Matthew Flinders completed the first circumnavigation of Australia between 1801 and 1803 aboard HMS Investigator, and it was he who coined the name "Australia" — a term he used in his 1814 publication A Voyage to Terra Australis, the same title borrowed here. His preference for the name over "New Holland" was initially rebuffed by the Admiralty, but it had passed into common usage within decades. Flinders died the day his book was published, never knowing the name would stick.
Matthew Flinders completed the first circumnavigation of Australia between 1801 and 1803 aboard HMS Investigator, and it was he who coined the name "Australia" — a term he used in his 1814 publication A Voyage to Terra Australis, the same title borrowed here. His preference for the name over "New Holland" was initially rebuffed by the Admiralty, but it had passed into common usage within decades. Flinders died the day his book was published, never knowing the name would stick.