Henry Hellyer

Henry Hellyer (* 1790 in Horndean, Hampshire, England; † September 9, 1832 in Circular Head, Tasmania, Australia ) was an important explorer in the early Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania ).

Early life

Little is known about the early life of Henry Hellyer. He was the second son of John Hellyer and Betsy Maine of Port Chester, who had eleven children together.

Expeditions

Henry Hellyer had been hired as an architect and explorers in the Van Diemen 's Land Co and commissioned her to explore the north-west of Tasmania to the Möglichkeite to build a sheep rearing to explore to produce wool. The Company had received from the British colonial government assurances to conveyance of a country of about 101,000 hectares in Tasmania at that time unexplored. The members of this company were also involved in the Cape Grim massacre of Tasmanians.

On March 4, 1826 came Hellyer in Tasmania and one month after his arrival, he began his first expedition. In the six months siner expedition in the area of Port Sorell and the Mersey Fiver he was successful and named the Black Bluff, Mount Claude and Van Dyke, as well as the Minnow Dasher and River.

In February 1827, a further expedition took him to St. Valentine Peak, into the area of Hampshire and Surrey Hills. Then Hellyer was commissioned to find a path from the Emu Bay to the hills of Hampshire. In 1828 he continued his expeditions and boarded the first European to the summit of Black Bluff and Cradle Mountain. He traversed the whole mountains of Surrey Hills from Mount Bischoff in the west to the Black Bluff in the east; He was also widely used in the south to the Cripps Range. On another expedition he reached under difficult conditions to Mount Farrell and the Murchison River.

Hellyer continued his explorations and cartographic work in the Company continued and was appointed in May 1832 to the country's Ministry of surveying as a land surveyor, did not take the call to but. After his work fell into disrepute through slander, he took on 9 September 1832 Circular Head life.

Legacy

After Hellyer numerous landmarks are designated, the Hellyer River and Hellyer Gorge, the mineral Hellyerit, the Hellyer Hellyer College and the Regional Library in Burnie in Tasmania.