Albany Island or Pabaju is an island off the north-eastern coast of

Cape York Peninsula The Cape York Peninsula is a peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest wilderness in northern Australia.Mittermeier, R.E. et al. (2002). Wilderness: Earth's last wild places. Mexico City: Agrupación Sierra Madre, ...

in the

Adolphus Channel The Adolphus Channel is a channel located in the Torres Strait, situated northeast of Cape York, in Queensland, Australia. Geography The channel runs north of the Albany Island, one of the islands of the Manar group of the Torres Strait Is ...

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, Australia. It is within the

locality Locality may refer to: * Locality, a historical named location or place in Canada * Locality (association), an association of community regeneration organizations in England * Locality (linguistics) * Locality (settlement) * Suburbs and localitie ...

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

in the

Shire of Torres The Shire of Torres is a local government area located in Far North Queensland, Australia, covering large sections of the Torres Strait Islands and the northern tip of Cape York Peninsula north of 11°S latitude. It holds two distinctions—it ...

Geography

Albany Island is off the north-eastern coast in the

about East of

Bamaga Bamaga ( , ) is an Indigneous town and locality about from the northern tip of Cape York in the north of Queensland, Australia. It is within the Northern Peninsula Area Region. It is one of the northernmost settlements in continental Australi ...

, and southeast of the tip of Cape York. It is separated from the peninsula by the Albany Passage (). The island is a part of the Maner group of islands and the

Torres Strait Islands The Torres Strait Islands are an archipelago of at least 274 small islands in the Torres Strait, a waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea. They span an area of , but their tot ...

; it is about long and is volcanic with fringing coral reefs. It is said to have been certainly part of the territory of the Djagaraga or Gudang people. The island was surveyed in 1848 by

Owen Stanley Captain Owen Stanley FRS RN (13 June 1811 – 13 March 1850) was a British Royal Navy officer and surveyor. Life Stanley was born in Alderley, Cheshire, the son of Edward Stanley, rector of Alderley and later Bishop of Norwich. A brother wa ...

RN and part of the island was named Port Albany (). A bêche-de-mer station was established on the island in 1862 by C. Edwards and J. Frazer. After an inspection by Queensland's Governor Bowen, a settlement was planned for the island but it was built instead on the adjacent mainland in 1863 at

, Queensland. There was still a

trochus ''Trochus'' is a genus of medium-to large-sized, top-shaped sea snails with an operculum, of the family Trochidae, the top snails.Bouchet, P.; Gofas, S. (2010). Trochus Linnaeus, 1758. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http:/ ...

shell farm there in 1995, and there is now an operational pearl farm. The wreck of the RMS ''Quetta'', a passenger ship that sank in 1890, lies just off Albany Island. The ship hit an uncharted rock and sank in a very short time killing 134 people.

History

Djagaraga (also known as Yadhaigana, Dyagaraga and Yagulleone) is of the languages from the tip of Cape York. The language region includes the landscape within the local government boundaries of the

Northern Peninsula Area Regional Council The Northern Peninsula Area Region is a local government area in Far North Queensland, Australia, covering areas on the northwestern coast of Cape York Peninsula. It was created in March 2008 out of three Aboriginal Shires and two autonomous Isl ...

. Traditionally the language was spoken on Eastern Cape York particularly the localities of Albany Island and Mount Adolphus Island. The island was surveyed in the mid 1860s, as planning was underway to build settlement and a port on the island The island was named Albany in 1846 by Lieutenant Yule of HMS Rattlesnake, in honour of Frederick, Duke of Albany, who was the brother of King George IV. Albany Island is also closely associated with one of Queensland's worst maritime disasters, the sinking of the RMS ''Quetta''. The passenger ship struck an uncharted rock in the Adolphus Channel, just off Albany Island in 1890, with the loss of 134 people.

Footnotes

References

* Bowen, George (1864). “New Settlement at Cape York, and Survey within Great Barrier Reef,” ''Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London'', Vol. 8, No. 4 (1863–1864), pp. 114–121. * Firth, Dawn W. and Clifford B. (1995). ''Cape York Peninsula''. Reed Books. . * Ganter, Regina (1994). ''The Pearl-Shellers of Torres Strait''. Melbourne University Press. . * Moore, David R. (1979). ''Islanders and Aborigines at Cape York''. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra. (hard cover); (soft cover). USA edition: (hard cover); (soft cover). {{Torres Strait , state=autocollapse Torres Strait Islands Islands of Far North Queensland Great Barrier Reef Marine Park