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Book titled 'A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson', Watkin Tench, 1793

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CC BY-SA 4.0
Type
Books
Date
1793
Place
London, England; Port Jackson, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Materials
Leather, Paper
Collection
Watkin Tench collection
Accession number
2004.0037.0001

Description

Book titled "A COMPLETE ACCOUNT / OF THE / SETTLEMENT AT PORT JACKSON, / IN NEW SOUTH WALES / INCLUDING / AN ACCURATE DESCRIPTION OF THE SITUATION OF THE COLONY; OF THE NATIVES; AND OF ITS NATURAL PRODUCTIONS: / ... / BY CAPTAIN WATKIN TENCH, OF THE MARINES." The book has 212 pages, brown tree calf covers with double fillet and fine diagonal gilt banding on the edges of the covers. The run up gilt spine has five sewn on raised bands and there is a red lettering piece with the title "Account of Port Jackson" in the second panel. The inside cover lining and endpapers are marbled in white, blue, red, yellow, green and black. There is a tear across the top of page 67.

About the collection

This is a copy of the first and only edition of Watkin Tench's A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson, published in 1793. It is quarto-sized, bound in 'period-style tree calf', 212 pages long with a folding map of New South Wales. Tench was a marine who came to Australia on the HMS Charlotte with the First Fleet in 1788, and returned to England in December 1791. This work is generally considered one of the most valuable early accounts of the colony. Few are so personal, detailed, thoughtful or patently candid. Tench effectively transports the reader to his unique experiences of the early colony in a way which still resonates after more than two centuries. A Complete Account is a pivotal source for the penal settlement, early interactions with local Aboriginal people and Tench's own surveys of the land and animals.

Read live from the Museum's Collection API (12/11/2026, 5:04:08 am). Record last updated by the Museum 2025-02-24. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.