souls (approximately half of which were convicts and the other half marines, officers, seamen, and wives and children looking for a new life). The journey lasted eight months, the fleet finally arriving at Port Jackson on 26 January 1788. This also marked the beginning of the dispossession of Australia's Aboriginal people.

First Fleeter John Gowen (1763-1837) was born in England and, at the young age of 15, he joined the British Marines. At age 25, John sailed to the new colony aboard the HMS Sirius as a Corporal of Marines. In October 1788, John was sent to Norfolk Island to work in the penal settlement, where he remained for five years. He worked as a marine for three years, after which he was honourably discharged, on request. He remained on Norfolk as a settler, where he farmed for two more years.

John married Ordery Appleyard (an ex-convict originally sentenced to seven years’ transportation) in 1805 in Sydney. They had six children, one of which - Frances - married a Baptist Minister, William Sutherland. William was sent to Kiama in 1835 to administer his religious duties, and was then appointed as Police Constable for Kiama in 1836. John Gowen moved to Kiama to live with his daughter in 1835. He died two years later in Kiama and was buried on 28 April 1837 in the Protestant Cemetery on the headland. The Church of England (now the Christ Church Anglican Church) was built adjacent to the little cemetery in 1859, and John Gowen's grave remains there to this day.

Anglican Christ Church, Kiama, c.1910

Anglican Christ Church, Kiama, c.2008

HMS Sirius. Painting by marine artist Frank Allen.
Courtesy of the First Fleet Fellowship

First Fleet landing, Port Jackson, Sydney 1788.
Courtesy of State Library of NSW Collection