Since you are still scrolling all the way down here, pull up a stool and let me tell you about a bloke who every Brisbanite should know.
Why don't you grab a Brown Snake Rum it'll make the story better, and you'll see why soon...
In March 1823, four timbermen pushed off from Sydney for the Five Islands with little more than flour, pork, four gallons of water and five gallons of rum. A gale wrenched them far to the north. Their water was soon gone; for nearly two weeks rum was all they had to drink. John Thompson died at sea, and the survivor: Thomas Pamphlett, John Finnegan and Richard Parsons, rowed on, not yet knowing that Moreton Bay would decide their fate.
They grounded at Moreton Island, the boat stove in on the beach below low sandhills. Hungry and nearly naked, they were helped by Aboriginal people at Amity Point, who fed them and showed them how to move through the bay’s waters. With this lifeline, the men crossed to Peel Island and then to the mainland near present‑day Cleveland -their first steps around the waterways that shape Brisbane.
From the bayside they reached the mouth of a broad river but could not cross it. They turned upstream on foot until, at what is now known as Oxley Creek, they found a canoe. In that journey the castaways became the first recorded Europeans to sight the Brisbane River, proving by accident what no planned expedition had yet set down: a navigable river ran behind Moreton Bay, and it would one day anchor the town that bears its name.
They worked back downriver and along the shore to Clontarf Point on the Redcliffe Peninsula, arriving there on 30 June - their 101st day out. The record then jumps forward to Bribie Island, leaving an infamous gap between Redcliffe and Bribie, but the map on page 11 of our source document traces the route their feet and canoes made around the bay’s channels and sandbanks. (The map is reproduced on our Captain Moreton Rum label)
Rescue came in late November 1823 when Surveyor‑General John Oxley, aboard H.M. cutter Mermaid, found Pamphlett (29 November) and Finnegan (30 November) near Bribie. Finnegan guided Oxley up the Brisbane Riverfrom 1–5 December, and on 4 December Oxley named it. Oxley’s cruise was part of an official examination of Moreton Bay for a future penal settlement, tying the castaways’ ordeal directly to the colonial decision to plant a convict outpost here. (There’s even a watercolour of the Mermaid reproduced with the narrative.)
So why do we call Pamphlett the original Captain Moreton? Because again and again he acted as the steady hand in the bay: he negotiated with Aboriginal hosts, helped build and launch canoes, and kept moving his small party through surf, swamps and salt creeks until help arrived. He is also the principal voice of the surviving narrative, recorded by John Uniacke soon after the rescue -Pamphlett’s own words that chart the lived map of Moreton Bay before official charts existed. A deadset legend!
For our brand, built on rum and story, there’s a clear line from that open boat to a glass on the bar. The same spirit that kept them alive at sea—literally, in the form of rum rations—now flavours how we remember the coast and river they revealed. When we say “Captain Moreton,” we reflect on Pamphlett’s grit and the bay that shaped him, and we raise a glass to the beginnings of Brisbane.
Most of all, this journey explains why Moreton Bay and the Brisbane River sit at the heart of our story: the castaways’ path guided Oxley to the river and strengthened the case for a penal settlement, from which a city would grow. That is why we wear Pamphlett’s title with pride—Captain Moreton—and why this tale is a permanent part of our brand’s origin and the larger story of early Brisbane.
How's your Rum - can I get you another??
