Albany Island
Located in Djagaraga/Gudang country in Torres Shire across the Albany Passage from the former settlement of Somerset, just over 9 kilometres east-southeast of The Tip' (Cape York), 45 kilometres south-southeast of Thursday Island and about 770 kilometres north-northwest of Cairns, Albany Island (Djagaraga/Gudang: Pabaju) is volcanic in origin with fringing coral reefs.
After Lieutenant Charles Bampfield Yule of the cutter Bramble named the island after George IV's brother, Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, in 1846, Owen Stanley of HMS Rattlesnake conducted a more thorough survey, identifying what he labelled Port Albany as a possible haven for ships negotiating the dangerous passage through Torres Strait.
Those considerations — newly separated Queensland sought a more direct link to the rest of the British Empire than the existing route via Sydney — prompted further investigation by Queensland's first governor, George Ferguson Bowen and the Royal Navy's senior naval officer in Australian waters (Commodore Burnett) aboard H.M.S. Pioneer i(August to October, 1862):
From the 10th to the 22nd September the ship was at anchor near Cape York, principally in Evans' Bay and Port Albany, during which time [Governor Bowen] and Commodore Burnett carefully examined the neighbourhood of the north-eastern point of the Australian continent. They came to the conclusion that the proper site for the projected settlement was Port Albany, which combined almost all the required advantages. Close to the landing-place was found good and safe anchorage, sheltered from all winds, for a limited number of vessels, while whole fleets might ride safely at anchor, at no great distance, in Evans' Bay during the south-east monsoon, or in Newcastle Bay during the north-west monsoon. There is also abundant pasturage, good soil for gardens, and plenty of timber, stone, and lime, both on Albany Island and on the mainland, from which the island is separated by a deep channel only one-third of a mile broad. The temperature was remarkably cool for the tropics and healthy for Europeans, the thermometer marking never above 85? during the expedition.
Above all, a plentiful and evidently never-failing supply of fresh water was found, although their visit was at the close of an unusually dry season. Near the north east point of Albany Island a rill of pure water, fringed with flowering shrubs and grasses, trickles over the cliff into a small natural reservoir, which was named the " Fountain of Arethusa," from its close resemblance to tbe Homeric fountain in Ithaca. The place chosen for the proposed settlement was on the bank immediately over the anchorage at Port Albany, but the future town, destined, perhaps, to be one day the Singapore of Australia would doubtless grow up on both sides of the narrow channel separating Albany Island from the mainland. It would be named Somerset, in acknowledgement of the readiness with which the present First Lord of the Admiralty had lent his aid to an undertaking of such great importance to the interests of the British Empire in Australia. (George Bowen New Settlement at Cape York, and Survey within the Great Barrier Reef, pp. 114-115)
As a result, a short-lived settlement was established at Somerset on the adjacent mainland in 1863. At that point, there was already a bêche-de-mer station operated by C. Edwards and J. Frazer on the island, which subsequently accommodated trochus shell and pearl farms.
In one of Queensland's worst maritime disasters, 134 people died when the RMS Quetta sank after striking an uncharted rock in the Adolphus Channel just off Albany Island in 1890.
