Risdon Cove

Risdon Cove is located on the east bank of the Derwent River, approximately 7 kilometres (4 mi) north of Hobart, Tasmania. It was the site of the first British settlement in Van Diemen's Land, now Tasmania, the smallest Australian state. The cove was named by John Hayes,[1] who mapped the river in the ship Duke of Clarence in 1794, after his second officer William Bellamy Risdon. In 1803 Lieutenant John Bowen was sent to establish a settlement in Van Diemen's Land. On the advice of the explorer George Bass he had chosen Risdon Cove. While the site was a good one from a defensive point of view, the soil was poor and water scarce. The Lady Nelson anchored at Risdon on the eastern shore of the Derwent River on Wednesday 8 September 1803, five days before the whaler Albion arrived with Lt. Bowen on board. The 49 people aboard the Lady Nelson and Albion made a curious party of soldiers, sailors, settlers and convicts. In 1804 Lieutenant Colonel David Collins arrived in the Derwent from Port Phillip. Within a few days he rejected Risdon Cove as a suitable settlement site, for its inadequate source of fresh water, and moved his party across the river to Sullivans Cove. The military and convicts disembarked from the Ocean near Hunter Island on the 20–21 February 1804 and thus beginning what is now Hobart. The free settlers were landed from the Lady Nelson at New Town Bay on 22 February.