East Indiaman , which mapped and recorded the shoals in early 1701 on her way back to England from China. An alternative origin story attributes the name to an HMS Macclesfield that reportedly ran aground in the vicinity of these shoals in 1804.

In April 1888 , under the command of William Usborne Moore, with Percy Bassett-Smith as Surgeon-Naturalist, mapped the banks. They found a depth of 40 to 50 fathom inside the bank, with the rim rising to within