• Title
  Series 06: Sarah Bass papers
• Call number
  MLMSS 6544/6 (Safe 1/187)
  
• Level of description
  series
• Date
  
  1797-1803
• Type of material
  Textual Records
• Reference code
  395397
• Issue Copy
  Microfilm : CY 3970, frames 504-524 (MLMSS 6544/6, filed at Safe 1/187)
  
• Physical Description
  Textual material - manuscript
  
• ADMINISTRATIVE/ BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY
  
  Sarah Bass (nee Newman) was born at Frampton, Lincolnshire in 1736. When she married George Bass (senior) she went to live on the Bass family farm at Aswarby, not far from her parental home. Her husband died in 1777, leaving her to care for their only child George who was then six years old. Sarah and young George moved to the nearby town of Boston where Sarah arranged for George's education and his apprenticeship to a surgeon and apothecary. When George Bass joined the Navy in 1789 his mother moved to live with Mrs Calder, an old friend who kept a shop in Lincoln. She died, aged 91, in 1828.
  George Bass and his mother had a close relationship. Bass wrote long detailed letters to her during his voyages, some of which were destroyed by the Calder family after her death. Sarah Bass supported her son's trading ventures by becoming a shareholder in the Venus, taking shares in her own right and in association with her daughter-in-law Elizabeth.
• Scope and Content
  1797-1803; Correspondence with her son George Bass. Four letters, three written by George Bass and one by Sarah Bass:
  1. Autograph letter signed by Sarah Bass, Lincoln, 6 July 1797, with additions 22 July 1797, in which she advises George to reconsider his plans to leave the Navy and enquires after his 'patient Benlong' [Bennelong]
  2. Incomplete autograph letter by George Bass, [Port Jackson, 1798], in which he writes of his dissatisfaction with his career in the Navy and as a surgeon, the prospects for trade in New South Wales and South America, his discovery of the strait later named Bass Strait, his plans to accompany Matthew Flinders to Van Diemens Land to collect natural history specimens for Sir Joseph Banks and the Linnean Society of London, and his favourable opinion of Major William Paterson
  3. Autograph letter signed by George Bass, Venus at Portsmouth, 8 Jan 1801, written before he sailed for Port Jackson, with autograph postscript by Elizabeth Bass, Gun Wharf, Portsea, 14 Jan 1801
  4. Autograph letter signed by George Bass, Venus, Karakakoaa Bay, Owhyhee [Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii], 20 May 1802, in which Bass recounts his experiences in trading in pork in Otaheite [Tahiti] and the Sandwich Islands [Hawaiian Islands]
• Creator/Author/Artist
  Bass, Elizabeth, 1768-1824
  Bass, George, 1771-1803
  Bass, Sarah, 1736-1828
  
• Name
  Banks, Joseph, Sir, 1743-1820
  Bennelong, approximately 1764-1813
  Linnean Society of London
  Paterson, William, 1755-1810
  
• Subject
  Bass Strait (Vic. and Tas.)--Discovery and exploration--British.
  Flinders, Matthew, 1774-1814.
  New South Wales--Commerce.
  Oceania--Commerce.
  Oceania--Discovery and exploration.
  Oceania--Social life and customs.
  
• Place
  Bass Strait (Vic. and Tas.)
  Hawaii
  Tahiti (French Polynesia : Island).
  
• Exhibited in
  
  Matthew Flinders : The Ultimate Voyage
• Open Rosetta viewer
  IE20365338

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