Australia–United Kingdom relations
In 1766 during his first voyage to the Pacific, Royal Navy captain James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast of Australia, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. Seventeen years later, following the loss of its American colonies in 1783, the British Government sent a fleet of ships, the "First Fleet", under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, to establish a new penal colony in New South Wales. A camp was set up and the flag raised at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788, and the British Crown Colony of New South Wales was formally promulgated on 7 February 1788. Further Crown Colonies were established in Van Diemen's Land (now known as Tasmania) in 1803; Swan River Colony (now known as Western Australia) in 1828; South Australia in 1836; Victoria in 1851; and Queensland in 1859. The six colonies federated in 1901 and the Commonwealth of Australia was formed as a Dominion of the British Empire.
Charles Fremantle
The appointed lieutenant governor James Stirling arrived in Cockburn Sound on 2 June aboard the hired transport barque "Parmelia" with his family and other intending settlers, numbering 69 in all, to establish a colony at the Swan River in Western Australia. On 8 June they were joined by a military detachment of some 56 officers and men who disembarked from the consort ship HMS "Sulphur". On 17 June, a proxy proclamation was read by Stirling confirming Fremantle's earlier proclamation. The landing of those immigrants marked the beginning of the history of Western Australia as a British colony, and later as a state of federal Australia.