Flinders

In 1810, Matthew Flinders made his final voyage home to his beloved wife, Ann, his body ravaged by the deprivations of years of imprisonment by the French.

Four years later, at the age of just 40, he would be dead - a premature, tragic end to one of the world's greatest maritime adventurers who circumnavigated and mapped the famed Great Southern Land, and whose naming of the vast continent would become its modern title: Australia.

Flinders took to the sea at age 16, inspired by the story of Robinson Crusoe and the adventures of Captain Cook. After sailing to Tahiti with William Bligh, Flinders was drawn to adventure, and by 1801 he was in command of an expedition to uncover the true nature of the great continent of the southern ocean.