Articles and Talks
Much of the material covered in these articles and talks has now been updated and published in the 2022 book
Video
Gillian Dooley's Matthew Flinders YouTube playlist
including ...
A series of short videos released by Flinders University to celebrate Matthew Flinders' 250th birthday.
In these videos, Flinders University Vice-chancellor, Professor Colin Stirling, visits the library's Special Collections and discusses some of the unique treasures associated with Matthew Flinders held there.
Matthew Flinders, Life Writer - A lecture presented online by Flinders University, May 2020.
Dr Gillian Dooley explores the way young explorer Matthew Flinders used words to discover himself and reveal himself to the world.
Matthew Flinders never wrote an autobiography, but he often reflected on his life in his published work, his letters and his journals. He wrote to understand his place in the history of exploration and navigation; he wrote to justify his actions and decisions; he wrote to express his frustrations; and sometimes he imagined an alternative life. His ‘Biographical Tribute to the Memory of Trim’ was the story not only of his cat but also of himself.
Audio online
Matthew Flinders, Life Writer - A lecture presented online by Flinders University, May 2020.
Dr Gillian Dooley explores the way young explorer Matthew Flinders used words to discover himself and reveal himself to the world.
Matthew Flinders never wrote an autobiography, but he often reflected on his life in his published work, his letters and his journals. He wrote to understand his place in the history of exploration and navigation; he wrote to justify his actions and decisions; he wrote to express his frustrations; and sometimes he imagined an alternative life. His ‘Biographical Tribute to the Memory of Trim’ was the story not only of his cat but also of himself.
Matthew Flinders and his Friends - Talking History (History Trust of SA) lecture presented June 2018 - details here.
In this talk, Dr Gillian Dooley, Honorary Senior Research Fellow from Flinders University with a long-standing interest in the life and times of Matthew Flinders, will go to Flinders’ own writings and other contemporary sources, to explore his affections and allegiances, and establish who his real friends were.
Articles to read online
Holidaying with Gillian Dooley and Matthew Flinders - a blog post to commemorate Flinders' 250th birthday. (Wakefield Press)
On a six-and-a-half day visit to Mauritius in February 2024, I met documentary producers and descendants of Flinders' friends there, survived a cyclone, gave a lecture on Flinders at the Royal Society, and encountered travel delays which, though frustrating, were trivial compared to his six and a half years of detention.
From Timor to Mauritius: Matthew Flinders' Island Identity at Cafe Dissensus, published June 2018.
One of Flinders' early claims to fame, in 1798-9, was proving that Tasmania is an island, and his major voyage was, as he explains in the first paragraph of A Voyage to Terra Australis, designed to discover whether the bits of Australia that had so far been mapped, “instead of forming one great land, be no other than parts of different large islands.” Establishing whether previously charted islands and peninsulas had been correctly identified was part of the routine as he circumnavigated the island continent. The word ‘island’ is mentioned more than 1000 times in the first volume of his Voyage to Terra Australis alone. This short article examines an account he wrote of his visit to Timor in April 1803, and relates it to his enforced stay on the island of Mauritius from December 1803 to 1810.
The Limits of Empathy: Matthew Flinders' Encounters with Indigenous Australians in The Conversation, December 2016.
The Investigator arrived off Cape Leeuwin, on the southwest tip of Western Australia, on 6 December 1801, captained by the 26-year-old Matthew Flinders. This article concerns his accounts of his dealings with the Indigenous people of Australia as the ship circumnavigated Australia. How might his habit of fair-mindedness have affected his behaviour?
Matthew Flinders: The Man Behind the Map of Australia at the Royal Society of Victoria
The text of the Royal Society Matthew Flinders Memorial Lecture presented at the Royal Society of Victoria, August 2014.
'My Greatest and Best Friend': Flinders and Banks - From the Joseph Banks Society website.
Sir Joseph Banks’ influence was ubiquitous in the founding of the colony at New South Wales, in botanical research in Australia and the Pacific, and in the geographical exploration of Australia’s coasts and islands. He was clearly a brilliant and well-informed man, and Flinders was lucky that he had also possessed practical kindness, generosity and compassion. Readings Banks’ letters about Flinders, it is clear that Flinders was not mistaken in regarding him as his ‘greatest and best friend.’