Which explorer located the Brisbane River in 1823?

John Oxley located and explored the Brisbane River in 1823. The Surveyor General of New South Wales entered the river while searching Moreton Bay for a suitable site for a new penal settlement.

Oxley’s expedition followed reports from shipwrecked convicts who had reached the region after being blown north from the Illawarra. Thomas Pamphlett and John Finnegan helped guide Oxley’s party through Moreton Bay and toward the river. On 2 December 1823, Oxley and Lieutenant Henry Stirling sailed upstream as far as the area now associated with Goodna.

Oxley named the river after Sir Thomas Brisbane, then Governor of New South Wales. The river’s name was later applied to the penal colony established on its banks and eventually to the modern city. Oxley’s favourable assessment also helped persuade colonial authorities that the site could support a new settlement.

A frequent mix-up is confusing “first European discovery” with Oxley’s expedition. Shipwrecked convicts were the first known Europeans to encounter the river, but John Oxley was the explorer who formally located, surveyed and named it in 1823. Matthew Flinders had earlier explored Moreton Bay without finding the river’s entrance.