Though remote and peaceful today, the island has
had a dramatic and turbulent recent history.
The Tyreddeme Aboriginal people lived here for thousands
of years prior to the arrival of 19th century European
explorers. The island was subsequently used by sealers
and whalers, became a significant penal settlement,
probation station and then enjoyed an industrial boom
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries before declining
into small scale farming settlement and latterly becoming
a national park in its entirety, with no permanent
human population.