Isle of Wight has link to Aust, settlers

Press, 4 February 1986, Page 13

Isle of Wight has link to Aust, settlers

By MIKE HEDGE AAP correspondent London When Queen Victoria was refused membership of the Royal Yacht Squadron because she was a woman she formed her own sailing club round the corner. A clubhouse designed by her husband was built on the beachfront at Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, and its origin is one of the best-known stories on the island. Of less common knowledge is that Queen Victoria’s sailing club overlooks Australia’s origins. On May 13, 1787, a hundred years before the Queen’s sailing club was built, the 13 ships of the First Fleet assembled off Ryde and sailed for Botany Bay.

In Australia the rest is the country’s history. The Isle of Wight is celebrating the bicen-

tenary of the First Fleet’s departure with an exercise aimed at giving the descendants of the First Fleeters and, eventually, of all other fleets which sailed to Australia, the opportunity to trace their ancestry. The local councils of the Isle of Wight are establishing the Australia Heritage Centre, which will compile data on the members of the First Fleet, detailing what led them to make the voyage as well as their ancestry.

“The ultimate aim is to include the entire complement of every fleet that sailed to Australia,” said Mr Eddie Elsom, managing director of Elsom Lauder, the firm which will compile the computer genealogy unit of the Australian Heritage Centre. Mr Elsom said the computerised records would allow the descendants as well as the ancestors of

the original Australian immigrants to be traced. “The idea is for every Australian visiting the United Kingdom to be encouraged to register at the heritage centre,” he said.

Unlike the existing, sometimes costly, methods of tracing family histories, access to the genealogy unit would be free of charge. The Australian Heritage Centre will be set up in the disused St Thomas’ church, Ryde, where the third mate on one of the ships of the First Fleet was buried.

As well as the permanent genealogy unit, the Isle of Wight-Australia bicentennial celebrations will include the World Land Speed Dunny International and a re-enact-ment of the First Fleet’s voyage by 13 squarerigged sailing ships.