The island was marked but not named on
Dutch maps in 1658, even though there were three Dutch ships in the area that year:
Waekende Boey under Captain S. Volckertszoon,
Elburg under Captain J. Peereboom and
Emeloort under Captain A. Joncke. However, it was outlined on the charts of the
Southland, which were published after
Willem de Vlamingh visited the region in 1697. Under the command of Captain
Nicolas Badin, the French vessels
Geographe and
Naturaliste visited this part of the West Australian coast as part of a scientific expedition in 1801. On a stormy June day, a group of scientists and naval officer
Louis de Freycinet (who later went on to command the second expedition from 1817 to 1820) set out in a longboat to exlore the nearby islands, first passing one they described as 'small and arid' (what we now know is
Carnac Island) and a larger island just to its south." and on that same document wrote the name he had given it - , It has been widely believed that Stirling chose the name
Garden Island because he planted a garden there, but he used the name well before anything was planted there, Named
Sulphur Town after , The biggest battery on Garden Island was the Scriven Battery, fitted with two breech-loading
9.2-inch MkX guns, similar to the Oliver Hill Battery on
Rottnest Island. In 1943 building began on a complex of tunnels and rooms, included shell stores, magazines, pump chamber and powerhouse, plotting room and command post, and battery observation posts. However, the threat of attack receded as the battery was completed. Resources were allocated elsewhere, and the battery and its guns were placed in reserve. The battery was decommissioned in 1963 and the guns scrapped. During
World War II,
Careening Bay Camp became a major training base for the secretive
Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD), also commonly referred to as
Z Special Unit. The base was officially known as the Special Boat Section and was used to train operatives in the advanced use of
folding kayaks as well as top secret British midget submarines such as the
Motorised Submersible Canoe (also known as
Sleeping Beauty),
Welman and
Welfreighter submarines. SRD parties staging out of Careening Bay Camp were sent on clandestine missions into Japanese-occupied territory. Following the war, Garden Island became home of the Royal Australian Navy Reserve Fleet and a holiday resort again with a brief ferry service from
Palm Beachone of these converted ferries,
Trixen, is now preserved in the
WA Maritime Museum. ==Naval base==