Who was William Dampier?
William Dampier was an English explorer, buccaneer and naturalist who became the first Englishman to explore and record parts of the Australian coast, landing in Western Australia in 1688 and again in 1699.
Dampier was born in Somerset, England, in 1651. He spent years as a buccaneer, sailing with pirates in the Caribbean and the Pacific.
In 1688, aboard the Cygnet, he landed on the northwest coast of Australia, near King Sound in the Kimberley. He described the land and its people in his book A New Voyage Round the World, which became a bestseller.
Second voyage
The British Admiralty sent Dampier back to explore New Holland in 1699 aboard HMS Roebuck. He visited Shark Bay, which he named, and collected plant specimens, some of which survive in Oxford.
Dampier's descriptions of Australia were mostly negative, describing it as dry and barren. However, his observations of plants, animals and winds were valuable to science.
He was the first person to circumnavigate the globe three times. The Dampier Peninsula, the Dampier Archipelago and the town of Dampier in Western Australia are named after him. His writing also influenced authors such as Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe.