Michael John Flannigan

Michael John Flannigan (13 August 1862 – 21 April 1901) was the first District Surveyor of King Island (Tasmania), Australia. His work was singled out for praise by the Surveyor-General, Albert Edward Counsel, at a time when professional standards for land surveyors were newly defined and often disregarded by practitioners.

In the 1890s King Island topped the league of Tasmanian places being settled for the first time. Even under such pressure and in primitive living and working conditions, Flannigan's survey maps and reports were exemplary. He understood the vegetation and the geology of the land, recommending actions to protect water and other natural resources, such as a reserve around the shore of Big Lake in King Island.

Flannigan's relationship with the settlers was cordial because he paid careful attention to their concerns and needs. And in the Lands office in Hobart, his standing was so good that after his death his colleagues chose to honour his memory by arranging for Big Lake, King Island to be renamed Lake Flannigan, in 1911 or 1912.

It is the largest lake on the island; the length in 1956 was approximately one mile (1.6 kilometres) and in places the width was three-quarters of a mile (1.2 kilometres). In 1913 the Tasmanian Government Gazette officially announced the creation of the reserve fringing the lake, just as he had recommended in 1896.