The Wellesley Islands, also known as the North Wellesley Islands, is a group of islands off the coast of

Far North Queensland Far North Queensland (FNQ) is the northernmost part of the Australian state of Queensland. Its largest city is Cairns and it is dominated geographically by Cape York Peninsula, which stretches north to the Torres Strait, and west to the Gulf C ...

, Australia, in the

Gulf of Carpentaria The Gulf of Carpentaria (, ) is a large, shallow sea enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the eastern Arafura Sea (the body of water that lies between Australia and New Guinea). The northern boundary is ...

. It is a

locality Locality may refer to: * Locality (association), an association of community regeneration organizations in England * Locality (linguistics) * Locality (settlement) * Suburbs and localities (Australia), in which a locality is a geographic subdivis ...

within the Shire of Mornington local government area. The traditional owners of the islands are the

Lardil people The Lardil people, who prefer to be known as Kunhanaamendaa (meaning people of Kunhanhaa, the traditional name for Mornington Island), are an Aboriginal Australian people and the traditional custodians of Mornington Island in the Wellesley Islan ...

. In the , the Wellesley Islands had a population of 1,136 people, all living on the largest island,

Mornington Island Mornington Island, also known as Kunhanhaa, is an island in the Gulf of Carpentaria in the Shire of Mornington (Queensland), Shire of Mornington, Queensland, Australia. It is the northernmost and largest of 22 islands that form the Wellesley I ...

Geography

The Wellesley Islands, also known as the North Wellesley Islands, is located in the Gulf of Carpentaria, on the eastern (Queensland) side of the gulf. The largest island in the group is

, with most people living in the town of Gununa. Two small islands in the group, north of Mornington Island, are designated as the

Manowar and Rocky Islands Important Bird Area The Manowar and Rocky Islands Important Bird Area comprise two small islands in the Wellesley Islands group. It lies in the southeastern region of the Gulf of Carpentaria and is part of the state of Queensland, Australia. The two islands are i ...

, because of their importance for breeding

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...

s, in particular the

brown booby The brown booby (''Sula leucogaster'') is a large seabird of the booby family Sulidae, of which it is perhaps the most common and widespread species. It has a pantropical range, which overlaps with that of other booby species. The gregarious brow ...

and

lesser frigatebird The lesser frigatebird (''Fregata ariel'') is a seabird of the frigatebird family Fregatidae. At around 75 cm (30 in) in length, it is the smallest species of frigatebird. It occurs over tropical and subtropical waters across the Indian ...

. Other islands in the group include (from north to south): * Moondalbee Island * Lingnoonganee Island * Pisonia Island * Lingeleah Island * Beahgoo Island * Jinke Island * Sydney Island * Tulburrerr Island * Denham Island * Andrew Island Immediately to the south is a group known as the

West Wellesley Islands The West Wellesley Islands, also referred to as the Forsyth Islands, is an island group and locality in the Gulf of Carpentaria within the Shire of Mornington, Queensland, Australia. The group lies to the south-west of the Wellesley Islands, c ...

or Forsyth Islands, and to the south-east of them are the

South Wellesley Islands The South Wellesley Islands is an island group and locality in the Gulf of Carpentaria within the Shire of Mornington, Queensland, Australia. The group is separate from the Wellesley Islands. Bentinck Island is the only one known to have b ...

, while the Bountiful Islands lie to the east of Mornington Island. Politically, all 26 islands in these groups are within the

local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a State (administrative division), state, province, divi ...

of the Shire of Mornington. Ecologically, they constitute subregion GUP10 of the

IBRA The Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) is a biogeographic regionalisation of Australia developed by the Australian government's Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population, and Communities. It was devel ...

-defined

Gulf Plains The Gulf Plains, an interim Australian bioregion (IBRA), is located in the Northern Territory and Queensland, comprising . It is one of 89 such bioregions defined in Australia, with 419 subregions as of IBRA version 7, compared with the 85 bior ...

bioregion of Australia.

History

According to Indigenous lore, possibly mixed with fact, the islands were once part of mainland Australia: The

, who prefer to be known as Kunhanaamendaa (meaning people of Kunhanhaa, their name for Mornington Island), are an

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...

people and the

traditional owners Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have rights ...

of Mornington Island. The

Lardil language Lardil, also spelled Leerdil or Leertil, is a moribund language spoken by the Lardil people on Mornington Island (Kunhanha), in the Wellesley Islands of Queensland in northern Australia. Lardil is unusual among Aboriginal Australian languages ...

(also known as Gununa, Ladil), is spoken on Mornington Island and on the northern Wellesley Islands. The islands were charted by

Matthew Flinders Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British navigator and cartographer who led the first inshore circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then called New Holland. He is also credited as being the first person to u ...

on 6 December 1802, and named by him some years later. He probably did not name them until sometime between 1803 and 1810, when he was in French captivity on

Mauritius Island Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...

; he devoted that time to working on his charts and journals). Flinders probably named the island group in honour of

Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley Richard Colley Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, (20 June 1760 – 26 September 1842) was an Anglo-Irish politician and colonial administrator. He was styled as Viscount Wellesley until 1781, when he succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of M ...

Governor of Madras This is a list of the governors, agents, and presidents of colonial Madras, initially of the English East India Company, up to the end of British colonial rule in 1947. English Agents In 1639, the grant of Madras to the English was finalized be ...

and

Governor-General of Bengal The Governor-General of India (1773–1950, from 1858 to 1947 the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, commonly shortened to Viceroy of India) was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom and after Indian independence in 1 ...

from 1797 to 1805. Wellesley, along with

Lord William Bentinck Lieutenant General Lord William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck (14 September 177417 June 1839), known as Lord William Bentinck, was a British soldier and statesman who served as the Governor of Fort William (Bengal) from 1828 to 1834 and the First G ...

, tried to secure Flinders' release. He definitely named the largest island in the group, Mornington Island, after Wellesley, who was also the second

Earl of Mornington Earl of Mornington is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1760 for the Anglo-Irish politician and composer Garret Wellesley, 2nd Baron Mornington. On the death of the fifth earl in 1863, it passed to the Duke of Wellington; si ...

. The main town on Mornington Island, Gununa (a Lardil word) was founded in 1914 as Mornington Island Community, and renamed by the

Queensland Place Names Board ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

on 16 January 1982. Mornington Island State School opened on 28 January 1975. In the , Wellesley Islands had a population of 1,136 people.

Education

Mornington Island State School is a government-run primary and secondary school at Lardil Street for boys and girls from early childhood through Year 10. (). In 2018, the school had an enrolment of 263 students, with 25 teachers and 14 full- and part-time non-teaching staff (the equivalent of 11 full-time m positions). It includes a

special education Special education (known as special-needs education, aided education, exceptional education, alternative provision, exceptional student education, special ed., SDC, or SPED) is the practice of educating students in a way that accommodates th ...

program. There are no schools on the island or any nearby areas that offer education to Year 12 on the island. The only options for those years are enrolling in online

distance education Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually in ...

courses or going away to

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...

References

{{Shire of Mornington IBRA subregions Islands of Queensland North West Queensland Gulf of Carpentaria Shire of Mornington (Queensland) Localities in Queensland Carpentaria tropical savanna

Geography

History

Education

See also

References