Who led the First Fleet expedition to Australia?

Captain Arthur Phillip led the First Fleet expedition to Australia. He was a Royal Navy officer chosen by the British government to command the fleet that would establish a penal settlement at Botany Bay in what became the colony of New South Wales. Phillip subsequently served as the first Governor of New South Wales from 1788 to 1792.

Phillip was born in London in 1738 to a German immigrant father and an English mother. He joined the Royal Navy at 14, fought in the Seven Years' War (1756 to 1763), and served as a captain in the Portuguese Navy from 1774 to 1778 during the Spanish-Portuguese war. He returned to the Royal Navy and was assigned to the First Fleet command in 1786. The British government chose Phillip for his organisational ability and the experience of long-distance command, qualities that would prove essential to the 252-day voyage and the establishment of a settlement at the far edge of the known world.

Phillip's instructions from the British government were detailed. He was to establish a penal settlement at Botany Bay (chosen on the recommendation of Joseph Banks, who had been there in 1770 with Captain Cook), to grow food to sustain the settlement, to build relationships with local Aboriginal people, and to establish British sovereignty over the eastern half of the Australian continent. After arriving at Botany Bay on 18 to 20 January 1788 and finding it unsuitable, Phillip moved the fleet to Port Jackson and established the settlement at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788, the date now marked as Australia Day.

Phillip served as Governor until December 1792. His tenure saw the colony nearly fail from starvation in the first two years, the establishment of agricultural settlements at Rose Hill (later Parramatta) and the first farms, the early diplomatic engagement with Aboriginal leaders including Bennelong (after whom Bennelong Point and the federal electorate are named), and the painful frontier killings that marked the early European invasion. Phillip returned to England in poor health in late 1792, was promoted to admiral, and lived in retirement in Bath. He died on 31 August 1814 and is remembered as the founder of modern Sydney, although the colonisation he led also started 200-plus years of dispossession of the Aboriginal peoples whose country was claimed by the colony.