Mr George Bass

Naval Surgeon, Explorer, Adventurer, and perhaps a would-be Smuggler

George Bass was an extraordinary person, enormously talented and incredibly brave. It was her, together with Matthew Flinders who carried out early exploration from the infant colony at Sydney by traveling down the south coast and ultimately proving there was a large body of water between what is now Victoria and Tasmania. previously maps had all been drawn with Tasmania drawn connected to the “northern island”.

He was an extraordinary man but was never fully recognised in a public way for his efforts. He was highly regarded by those who knew him well, referring to him with phrases such as “ingenious, enterprising, and remarkable” - praise any of us would be overwhelmed to have applied to ourselves. Despite that,  history didn’t treat him well and he is often overshadowed by Flinders. The best indication of which is that no one wrote a biography of him until 1952. There is a subsequent one but it took all that time for someone to tell us about this wonderful man.

He is one of the statues on the Lands Department building, on the Northern Facade of the building. It is truly extraordinary how much he packed into 32 years, the entire span of his life.

If you asked ten Australians who George Bass is or what he did, not many could do it but hopefully this will help close that gap.