Tristan da Cunha

UK Postcode TDCU 1ZZ

Tristan da Cunha is a remote volcanic group of islands in the south Atlantic Ocean about 1,750 miles from South Africa and 2,000 miles from South America. It is now a dependency of the British overseas territory of Saint Helena which is also located in the Atlantic around 1,500 miles to the north. Tristan da Cunha consists of the main island, Tristan da Cunha and several uninhabited islands including Inaccessible Island, Nightingale Island and Gough Island located about 245 miles southeast of the main island of Tristan da Cunha and home to a South African weather station. Today Tristan da Cunha is recognised as the worlds most remote inhabited island.

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Tristan da Cunha was first sighted by the Portuguese sailor Tristão da Cunha in 1506 but rough seas prevented him from landing. He named the main island after himself, Ilha de Tristão da Cunha, which was later anglicised to Tristan da Cunha Island. The first settler was Jonathan Lambert, an American from Salem, Massachusetts, who arrived on the island in December 1810. He declared ownership of the islands named them the Islands of Refreshment but his time was short lived due to a boating accident in 1812.

In 1816 Britain formally annexed the islands and administered them from South Africa. The islands were at first occupied by a British military garrison before a civilian population gradually built up. Whalers also set up on the islands as a base for operations in the South Atlantic.

With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 Tristan da Cunha became more isolated as they were no longer needed as a stopping port for journeys from Europe to the Far East.

Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and second son of Queen Victoria, visited the island in 1867. The main settlement, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas was named in his honour. The present Duke of Edinburgh visited the island in 1957 as part of a world tour.

During World War II the islands were used by the Royal Navy station named HMS Atlantic Isle. The secret navy station monitored German shipping movements and weather in the South Atlantic.

In 1961 a volcanic eruption on the main island caused the evacuation of the entire population to Pendell Army Camp in Merstham, Surrey, England before moving to a permanent site at a former Royal Air Force station in Calshot near Southampton. In 1962, a Royal Society survey assessed the damage and reported that the settlement Edinburgh of the Seven Seas had been only marginally affected and almost all of the population returned to the island in 1963 led by Willie Repetto who was then head of the ten strong island council and Allan Crawford an island welfare officer.

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