Rottnest Island

Distinguished and Famous people from Rottnest Island

⛵ Willem de Vlamingh

Willem de Vlamingh commanded three Dutch ships on a voyage that landed at Wadjemup during the 1696–1697 expedition. Searching for the missing Ridderschap van Holland was one purpose, alongside surveying the western coast. He gave the island its European name, Rottnest, and his party investigated the Swan River before continuing north. The visit belongs within a long Dutch maritime interest in the coast, while Wadjemup’s Aboriginal significance long preceded those ships. Remembering both names keeps the encounter in perspective: de Vlamingh recorded the island for his employers, rather than bringing it into existence or supplying its first identity.

One naming mistake had an unusually long life: de Vlamingh took the island’s quokkas for rats. His visit also had a more serious investigative purpose. The expedition was seeking evidence of missing Dutch ships, and on the island his party found timber containing nails, although it did not establish the fate of the vessels. The quokka encounter became the memorable anecdote; the fragment of possible wreckage belongs to the practical search that had brought the ships to the coast.

📚 Norman Jorgensen

Norman Jorgensen used his father’s experiences on Rottnest during the Second World War as a starting point for Jack’s Island. The novel follows children living amid preparations for the island’s military role, combining friendship and mischief with a wartime setting. It is fiction, so its characters and episodes are not a substitute for the historical record. The family source nevertheless gives the book a specific connection with Wadjemup and a period very different from the modern holiday destination. Jorgensen’s work carries that remembered childhood into a story for young readers, making the island’s wartime home front accessible through a child’s perspective.