In 1789, Woollarawarre Bennelong was famously kidnapped and shackled in leg irons under the orders of the New South Wales Governor Arthur Phillip, who had been tasked by the British Government to begin a dialogue with the “natives”.

The colonists prized this Wangal man as a potential negotiator for the Eora (sometimes written as Yiyura), the Dharug language name for his wider community.

Googoorewon Knox will play the title role in Jane Harrison’s new play Bennelong in London for Sydney Theatre Company. Photo supplied

Bennelong became fascinated by his captors and even agreed to go to England if a younger Wangal kinsman, Yemmerrawanne, went with him. The two Indigenous men set sail from Sydney with Phillip in December 1792, arriving in London the following May.

Phillip had assumed they would meet King George III, but this failed to happen writes historian Kate Fullagar in her 2023 book Bennelong & Phillip: A History Unravelled. Yet Bennelong stayed on, finally returning to Sydney in 1795. Rejoining his own people, he died in early 1813 in his late forties.

White colonists, historians and novelists have often portrayed Bennelong’s ending as a man...