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Linne Island
HISTORY
Linné Island
Linné Island was named in July 1820 by Lieutenant P. P. King, RN, in
HMS Mermaid after the Swedish naturalist Carl von Linné (1707Ð 1778).
Probably out of deference to the botanist Allan Cunningham who travelled with
King in Mermaid, King named a number of features after well-known figures
of the times in botany and the natural sciences (see Dryander, Shaw, Sir
James Smith). As was common in the early surveys King was more interested in
naming prominent reference points than in naming individual islands and he
named Linné Peak but not the island. The name Linné Island followed in 1879
after Staff Commander E. P. Bedwell's surveys in SS Llewellyn (King,
P. P. Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of
Australia London 1827; King's charts; Bedwell's charts).
Carl von Linné is regarded as the father of modern botany as he devised an orderly system of plant classification which became the norm in botanical circles. The Linnéan Society in London, which disseminated botanical information, was named after him.
Linné Island has the distinction of being the site of the second recorded landing of Europeans in the Cumberland Islands, Calder Island being the first (see Murray, Lieutenant John).
The island was declared a national park in 1936.
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!