Off the coast of East Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, I ventured into the Gulf of Carpentaria to visit Bremer Island and discovered the mysterious Captain Bremer and his forgotten northern colony. I told a version of this story live on West Bremer Radio.

On my Arnhem Land Hike for Health, I went fishing in the Gulf and caught mackerel over a metre long, hung out with buffalo hunters, immersed myself in indigenous culture and ate turtle. I also explored Bremer Island (pictured above), which has an indelible link to Bremer River that’s the historic lifeline of Ipswich in Queensland.

Bremer River was originally named Bremer Creek in 1823. That’s when John Oxley was exploring the Brisbane River. He camped at the banks of a tributary which he called Bremer Creek which later became known as Bremer River. This was really early on in Queensland history, it was even before the Moreton Bay penal colony itself was founded.

Bremer River was named after Captain James John Gordon Bremer. He was a British Royal Navy officer who at that time was performing duties in the waters off the New South Wales colony. He had served in the Napoleonic Wars, the First Anglo-Burmese War, the First Opium War, and would later famously seize Hong Kong Island for the British.

Captain Bremer had Ipswich’s mighty Bremer River named in his honour despite never having been there. I found a similar but stranger story for Bremer Island off Arnhem Land.

It was in 1803 which was twenty years before Oxley camped at the mouth of the Bremer River, that the navigator Captain Matthew Flinders became the first to circumnavigate Australia. He was the first person to use the name “Australia” for the continent of “Terra Australis”. He thought “Australia” was “more agreeable to the ear” and I would have to agree.

During his circumnavigation, Flinders charted the Gulf of Carpentaria and the coast of Arnhem Land. This included an island in the Arafura Sea which he named “Melville Island”.

It was years later in 1824, at the same time that the Moreton Bay colony was being established in Queensland, that our Captain Bremer established a long-forgotten colony on the island that Flinders named Melville Island. The colony failed and was abandoned just four years later, and that’s why it’s pretty much forgotten about today.

But confusion reigned for years. That’s because there was another Melville Island in the Northern Territory, that was the Melville Island that’s part of the Tiwi Islands off Darwin.

Therefore in 1934, the Melville Island in the Gulf that was originally named by Flinders, was renamed Bremer Island to stop the confusion.

That means Captain Bremer gained the distinction have having two geographical features – Bremer River in Ipswich and Bremer Island in the Northern Territory – named after him despite never having been to one of them, and on the other Captain Bremer founded a failed colony, the combination of which makes him unique in Australian history.

When I visited Bremer Island, I found some Indigenous artefacts where the original people there would have watched Matthew Flinders sail by in 1803. It was a cutting or scraping tool probably used when eating pippies or shellfish, so there’s a lot of history there.

I was up there on my Arnhem Land charity trek to raise money for Drug ARM to reduce the harms of alcohol and other drugs. Donations are tax-deductible through my website until the 30th of September.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD ON WEST BREMER RADIO.

Photo credits:
Bremer Island, Nothern Territory, 2025 – Harold Peacock 20250718_123209.
John Oxley, 1810 – State Library of New South Wales.
Sir James Bremer – State Library of Queensland.
Portrait of Captain Matthew Flinders, RN, 1774-1814 – Google Art Project.
Artefact discovered and left at Bremer Island, Northern Territory, 2025 – Harold Peacock 20250718_130029.