An Analysis of The 1792 "Phillip Map" of Sydney. Paul-Alan Johnson
Posted by nellibell49 on July 25, 2008
An Analysis of The 1792 “Phillip Map” of Sydney.
Paul-Alan Johnson
On the eve of his departure in December 1792, after four difficult years of
Arthur Phillip had the main settlements surveyed and, as his
last act to consolidate the town he created and which was now the capital
of the colony of New South Wales, he fixed the town boundary. fa what
has all the appearances of a sloppy mapping and administrative exercise,
Phillip apparently declared the town boundary by way of two maps drawn
on each side of the same paper.
But a detailed examination of the maps reveals that what they show differs
by between one and five years, and that the so-called “Phillip Map” was
completed well after his departure and may even be a concoction prepared
a century after settlement. The map on its reverse is both more accurate
and more revealing of the way the colony was in 1792 and, far from being
secondary, is of major importance to the early record. Indeed, next to the
now-damaged 1788 map of Sydney Cove in the Public Records Office,
Lofldoo, the map on the reverse is arguably the most valuable drawn record
of the early Sydney settlement
