The Second Fleet was a convoy of six ships carrying settlers, convicts and supplies to Sydney Cove, Australia in 1790. It followed the First Fleet which established European settlement in Australia in the previous year.
Image: Lady Juliana B4622
Image: HMS Guardian Riou
Image: Convict ship Neptune 00
The First Fleet was a fleet of 11 British ships that took the first British colonists and convicts to Australia. It comprised two Royal Navy vessels, three store ships and six convict transports. On 13 May 1787 the fleet under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, with over 1400 people, left from Portsmouth, England and took a journey of over 24,000 kilometres (15,000 mi) and over 250 days to eventually arrive in Botany Bay, New South Wales, where a penal colony would become the first British settlement in Australia from 20 January 1788.
An engraving of the First Fleet in Botany Bay at voyage's end in 1788
Lady Penrhyn
An English Fleet in Table Bay in 1787, by Robert Dodd
The First Fleet arrives in Port Jackson, 27 January 1788, by William Bradley, an officer on HMS Sirius.