As with all explorers, Major Thomas Mitchell was seeking good countryside as potential pastureland and grazing land. However, the main thing Mitchell was looking for was a way to discredit fellow explorer Charles Sturt.
One of Sir Thomas Mitchell's primary motivations was pride. Mitchell was determined to prove Sturt was wrong when he said that the Darling River flowed into the Murray. He felt it was a great indignity that Sturt, whom he regarded as inexperienced, was sent on the important expedition of charting the NSW interior. Mitchell was also a very skilled surveyor and accurate map-maker. If the new country was going to be explored and charted, he wanted to be sure it was done accurately, and he felt that he should be the one to do it.
There were some specific features that Mitchell looked for. His first expedition was to see iIf a river named the Kindur existed. The Kindur was described by an escaped convict as flowing to the north coast, and if this was true, it could open up a whole new transport route to the north. (The Kindur did not exist, and the convict was just trying to escape a heavy penalty.)
Later, on Mitchell's fourth (and least-known journey), he was hoping to find a great river flowing northwest to the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Major Thomas Mitchell died at his home at Darling Point, Sydney, New South Wales on 5 October 1955.
yes he did have a wife
He was 74
Major Thomas Mitchell, explorer of Australia, was born in Craigend, Scotland, on either June 15 or 16, 1792.
Thomas Mitchell died from bone cancer
Thomas Mitchell was born on July 11, 1892.
Thomas Mitchell Peirce was born in 1865.
Thomas B. Mitchell died in 1876.
Thomas Walter Mitchell was born in 1906.
Thomas Walter Mitchell died in 1984.
Thomas R. Mitchell was born in 1783.
The name given to the Victorian gold town by Major Mitchell is "Ballarat." Major Thomas Mitchell explored the region in the 1830s and noted the area's potential for gold, which later contributed to the gold rush that transformed Ballarat into a significant mining town.