Cockermouth Island
HISTORY
Cockermouth Island
Cockermouth Island was designated 'L4' by Lieutenant Matthew Flinders, RN,
in HMS Investigator in October 1802 but was re-named in 1879 by Staff
Commander E. P. Bedwell RN in SS Llewellyn. It is one of
the many names from the then English county of Cumberland which Bedwell brought
to the Whitsundays following James Cook's 1770 designation of the group
as 'The Cumberland Isles'. Cockermouth is a town in the north-west of Cumbria
into which the county of Cumberland was absorbed in 1974.
Settlement
Arthur Thomson Alexander 1932- 1933
Alexander, whose address appeared as 5 Fifth Avenue, Helmsdale, Adelaide,
South Australia was granted occupation licence 491 from 1 October 1932 but held
it for only a year. At the same time he held an occupation licence over adjacent
Wigton Island (Queensland State Archives LAN/ S76) but it is not known
what he did with either island.
The island was declared a national park in 1938.
The Information on the Whitsunday Islands is reproduced by kind permission of Mr. Ray Blackwood from his book: " The Whitsunday Islands An Historical Dictionary ".
Please visit his site here. It is well worth the time!