Prince Edward Islands - History

History

The islands were discovered on 4 March 1663 by Barent Barentszoon Lam of the Dutch ship Maerseveen and were named Dina (Prince Edward) and Maerseveen (Marion). In January 1772, Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne visited the islands and spent five days trying to land, thinking he had found Antarctica (then not yet proven to exist). He named the islands Terre de l'Espérance (Marion) and Ile de la Caverne (Pr. Edward). In 1776, his expedition, now headed by his second-in-command, Jules Crozet, after the death of du Fresne, met James Cook in Cape Town. Cook subsequently set sail for the islands, but was unable to attempt a landing because of bad weather. Cook named the smaller island after Prince Edward, the fourth son of King George III, and to the larger gave the name of Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne.

The first recorded landing was in late 1803 and was made by a group of seal hunters led by American captain Henry Fanning of the Catharine. These sealers, however, found signs of earlier human occupation, probably other sealers. James Clark Ross also visited the islands in 1840 but was also unable to land. Finally, the islands were surveyed by Captain George Nares in 1873.

In 1908, the British government, assuming ownership of the islands, granted William Newton the rights to exploit guano deposits for the next twenty-one years. Also in 1908, shipwrecked hunters established a village at the north coast, called Fairbairn Settlement. A ten-year grant for seal exploitation was issued by the British to a sealing company in 1926.

In late 1947 and early 1948, South Africa, with Britain's agreement, annexed the islands and installed the meteorological station on Transvaal Cove on the north-east coast of Marion Island. The research station was soon enlarged and today researches the biology of the islands, in particular the birds (penguins, petrels, albatrosses, gulls) and seals. Today, the research station is called RSA Marion Station.

On September 22, 1979, the Vela Incident occurred. One of the US Vela satellites used to monitor compliance with the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty recorded an event near the Prince Edward Islands that had the characteristic "double flash" signature of a small nuclear test. However it was never proven conclusively if this was a nuclear test or not, so the event remains controversial.