Background
Bass was born on 30 January 1771 at Aswarby, a hamlet near Sleaford, Lincolnshire, the son of a tenant farmer, George Bass, and a local beauty named Sarah Nee Newman.
Bass was born on 30 January 1771 at Aswarby, a hamlet near Sleaford, Lincolnshire, the son of a tenant farmer, George Bass, and a local beauty named Sarah Nee Newman.
After apprenticeship to a surgeon-apothecary in Boston, England, he joined the Royal Navy in 1789, as a surgeon's mate.
In 1794 he was appointed surgeon on the frigate Reliance, which was sent as a supply vessel to New South Wales. Bass formed a close friendship with another ship's officer, Matthew Flinders, who shared Bass's interest in exploration. Shortly after their arrival in Australia in 1795, they set out in the Tom Thumb, a small boat with oars, to explore the Australian coast south of modern Sydney. In the following year, Bass led an unsuccessful attempt to cross the Blue Mountains. Late in 1797 Bass set out in a naval whaleboat manned by six oarsmen provided by the governor of New South Wales. After a 12, 000-mile (19, 300-km) voyage that took him to Western Port, just east of Port Phillip Bay in present-day Victoria, Bass formed the theory that Tasmania, then called Van Dieman's Land and believed to be part of the mainland, was an island. In 1798, Bass and Flinders proved the theory by circumnavigating the island. Subsequently, Bass made several shorter but valuable survey trips for the governor of the colony. An exceptionally thorough observer, Bass left vivid accurate descriptions of the plants and animals he found on his frequent trips ashore during the voyages. Ill health forced him to give up his naval commission in 1799, and he returned to England. Late in 1800 Bass set out again for Australia, this time as a merchant adventurer, but the voyage proved a failure. In 1803, he sailed from Australia for Chile, then part of the Spanish colonial realm, to obtain livestock and supplies with which to found a settlement in New Zealand, and was never reliably reported as having been seen alive again. There were persistent rumors for many years thereafter that Bass had been captured by the Spanish and died a convict in South America, but it is thought most likely that his ship sank in the Pacific.
On 8 October 1800, George married Elizabeth Waterhouse at St. James's Church, Westminster. In January 1801 Bass set sail again for Port Jackson, leaving Elizabeth behind, and though the couple wrote to each other, they did not meet again, as Bass never returned from this journey.