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A Voyage to Botany Bay with a Description of the Country, Manners, Customs, Religion, &c. of the Natives
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Affiliation Notes
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19th-Century Australian Travel Writing
George Barrington (1755?-1804) was a famous pickpocket. None of Barrington’s works (including A Voyage to Botany Bay, An Account of a Voyage to New South Wales (1810) and A Sequel to Barrington's Voyage to New South Wales (1800)) were written by Barrington himself, and all are palpably fictitious. This description of Barrington’s voyage to Botany Bay is prefaced by "The Life of George Barrington", a brief biography purportedly describing his family, his convictions and experience as a convict. The voyage is described through first person narration, as he journeys from England to Australia via South America. It describes the Captain's respect for Barrington, which eventuates in his appointment as superintendent of convicts at Parramatta and the kindly reception of the governor. Once in Australia, Barrington describes the Aboriginal population, customs, and the Australian landscape. Although this work is falsified and plagiarised principally from David Collins' work on New South Wales, it was influential in contemporary conceptions of travel to Australia.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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'Under a Deceptious Mask' : H. D. Symonds and the Publication of Barrington's Voyage to New South Wales
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Bibliographical Society of Australia Bulletin , vol. 28 no. 1-2 2004; (p. 62-72) Attempts to begin an up-to-date bibliographic study devoted to the Barrington works and their publishing history, and to re-examine the origins of the first and most important of the books attributed to Barrington, the Voyage to New South Wales. -
Whose Voice Was It Anyway? The Eighteenth-Century Colonial Experience of George Barrington
2002
single work
essay
— Appears in: Selves Crossing Cultures : Autobiography and Globalisation 2002; (p. 41-52) -
Criminal Transport : George Barrington and the Colonial Cure
2002
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 20 no. 3 2002; (p. 167-177)Examines the representation of criminality and convicts in the work of George Barrington and argues that his stunningly successful Voyage to Botany Bay (1795) is a significant response to the popular anxiety that convicts are carriers of social contamination and physical disease, at a time when the implicit association was made between criminals and colonial subjects, who needed to be physically segregated from Britain in order to maintain the stability of the domestic order.
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Whose Voice Was It Anyway? The Eighteenth-Century Colonial Experience of George Barrington
2002
single work
essay
— Appears in: Selves Crossing Cultures : Autobiography and Globalisation 2002; (p. 41-52) -
'Under a Deceptious Mask' : H. D. Symonds and the Publication of Barrington's Voyage to New South Wales
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Bibliographical Society of Australia Bulletin , vol. 28 no. 1-2 2004; (p. 62-72) Attempts to begin an up-to-date bibliographic study devoted to the Barrington works and their publishing history, and to re-examine the origins of the first and most important of the books attributed to Barrington, the Voyage to New South Wales. -
Criminal Transport : George Barrington and the Colonial Cure
2002
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 20 no. 3 2002; (p. 167-177)Examines the representation of criminality and convicts in the work of George Barrington and argues that his stunningly successful Voyage to Botany Bay (1795) is a significant response to the popular anxiety that convicts are carriers of social contamination and physical disease, at a time when the implicit association was made between criminals and colonial subjects, who needed to be physically segregated from Britain in order to maintain the stability of the domestic order.
