A survey of place on the early colonial frontier: James Grant and William Paterson on the Hunter River, 1801

The 1801 voyage of the HMS Lady Nelson to the Hunter River in New South Wales is an example of early colonial explorations into the spaces beyond Port Jackson's fringe. Planned as a survey of the river to determine its suitability for settlement, the records of Lieutenant James Grant and Lieutenant-Colonel William Paterson and other expeditionists tell us what they observed, how they assessed the river and the land around it, identified its resources, and judged from a distance the Aboriginal peoples they passed on their journey. This review of the expedition illustrates a process of colonisation through narrative description and survey, the classification of resources, the naming of topography, and the drawing of a chart over hitherto uncharted spaces: in short, the acquisition of knowledge of spaces beyond the colonial fringe and their framing in European consciousness. These were acts of possession that made this speculated 'space' a colonial 'place'. The expedition gave the river meaning for the colony, but its failure to establish relations with the Aboriginal people excluded them from the European conception of place.