MATTHEW FLINDERS..........Famed Adventurer Died A Pauper After Years At Sea.........
Explorer Matthew Flinders Paid The Ultimate Price For His Historic Voyages.......
In Constant Pain From Kidney Stones And Bladder Inflammation, Probably AS A Consequence Of Constant Repeated Dehydration &Scurvy During His Years At Sea, Matthew Flinders Was Also Plagued By Financial As He Proofed Complex Navigation Charts For Books Chronicling His Voyages Around Terra Australis.
Nine Days Before His Death, The Invalid Explorer Made His Final Diary Entry, Noting He Did Not Rise Before Two. Weeks Earlier His a wife Ann Wrote to Friends That "So Dreadfully Was He Altered, He Looked Cull 70 Years Of Age & Was Worn To A Skeleton."
The Navigator, Hydrographer And Scientist Died On July 19, 1814, At His Rented Home At 14 London Street, Fitzroy Square In London, Where He Settled With His Wife & Two Year Ild Daughter Ann Five Months Earlier, Weeks Before His 40th Bitthday.
Despite His Success As A Navigator And Cartographer, Established In Charting Tasmania, The NSW Coat And Circumnavigating Australia, Flinders Reaped Limited Financial Reward.
He Was Born At Donnington In Lincolnshire On March 16, 1774, The Eldest Som Of Surgeon Matthew Flinders, And His Wife Sussanah, Who Doed In 1783 After The Birth Of Their Youngest Son Sanuel. Educated at A Free Parosh School &From 12 As A Grammar School Boarder, Flinders Resisted His Fathers Plans For Him To Train As A Surgeon.
Growing Up Near The English Channel, Flinders Witnessed Ships Arrive And Depart From The Napoleonic Wars And America, And Enjoyed Stories Told By Cousin John Franklin, A Royal Navy Midshipman. Flinder's Later Explanation Was "Induced To Go To Sea Against The Awuahes Of Frends From Reading Robinson Cruesoe."
On The Advice Of His Cousin, Flinder's Studied Geometry, Trigonometry & Navigation To Improve His Pospects For Promotion In The Navy. franklin Also Had Him Illegally Recruited As An Officer's Servant On The HMAS Alert, Then In The West Indies, In October 1789, Although Finder's Did not Board A Ship Until May 1790.
He Sailed On The HMAS Scipio As A MidShipMan Under a the Command Of A Family Acquaintance Thomas Pasley, Soon Moving With Pasley As An Able Bodied Seaman Patrolling Seas Around England K. HMAS Bellerophon.
