Phillip Parker King: navigator, hydrographer, maritime surveyor – in Flinders' wake

Tides up to 13 metres, vicious currents, whirlpools and eddies, temperatures over 40 degrees, potentially hostile local people, definitely hostile crocodiles, thousands of kilometres from any European settlement.

These were the conditions Phillip Parker King dealt with in his task of completing the map of the Australian coast in three voyages in the little cutter Mermaid, 17 metres long, between 1817 and 1820, and a fourth voyage in the larger brig Bathurst in 1821 – 1822.

His charts were so accurate they were still being used in the mid twentieth century and certainly prevented hundreds of shipwrecks.

Yet King is one of those figures in Australian history since 1788 who remain relatively unknown – despite his maritime achievements, despite him being a member of the NSW Legislative Council and despite him being the first Australian born Admiral of the Royal Navy.

That is about to change.