The significance of the date January 26 has been somewhat lost in recent years with the encouragement to our citizenry to get out on Australia Day and enjoy the outdoors in celebration of being Australian.

Local councils announce a range of activities with nary a mention of why the date has been chosen, the arrival of all 11 ships of the First Fleet in Sydney Cove in 1788.

Captain Arthur Phillip had been commissioned by the British government of the day to organise, supply and command a fleet to bring 1,400 people to fulfil his charge, to establish a new British colony on the other side of the world.

Phillip was to be governor of the settlement, which was made up of convicted criminals, their Marine minders and overseeing naval officers, with some family members

The journey of just more than eight months, an amazing navigational feat of its time, deserves to be celebrated in its own right.

Its success is in no small measure due to the outstanding skills and expertise of Phillip, his fellow officers and the crews assigned to the task.

Not all those months were at sea, however, with stopovers for supplies and repairs arranged for Spanish Teneriffe, Portuguese Rio De Janeiro and Dutch Cape Town, each of them with strategic connotations relevant to the geopolitics of the times.

And the ostensible purpose, to relieve overcrowding in British jails exacerbated by the loss of the American colonies, had another lesser-known cause — to consolidate a British presence in the south Pacific in the face of French and other national European colonising interests.

Celebrated from the start

Even though the entire fleet, having travelled the last leg across the Indian Ocean in two separate flotillas, had assembled by January 20, 1788, in Botany Bay, it was its relocation to the more suitable Port Jackson on January 26 that has always been commemorated right from the outset.

Many descendants of the First Fleet remember January 26, 1788, with pride. ( William Bradley/State Library of NSW, public domain )

In the early years of settlement due acknowledgement was given annually to this arrival date.

Diaries and letters of the time refer to officers' drinking to the settlement's health and success and convicts being given a rest from work on the day.

Several names for the day included, early on, Foundation Day and Anniversary Day among others, and it wasn't until 1818, 30 years and one generation after settlement began, that the name Australia Day was first used officially.

Celebrations of various kinds have probably taken place every year since then, but understandably the focus would have been in New South Wales, where settlement began and where the majority of those who came on the First Fleet and stayed on had probably made their homes.

Their descendants, who probably now number over a million, are now to be found all over the country and in many other parts of the world.

A day to remember with pride

Descendants of those resilient and hard-working pioneers remember with pride the contribution their ancestors made to the European beginnings of this nation and will always give January 26 each year the respect and honour that is its due.

It will always be First Fleet Day for them, whatever else it may be called.

In keeping with an upsurge of interest in family history, descendants formed the Fellowship of First Fleeters in 1968.

One of the objectives was to keep alive Australia Day, which was more easily achievable, perhaps, when it was not specifically connected to a nationwide public holiday which somehow obscured the reason for the day.

The older members of the Fellowship have been disappointed to hear the statistics that show nearly 40 per cent of today's Australians do not know the significance of January 26.

Could it be that those represented by these figures have forgotten what they learnt in primary school? After all, the First Fleet and the convict system have always been taught and remain requisite topics in the national curriculum for years 3 and 4.

Then again, the large number of recent arrivals without a background in Australian history may have had a strong bearing on the statistics.

Phillip is key to Australia's success

For those with First Fleet ancestry the real hero, the absolute celebrity of the whole venture, must be Arthur Phillip himself.

His superb leadership, his farming and naval background, his fortitude and sense of duty through hardship and famine, his obvious benevolence towards his convict settlers, and above all his friendliness shown to the Indigenous people whose clan territory and hunting and fishing grounds would ultimately be under threat, endeared him to all.

Without him Australia, as it eventually became known, may not have achieved the great renown by which it is known today.

To live on in the hearts and minds of descendants is never to die.

Jon Fearon is president of the Fellowship of First Fleeters.