HE was the highly-respected naval officer who was chosen to establish the first penal colony Down Under.

Dubbed the founder of modern Australia, Captain Arthur Phillip led the First Fleet - a group of 11 ships that sailed from Spithead to Botany Bay with 736 convicts.

They were faced with the near impossible task of creating a thriving agricultural community, despite the hot and dry conditions.

Capt Phillip, who lived in Lyndhurst, was one of the people portrayed in the recent BBC2 series Banished, a gritty tale about the battle to establish the colony.

Now a framed map of the route taken by the First Fleet has been given to St Michael and All Angels Infant School in Lyndhurst.

The school, a short distance from the officer's former home at Vernalls Farm, was presented with the map by Mark Rolle, chairman of the parish council.

It followed a major exhibition about Capt Phillip at the nearby New Forest Centre.

Centre manager Hilary Marshall presented the school with a book of photographs showing much of the material that was displayed at the exhibition.

Capt James Cooke is often described as the founder of Australia, having discovered the continent in 1770. However, it was Capt Phillip who settled there and farmed the land, using skills he had honed on his Lyndhurst estate.

Arriving at his destination on January 18 1788, he established a community that eventually became the city of Sydney.

But the stress of leading the colonists took their toll and he was a sick man when he returned to England in 1792.

He settled in Lymington before relocating to Bathampton, near Bath, where his neighbours included Clive of India and Jane Austen.

 

Capt Phillips died on August 31 1814, aged 75, after falling from the first floor window of his home. He was rumoured to have committed suicide, which would have prevented him from being buried in consecrated ground.

But his grave at St Nicholas Church, Bathampton, is in an area reserved for the very holy.