The First Footers - Bass and Flinders in Illawarra

W.G. McDonald, (1975), The First Footers - Bass and Flinders in Illawarra, Illawarra Historical Society, Wollongong, 52p. The bicentenary of the birth on 16 March 1774 of Matthew Flinders was commemorated by the Illawarra Historical Society at its March 1974 meeting, when a paper, of which this booklet is a revision, was read by the author. It dealt specifically with the explorations of Bass and Flinders in Illawarra and its vicinity, a subject which has received little attention from their biographers. (Even the one exception, Professor Ernest Scott, was writing a life of Flinders, so quite reasonably had little to say of Bass without Flinders). This booklet is an attempt to fill the gap. It does not set out to cover their earlier and later careers, which are comparatively well documented, in any detail; nor does it seek to cover fully the story of the Sydney Cove, which would repay more detailed investigation, particularly to clarify the many inconsistencies in the existing accounts.