Early Life and Career
Balmain was born at Balhepburn in the Parish of Rhynd, Perthshire, Scotland, to Alexander Balmain (b. 1714), tenant farmer, and his second wife, Jane Henderson. Little is known of his early life but in 1779 he was enrolled as a medical student at Edinburgh University. Next year he entered the Royal Navy to train as a Surgeon's Mate.
From November 1784 he served on Nautilus during a survey of the Das Voltas region of South West Africa (Namibia) which the British government was considering as a possible destination for the convicts then overcrowding British prisons and hulks.
On 21 October 1786 Balmain applied to join the group of officers to establish the new colony in New South Wales and was appointed third assistant surgeon to the principal surgeon, John White. Eleven ships, including six transports, carried 772 convicts, officers, marines, crews, and some wives and children, travelled more than 10,000 miles (16,000 km) to reach the unknown shore. Before the fleet sailed, Balmain correctly diagnosed a prevalent convict illness at Portsmouth. He sailed as surgeon on the convict ship Alexander. On the voyage he delivered the Fleet's first child.
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