Governor Phillip Fountain

Governor Phillip Fountain commemorates Captain Arthur Phillip who was the first Governor of New South Wales from 1788 to 1792.

The statue was commissioned by Sir Henry Parkes as part of the 1888 Centennial celebrations and completed in 1897.

Phillip was an English Royal Navy officer and the first Governor of New South Wales who led the British settlement and colonisation of Australia. He established a British penal colony that later became the city of Sydney, Australia.

After much experience at sea, Phillip led the First Fleet as Governor-designate in the Australian settlement of New South Wales. In January 1788, he selected its location to be Port Jackson.

Phillip was a far-sighted governor who soon saw that New South Wales would need a civil administration and a system for emancipating the convicts. But his plan to bring skilled tradesmen on the voyage had been rejected, and he faced immense problems of labour, discipline and supply.

The arrival of the Second and Third Fleets placed new pressures on the scarce local resources, but by the time Phillip sailed home in December 1792, the colony was taking shape, with official land-grants and systematic farming and water-supply.