TWEED CENTENARY.
ROMANTIC DISCOVERY
Exactly 200 years ago today, Lieutenant John Oxley discovered the Tweed River. On October 23 1823, Lieutenant Oxley, commissioned to find a new penal settlement, left with a party in his Majesty's colonial cutter Mermaid.
Thus explained The Daily Mail, 100 years ago. [1]
It probably was not the most romantic journey, but the Tweed River did inspire poetry subsequently [2]:
Flow gently, sweet Tweed
Fair river - broad and deep
The Tweed River was discovered before the nearby Clarence and the Richmond Rivers. [3]
It is not generally known that the Tweed, the smallest of the three northernmost rivers of New South Wales, dates its discovery some years earlier than either of its more pretentious sisters, the Clarence and Richmond. Whilst the Clarence was not discovered (and accidentally, too) until 1834, when Richard Craig, a convict, who escaped from Moreton Bay, walked to Port Macquarie, or by some cedar cutters from Sydney in 1838, and the Richmond was not entered by the Hon. Captain Rous, R.N., then commanding H.M.S. Rainbow on the Australian station, until 1828, yet the Tweed—the beautiful fertile though small river Tweed—was found and entered by Mr. Lieutenant Oxley, surveyor-General of New South Wales, on the 21st November, 1823. So then Thursday is the 95th anniversary of the discovery of the Derwent of New-South Wales. It will equally surprise many readers—and half dispel a popular misconception— to know that to Lieut. Oxley belongs the distinguished honor of finding this river, and not Captain Cook, nor yet Captain Rous. It was Mr. Oxley, too, who explored that remarkable formation at Fingal Point on the mainland opposite Cook Island, which he named from its re-semblance to Fingal Caves and the Giant's Causeway in Scotland and Ireland.
It is therefore interesting at this juncture to reproduce portion of the account of the discovery of the Tweed as recorded by Mr. John Uniacke, one of Mr. Oxley's party on that occasion. It is published from "Narrative of Mr. Oxley's Expedition" - contained in "Geographical Memoirs of New South Wales," published in London in 1825. Mr. Oxley was at the time in his Majesty's cutter Mermaid, and in search of a big river which it was thought entered Moreton Bay. (He discovered and entered the Brisbane River on December 2nd following.):-"Whilst running down for this place (a small island off Point Danger subsequently, renamed Cook Island, and on which Fingal light sheds its friendly rays) to which we sought shelter from a storm, we perceived the mouth of a large river about a mile and a half to the north-ward." Next morning the master was sent in a whaleboat to investigate. He found two fathoms of water on the bar at low water."
1. TWEED CENTENARY (1923, November 1). The Daily Mail (Brisbane, Qld. : 1903; 1916 - 1926), p.6
2. A LONELY CEMETERY (1932, October 25). Daily Examiner (Grafton, NSW : 1915 - 1954), p.17
3. DISCOVERY OF THE TWEED RIVER (1918, November 21). Northern Star (Lismore, NSW : 1876 - 1954), p. 6
