[AUSTRALIA-WA] North West Coast of Austr…

Rare hydrographic chart of north west,  Australia, based on the original surveys by Phillip Parker King in HMS Beagle 1838-42 and Hydrographic surveys to 1883. This new survey was first issued 22nd March 1904, large corrections August, 1891 and small corrections tIII-1894. The chart includes Barrow and Montebello Islands, which were originally identified on many early Dutch charts as the Trial (or Tryall) Islands, as their supposed discovery by Captain Brookes in 1622, placed them directly in the path of VOC ships sailing to Batavia. See below

The regular updating of Hydrographic charts by the Hydrographic Office was to ensure that commanders of ships, pilots and other mariners were able to have the most to up to date information available to safely navigate foreign waters and ports as new information of changes to sea depths, sand bars, wrecks or other any other pertinent nautical information that could hinder passage became available. As updated charts were offered for sale, the earlier outdated charts in the hands of mariners, pilots, ships owners and sailors were invariably discarded, subsequently making all British Admiralty issued hydrographic charts of the period rare.

TRIAL ISLANDS HISTORY / present Barrow / Montebello Islands, north west Western Australia.

Their position caused great concern to Hessel Gerritsz who had been appointed the firs cartographer of the VOC in 1617 and quickly added the islands on Dutch charts. The islands were named after Brookes ship the Trial, which had sailed for Java using the new sea route to the Indies pioneered by Brouwer in 1611 struck unknown rocks on the night of 25th May 1622, and wrecked, with only forty-six survivors including Captain Brookes. In his subsequent report to the VOC authorities in Batavia, Brookes stated that the rocks were well west of their true position in an attempt to avoid blame for his error. Soon after a Dutch ship, the Wapen van Hoorn, ran aground in a storm at the land of d’Eendracht but managed to sail after the storm abated. Concerned for the viability of their trade route, the Gerritsz and the VOC prioritised the accuracy of their charting of the region, with captains and pilots being required to record all shallows and reefs in the area. Due to their incorrect placement on the Gerritsz chart, the Trial Rocks remained a mystery for a further two hundred years until Phillip Parker King, sailing in the Mermaid, investigated their position in 1820 and finally confirmed that ‘there remains no doubt in my mind but that Barrow Island … are the same Tryal Rocks’.