Victoria Settlement NT

BEFORE PALMERSTON (modern-day Darwin) was founded in 1869, the British made four failed attempts to create a settlement on New Holland’s “unclaimed” northern coastline. The largest of these was Victoria Settlement, located about 200km northeast of Darwin at Port Essington on the Cobourg Peninsula.

- ESME MATHIS

Victoria Settlement was a fortified outpost designed to ward off rival colonial powers (namely the Dutch and French), with ambitious plans to establish trade routes with South East Asia and China and become a thriving commercial hub. Since at least 1700, the Arnhem Land coast had been visited by fleets of Makassan traders (from modern-day Indonesia), who sourced trepang (sea cucumber) from its waters and sold it to China, where it was prized as a delicacy and aphrodisiac. Sensing an opportunity, the British dropped anchor. They boldly envisaged Victoria Settlement would one day become a “second Singapore”, but the modest surviving ruins tell a different story – crumbling walls and Cornish style chimneys, foundations marred by weeds and scattered bricks, a handful of weathered tombs keeping vigil among unmarked graves.