Allen Island, also known as Allens Island or Allen's Island, is one of the South Wellesley Islands, in

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 ...

Gulf of Carpentaria The Gulf of Carpentaria is a sea off the northern coast of Australia. It is enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the eastern Arafura Sea, which separates Australia and New Guinea. The northern boundary ...

. It was named by

Matthew Flinders Captain (Royal Navy), Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer, navigator and cartographer who led the first littoral zone, inshore circumnavigate, circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then ...

after John Allen, a Derbyshire miner who was a member of the party of

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

s that accompanied the 1801–1803 voyage of HMS ''Investigator'' under Flinders. Flinders landed a party of botanists on the island on 20 November 1802 to search for plants. It is notable for being directly east of Point Parker, the proposed northern terminus of a still-born land grant railway from Charleville. Point Parker, though a prominent feature, is not always labelled on maps.

References

{{coord, 17, 01, 49, S, 139, 13, 45, E, display=title Islands of Queensland Gulf of Carpentaria