Jervis Bay Territory: History
Aboriginal Australian people long lived over the area of Jervis Bay. The area underwent significant change 18,000 to 7,500 years ago when the sea level rose, displacing inhabitants of previously coastal areas, resulting in dramatic population redistribution. The Yuin people have a continuing connection to the Jervis Bay area and in December 2016, applied for recognition of their native title.
Jervis Bay was sighted by Lieutenant James Cook aboard HMS Endeavour on 25 April 1770 (two days after Saint George's Day) and he named the southern headland Cape St George. In August 1791, the British convict transport ship Atlantic of the Third Fleet entered the bay and Lieutenant Richard Bowen named it in honour of Admiral John Jervis. In November 1791, the Matilda, under Master Matthew Weatherhead, entered the bay to undertake repairs.
Survivors of the Sydney Cove shipwreck in 1797 reached the area by foot, heading to Port Jackson. Explorer George Bass entered the bay on 10 December 1797. He named Bowen Island.
John Oxley, an English explorer and surveyor, travelled from Sydney by sea to explore the bay in 1819.
Negotiations for the Federation of Australia reached three major agreements for proposed federal territories.
First, a federal capital, a new, purpose-built city, should be located within the borders of New South Wales (NSW).
Second, to help ensure such location did not give NSW too much influence on federal politics, that the new city and surrounds would be exclaved from NSW, as a separate federal territory.
Third, that the federal government should have direct control and jurisdiction over at least one port.
The site of the capital city was not decided until 1908. All of the seriously considered sites were substantial distances inland. Therefore, the capital and the port would be separate. Ownership of Crown land in the Jervis Bay area was transferred from the NSW government to the federal government in 1909 (at the same time that ownership of the site of Canberra and the surrounding area was also relinquished by NSW). In 1915, jurisdiction over the Jervis Bay Territory was transferred from the state of New South Wales to the federal Commonwealth of Australia. To reduce the practical difficulties presented by the physical separation of the two territories, the government of NSW also agreed, in principle, that the federal government could build and take full control of a proposed rail corridor between Canberra and Jervis Bay, but this was never implemented.
The territory has been administered by various federal government's departments over the years, in turn: …