Dirk Hartog

thumb|250px|right|[[Hartog Plate|Dirk Hartog's plate in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam]]

Dirk Hartog (; baptised 30 October 1580 – buried 11 October 1621) was a 17th-century Dutch mariner and explorer. Dirk Hartog's expedition was the second European group to land in Australia and the first to leave behind an artefact to record his visit, the Hartog Plate. His name is sometimes alternatively spelled Dirck Hartog or Dierick Hartochsz. Explorer Ernest Giles referred to him as Theodoric Hartog. The Western Australian island Dirk Hartog Island is named after Hartog.

Early life

Dirk Hartog was born into a seafaring family. He was baptized on 30 October 1580 in the (), Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the second son and one of at least four children of Hartych Krynen, mariner, and his wife Griet Jans.

Name

At a time when Dutch spellings were not standardized, his first and family names were variously spelled. "Hartog" included Hartogszoon, Hartogsz, Hartoogs, Hatichs and Hertoghsz as his last name; "Dirk" was also Dirck or Dirick as his first name. He signed his name (in several extant documents) as Dyrck Hartoochz. In Australian history, however, he has become known as Dirk Hartog. He made landfall at an island off the coast of Shark Bay, Western Australia, which is now called Dirk Hartog Island after him. His was the second recorded European expedition to land on the Australian continent, having been preceded by Willem Janszoon in 1606, but the first to do so on the western coastline.

Eighty years later, on 4 February 1697, the Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh landed on the island and by chance found the Hartog plate, which lay half-buried in sand. He replaced it with a new plate which reproduced Hartog's original inscription and added notes of his own, and took Hartog's original back to Amsterdam, where it is housed in the .

In 2000 the Hartog plate was temporarily returned to Australia as part of an exhibition at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney. This led to suggestions that the plate, considered important as the oldest-known written artefact from Australia's European history, should be acquired for an Australian museum, but the Dutch authorities have made it clear that the plate is not for sale.

In 1966 and 1985 Hartog was depicted on Australian postage stamps, both depicting his ship. In 2016 the Perth Mint issued a silver coin to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Hartog's Australian landfall.

The island in Shark Bay, Western Australia, where he made landfall was named Dirk Hartog Island. In Amsterdam, Canberra and fourteen other Australian towns, streets have been named in his honour.

Early life

Name

See also

References

Further reading