Australian Explorers

Charles Sturt died in England on 16 June 1869, aged 74. He had suffered some ill health, possibly related to his age, and he died quite suddenly and unexpectedly.

Explorer William Gosse, of the South Australian Survey Department, "discovered" Ayers Rock in 1873. The indigenous people had known about it for thousands of years. Gosse discovered the rock (now known by its native name of Uluru) by accident during an expedition through Australia's interior. The need to find water for his camels forced him to take a more southerly course than he had originally planned. On 18 July 1873 he sighted Ayers Rock, recording that, "This rock is certainly the most wonderful natural feature I have ever seen".

Known to the indigenous Australians as Uluru, the rock was named Ayers Rock after Sir Henry Ayers, Premier of South Australia at the time.

Many places. Robert O'Hara Burke was originally from Ireland, but when he came to Australia he initially lived in Hobart, Tasmania. Soon after this he moved to Melbourne as a member of the Victorian police force. At first he worked in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, but after being promoted to Inspector he was sent to Carlsruhe. His next posting was as Senior Inspector in Beechworth. He returned briefly to England, but was back in Victoria in 1856, whereupon he returned to Beechworth. In 1858 he was transferred to Castlemaine as Police Superintendent.

Prussian-born explorer Ludwig Leichhardt, who explored the Queensland interior up to Port Essington on the northern coast, was not married.

Major Thomas Mitchell's first expedition was in 1831, to investigate rumours of a north-flowing river situated in northern New South Wales: a river that did not exist, but stories of which were spread by an escaped convict. On this expedition, he discovered the lower courses of the Namoi and Dumaresq Rivers and identified the Upper Darling.

Mitchell's second journey, in 1835, departed from Boree Station, to follow and map the course of the Darling River which Sturt had discovered some years earlier. Mitchell was determined to prove Sturt wrong in the latter's belief that the river flowed southward into the Murray, as Mitchell believed it must flow northwest. After travelling for several months and following the Darling for almost 500km, Mitchell was forced to agree with Sturt's discoveries.

After Mitchell returned downstream from following the Darling River to see if it did indeed flow into the Murray, he discovered the Loddon River early in July 1836 during exploration south of the Murray. He originally referred to the Loddon by its Aboriginal name, "Yarrayne". This led to his third and most successful journey, when Mitchell discovered the rich farming country of western Victoria, which he named "Australia Felix", or "Happy Australia". Prior to reaching this district, Mitchell found significant grazing land south of the Murray River. South of the Murray he discovered the Avoca and Glenelg Rivers. He then went on to discover the Campaspe and Wimmera Rivers and reached the coast near Cape Northumberland. He also discovered and named the Grampians mountain range in western Victoria.

Mitchell's fourth and final expedition was in 1845-1846. He left Orange in central New South Wales in search of a great river that he believed must flow from southern Queensland to the Gulf of Carpentaria. He did not find the river he hoped existed, but he did discover and name the Maranoa, Balonne, Warrego, Culgoa, Barcoo and Belyando rivers, which mostly flowed south-west into the Darling.

Edward Eyre was initially accompanied by three Aborigines, but only one stayed loyal to him and made the complete crossing with him over the Nullarbor Plain. This was Wylie, who was from Albany in Western Australia. The other two Aborigines, who killed Eyre's white overseer, John Baxter, and made off with most of the supplies, were Joey and Yarry.

John and Alexander Forrest, as brothers and explorers, opened up the interior of the land, making a number of great explorations through Western and southern Australia. John Forrest also became the first Premier of Western Australia, and was instrumental in gaining statehood for that state when Australia federated in 1901. Forrest ensured that Western Australia would not be disadvantaged by federation, due to the distance from the eastern states, and fought for the best trade deals and other benefits.

In 1869, John Forrest led the search for Ludwig Leichhardt's expedition which had gone missing while travelling across Australia from east to west. This search was unsuccessful, but it gave Forrest the chance to do what he wished, which was to explore the uncharted areas of Western Australia. In 1870, he surveyed the route which Edward Eyre had taken in 1840-41 from Adelaide to Albany, across the Great Australian Bight. As the main route from eastern Australia overland to the west, he realised it needed to be surveyed so a road could be built, and later a railway.

In 1874, both John and Alexander Forrest departed Geraldton and discovered the Weld River and the pastureland land around it.

In 1879 Alexander Forrest led an expedition from the DeGrey River north to Beagle Bay, then headed east inland into the area which is now known as the Kimberley. On this journey, he discovered the Fitzroy River.

Matthew Flinders died 19 July 1814.

According to his biography by Ernest Scott, during his captivity in Mauritius, he developed a painful "constitutional internal trouble" - seeming to cause great pain in his stomach.

After his return to Britain, in 1813, a year before he died, the pain reoccurred and became much worse. His wife complained to a friend that he had aged so much that he looked 70, and was "worn to a skeleton." (he was only 39.)

Based on modern definitions we may never know precisely what disease killed Flinders. It seems that it might have been some sort of stomach or intestinal disease that was long-term, recurrent and caused wasting. Possibly some form of cancer, ulcers or colitis.

Charles Sturt was not an Australian Gallipoli leader. He was one of Australia's greatest explorers, following the course of the Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers, and opening up the southeastern corner of the continent for settlement and river transportation.

And yes, it is after the explorer Charles Sturt that the Charles Sturt University is named.

See the Web Links to the left for information. The websites that these pages are part of will be useful for future research on other aspects of Australian history.

there is a statue of him in NSW

The Murray River empties into Lake Alexandrina which, in turn, flows out to the ocean. The mouth of the Murray is considered to be near Goolwa.

John Forrest was born on 22 August 1847, at Preston Pointnear Bunbury in Western Australia

The exact cause of Australian explorer Burke's death was not starvation or malnutrition, but inadvertent poisoning.

Burke and Wills knew that the Aborigines gathered nardoo which they had used to sustain the explorers, until they were frightened off by Burke's defensiveness against the Aborigines. So, whilst awaiting the rescue that never came, Burke and Wills made their way to where they knew Aborigines collected Nardoo. Nardoo was an important bush food for Aborigines, who knew how to prepare its seedpods (or, strictly speaking, sporocaps) to make flour. The sporocarps contain poisons that must first be removed for them to be eaten safely. Studies of the explorers' journals indicate that they probably died of nardoo poisoning, after failing to follow precautions from the Aborigines of how to prepare it safely.

No. Explorer John Oxley did not travel alone. On several of his journeys he was accompanied by George Evans, while on others he was accompanied by Allan Cunningham.

William Dampier was utterly unimpressed by Australia.

On 4 January 1688, his ship the 'Cygnet' was beached on the northwest coast of Australia, at King Sound near Buccaneer Archipelago on the north-west coast of Australia. While the ship was being repaired Dampier made notes on the fauna and flora he found there. He was unimpressed by the dry, barren landscape, the lack of water and what he described as the "miserablest people in the world" - the native population. He called them "nasty people" who "differ little from brutes".

Eleven years later, Dampier was back, after the British Admiralty commissioned him to chart the north-west coast, hoping to find a strategic use for 'New Holland'. The expedition set out on 14 January 1699. In July, Dampier reached Dirk Hartog Island near Shark Bay in Western Australia. Searching for water, he followed the coast northwards, reaching the Dampier Archipelago and then Roebuck Bay. After finding no sign of water, he was forced to head north for Timor.

Dampier's negative reports on New Holland delayed British colonisation of the continent for many years, until Cook found the verdant eastern coast.

Ernest Giles was one of a rare breed - he explored for the sheer love of it. He explored because he delighted in making new discoveries, and he wanted to be the first to unlock the secrets within Australia's vast interior. He himself wrote:

"I desired to be the first to penetrate into this unknown region where, for a thousand miles in a straight line, no white man's foot had ever wandered, or, if it had, its owner had never brought it back, nor told the tale."

Perth is a city and, as such, was not "discovered", but the area north of Perth was first explored by various Dutch explorers in the 1600s. In December 1696, Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh named the Swan River upon which Perth lies, and explored the surrounding area.

Captain Matthew Flinders was born on March 16, 1774.

Edmund Kennedy, the Australian explorer, did not marry. He was known for his exploration efforts in the mid-19th century, particularly in Queensland and the Gulf of Carpentaria. His focus on exploration and adventure left little room for personal relationships, and he remained single throughout his life. Kennedy's legacy is primarily tied to his expeditions rather than personal milestones.

Lawson, Blaxland and Wentworth were the first to successfully cross the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. They took with them four convict servants, four horses and a couple of hunting dogs. Their journey led to the opening up of land inland from Sydney.

They faced many problems. The major problem that the three explorers had was continually confronting dead ends. When they followed river gullies, they ended up against impassable cliff faces. When they followed the mountain tops, they often found themselves on the edge of sheer cliffs too steep to take down their horses. in order to supplement their water supplies, water buckets had to be carried up steep mountainsides 180 metres high.

Lawson, Blaxland and Wentworth also travelled through countryside where there were no roads or tracks. They travelled through thick, impenetrable bushland which had to be hacked away with machetes. Mosquitoes were a constant problem. Another fear was aboriginal attack: little was really known about the Aborigines, and it was not really understood that they were just as keen to avoid Europeans as Europeans were keen to avoid them.

During the journey, they discovered a pyramid shaped cairn of stones which may have been left by a previous explorer, George Bass, to indicate the farthest point of his journey 17 years earlier. However, it was never definitely determined who left the cairn.

Hume and Hovell are important for being the first explorers to travel overland between Sydney and Bass Strait. Their expedition opened up some of Australia's richest land for settlement, and they were the first white men to see the Murray River (which they called the Hume) and some of its eastern tributaries.