Burke and Wills expedition

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Robert O'Hara Burke by William Strutt
William John Wills

In 1860-61 Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills led an expedition of 19 men with the intention of crossing Australia from Melbourne in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance of around 3,250 kilometres (approximately 2,000 miles).[1] At that time most of the inland of Australia had not been explored by non-indigenous people and was completely unknown to the European settlers.

The south-north leg was successfully completed (except they were stopped by swampland 5 kilometres (3 miles) from the northern coastline) but owing to poor leadership and bad luck, both of the expedition's leaders died on the return journey. Altogether, seven men lost their lives, and only one man, John King, travelled the entire expedition and returned alive to Melbourne.[1]

Contents

[edit] Beginning

Gold was discovered in Victoria in 1851 and the subsequent gold rush led to a huge influx of migrants. The colony became fantastically wealthy and Melbourne grew rapidly to become Australia's largest city and the second largest city of the British Empire. The boom lasted forty years and ushered in the era known as "marvellous Melbourne". The influx of educated gold seekers from England, Ireland and Germany led to rapid growth of schools, churches, learned societies, libraries and art galleries. The University of Melbourne was founded in 1855 and the State Library of Victoria in 1856. The Philosophical Institute of Victoria was founded in 1854 and became the Royal Society of Victoria after receiving a Royal Charter in 1859.THey ran away and created an Aztec monument in the middle of tahiti, which was eaten by ostragoths and fizzy goths.

[edit] Exploration Committee

In 1857 the Philosophical Institute formed an Exploration Committee with the aim of investigating the practicability of fitting out an exploring expedition.[2] While interest in inland exploration was strong in the neighbouring colonies of New South Wales and South Australia, in Victoria enthusiasm was limited. Even the anonymous donation of £1,000 to the Fund Raising Committee of the Royal Society failed to generate much interest and it was 1860 before sufficient money was raised and the expedition was assembled.[3]

The Exploration Committee called for offers of interest for a leader for the Victorian Exploring Expedition. Only two members of the Committee, Ferdinand von Mueller and Wilhelm Blandowski, had any experience in exploration but due to factionalism both were consistently outvoted. Several people were considered for the post of leader and the Society held a range of meetings in early 1860.[4] Burke was selected by committee ballot as the leader, and Wills was recommended as surveyor, navigator and third-in-command.[5] Burke had no experience in exploration and it is strange that he was chosen to lead the expedition. Burke was an Irish-born ex-officer with the Austrian army, and later became police superintendent with virtually no skills in bushcraft. Wills was more adept than Burke at living in the wilderness, but it was Burke's leadership that was especially detrimental to the mission.

Rather than take cattle to be slaughtered during the trip the Committee decided to experiment with dried meat instead. The extra weight required three extra wagons and was to slow the expedition down significantly.[5]

[edit] Camels

Camels had been used successfully in desert exploration in other parts of the world, but by 1859 only seven camels had been imported into Australia.

Further information: Australian feral camel

The Victorian Government appointed George James Landells to purchase 24 camels in India for use in desert exploration[6]. The animals arrived in Melbourne in June 1860 and the Exploration Committee purchased an additional six from George Coppin's Cremorne Gardens. The camels were initially housed in the stables at Parliament House and later moved to Royal Park. Twenty-six camels were taken on the expedition, with six (two females with their two young calves and two males) being left in Royal Park.

[edit] Members of the Exploration Committee

The Exploration Committee of the Royal Society of Victoria included the following prominent Victorians;

[edit] Departure

Monument in Royal Park, Melbourne where the expedition commenced
Map of the Burke and Wills expedition

The expedition set off from Royal Park, Melbourne at about 4pm on 20 August 1860 watched by around 15,000 spectators. The 19 men of the expedition included five Englishmen, six Irishmen, four Indian sepoys, three Germans and an American. They took twenty-three horses, six wagons and twenty-six camels.

The expedition took a large amount of equipment; including enough food to last two years, a cedar-topped oak camp table with two chairs, rockets, flags and a Chinese gong; the equipment all together weighed as much as 20 tonnes.[7] As committee member Captain Francis Cadell had opposed his appointment as leader of the expedition, Burke refused his offer to transport the supplies to Adelaide by ship and then up the Murray and Darling Rivers to be collected on the way, everything was instead loaded onto six wagons. One wagon broke down before it had even left Royal Park and by midnight of the first day the expedition had only reached Essendon on the edge of Melbourne. At Essendon two more wagons broke down. Heavy rains and bad roads made travelling through Victoria difficult and time-consuming. The party arrived at Lancefield on 23 August and set up their fourth camp. The first day off was taken on Sunday, 26 August 1860 at Camp VI in Mia Mia.

The expedition reached Swan Hill on 6 September 1860 and arrived in Balranald on 15 September 1860. There, to lighten the load, they left behind their sugar, lime juice and some of their guns and ammunition. At Gambala on 24 September, Burke decided to load some of the provisions onto the camels for the first time, and to lessen the burden on the horses ordered the men to walk. He also ordered personal luggage be restricted to 30 lb (14 kg). At Bilbarka on the Darling Burke and his second-in-command, Landells, argued after Burke decided to dump the 60 gallons (≈270 litres) of rum that Landells had brought to feed to the camels in the belief that it prevented scurvy. At Kinchega on the Darling, Landells resigned from the expedition, followed by the expedition's surgeon, Dr Hermann Beckler. Third-in-command Wills was promoted to second-in-command. They reached Menindee on October 12 having taken two months to travel 750 km (466 mi) from Melbourne - the regular mail coach did the journey in little more than a week. Two of the expedition's five officers had resigned, thirteen members of the expedition had been fired and eight new men had been hired.[5]

In July 1859 the South Australian government offered a reward of £2000 (about A$230,000 in 2003 dollars) for the first successful south-north crossing of the continent west of the 143rd line of longitude. The experienced explorer John McDouall Stuart had taken up the challenge. Burke was concerned Stuart might beat him to the north coast and he soon grew impatient with their slow progress often averaging only 2 mi (3 km) an hour. Burke split the group, taking the strongest horses, seven of the fittest men and a small amount of equipment, with plans to push on quickly to Cooper Creek and then wait for the others to catch up. They left Menindee on 19 October, guided by William Wright who was appointed third-in-command. Travel was relatively easy because recent rain made water abundant while unusually mild weather saw temperatures exceed 90 °F (32 °C) only twice before reaching Cooper Creek. At Torowotto Swamp Wright was sent back to Menindee alone to bring up the remainder of the men and supplies and Burke continued on to Cooper Creek.

[edit] Cooper Creek

Bullah Bullah Waterhole

In 1860 Cooper Creek was the edge of the land that had been explored by Europeans, the river having been visited by Captain Charles Sturt in 1845 and Augustus Charles Gregory in 1858. Burke arrived at the Cooper on 11 November and they formed a depôt at Camp LXIII (Camp 63) while they conducted reconnaissance to the north. A plague of rats forced the men to move camp and they formed a second depôt further downstream at Bullah Bullah Waterhole. This was Camp LXV (Camp 65) and they erected a stockade and named the place Fort Wills.

It was thought that Burke would wait at Cooper Creek until autumn (March the next year) so they would avoid having to travel during the hot Australian summer. However, Burke only waited until Sunday, 16 December before deciding to make a dash for the Gulf of Carpentaria. He split the group again, leaving William Brahe in charge of the depôt, with Dost Mahomet, William Patton and Thomas McDonough. Burke, Wills, John King and Charles Gray set off for the Gulf with six camels, one horse and enough food for just three months. By now it was mid-summer and the daily temperature often reached 122 °F (50 °C) in the shade, and in the Strzelecki and Sturt Stony Deserts there was very little shade to be found. Brahe was ordered by Burke to wait for three months; Wills, however, secretly instructed him to extend it to four months.

[edit] The Gulf of Carpentaria

The return journey

Except for the heat, travel was easy. As a result of recent rains water was still easy to find and the Aborigines, contrary to expectations, were peaceful. On 9 February 1861 they reached the Little Bynoe River, an arm of the Flinders River delta where they found they could not reach the ocean because of the mangrove swamps in their way. Burke and Wills left the camels behind with King and Gray at Camp CXIX (Camp 119), and set off through the swamps, although after 24 km (15 mi) they decided to turn back. By this stage, they were desperately short of supplies. They had food left for 27 days, but it had already taken them 59 days to travel from Cooper Creek.

On their way north, the weather had been hot and dry, but on the way back the wet season broke and the tropical monsoonal rains began. A camel named Golah Sing was abandoned on 4 March when it was unable to continue. Three other camels were shot and eaten along the way and they shot their only horse, Billy, on 10 April on the Diamantina River, south of what is today the town of Birdsville. Equipment was abandoned at a number of locations as the number of pack animals was reduced. One of these locations, Return Camp 32, was relocated in 1994 and The Burke and Wills Historical Society[8] mounted an expedition to verify the discovery of camel bones in 2005.

To extend their food supply, they ate portulaca, Gray also caught an 11 lb (5 kg) Python (probably Aspidites melanocephalus, a black-headed python), which they ate. Both Burke and Gray immediately came down with dysentery. Gray was ill, but Burke thought he was "gammoning" (pretending). On 25 March on the Burke River (just south of what is now the town of Boulia), Gray was caught stealing skilligolee (a type of watery porridge) and Burke beat him. By 8 April Gray could not walk; he died on 17 April of dysentery at a place they called Polygonum Swamp. The location of Gray's death is unknown, although it is generally believed to be Lake Massacre in South Australia. While the possibility that Burke killed Gray has been discounted, the severity of the beating Burke gave has been widely debated. The three surviving men stopped for a day to bury Gray, and to recover their strength – they were by this stage very weak from hunger and exhaustion. They finally reached Cooper Creek on 21 April only to find the camp had been abandoned several hours earlier.

[edit] Return to Cooper Creek

Burke, Wills and King arrive at Cooper's Creek by John Longstaff

Burke had asked Brahe and the depôt party to remain at the camp on the Cooper for 13 weeks. The party actually waited for 18 weeks and was running low on supplies and starting to feel the effects of scurvy; they had come to believe that Burke would never return from the gulf. After one of his men had injured his leg, Brahe decided to return to Menindee, but before leaving buried some provisions in case Burke did return, and blazed (cut or carved) a message on a tree to mark the spot.

Brahe left the depôt on Cooper Creek on Sunday, 21 April 1861. Burke, Wills and King returned that evening. Finding the camp deserted, they dug up the cache of supplies, and a letter explaining that the party had given up waiting and had left only that morning. Burke's team had missed them by only nine hours. The three men and two remaining camels were exhausted; they had no hope of catching up to the main party.

They decided to rest and recuperate, living off the supplies left in the cache. Wills and King wanted to follow their outward track back to Menindee, but Burke overruled them and decided to attempt to reach the furthest outpost of pastoral settlement in South Australia, a cattle station near Mount Hopeless. This would mean travelling southwest through the desert for 240 kilometres (150 miles). They wrote a letter explaining their intentions and reburied it in the cache under the marked tree in case a rescue party visited the area. Unfortunately, they did not change the mark on the tree or alter the date. On 23 April they set off, following the Cooper downstream and then heading out into the Strzelecki Desert towards Mount Hopeless.

Meanwhile, while returning to Menindee, Brahe had met with Wright trying to reach the Cooper with the supplies. The two men decided to go back to Cooper Creek to see if Burke had returned. When they arrived on Sunday, 8 May, Burke had already left for Mount Hopeless, and the camp was again deserted. Burke and Wills were 35 miles (56 km) away by this point. As the mark and date on the tree were unaltered, Brahe and Wright assumed that Burke had not returned, and did not think to check to see if the supplies were still buried. They left to rejoin the main party and return to Menindee.

[edit] Controversy

Brahe may have stayed at Cooper Creek longer but one of his men, the blacksmith Patton, had injured his leg after being thrown from his horse and they decided to leave for Menindee that morning. Patton was to die from complications six weeks later. Burke and Wills discussed catching up with them, but they were too exhausted and decided to wait.

Meanwhile, the other mission led by William Wright was having terrible problems of its own. Wright was supposed to bring supplies up from Menindee to Cooper Creek, but it was the end of January 1861 before he managed to set out from Menindee. Wright's delay subsequently resulted in him being blamed for the deaths of Burke and Wills. Alan Moorehead wrote of the 'mystery' surrounding Wright's delay;

"There was no basis here for criminal proceedings against Wright, but he had been publicly condemned as the man on whom the guilt chiefly lay, and that was a reputation that he was unlikely ever to lie down. He retired to obscurity in Adelaide, leaving behind him still a slight, persistent mystery: why had he really delayed? Was it only because he wanted to make sure of his salary? Was it because he did not want to leave his wife and family and the comforts of the settled districts? Was it merely that he was stupid, lazy and indifferent: a man too mean-spirited to think of anyone but himself? Or was it just possible that he was the victim of that same fated chain of errors that had bedevilled the expedition from the beginning? These were questions that would never be fully answered." Cooper's Creek, p. 192.

An in-depth study of Wright's action formed a part of Dr Tom Bergin's 1982 MA thesis at the University of New England. Dr Bergin showed a lack of money and too few pack animals to carry the supplies meant Wright was placed in an unenviable position. His requests to the Exploration Committee were not acted on until early January, by which time the hot weather and lack of water meant the party moved incredibly slowly. They were harassed by the Bandjigali and Karenggapa Murris, and three of the men, Dr Ludwig Becker, Charles Stone and William Purcell, died from malnutrition on the trip. On his way north, Wright camped at Koorliatto Waterhole on the Bulloo River while he tried to find Burke's tracks to Cooper Creek. While he was there he met Brahe who was on his way back from the Cooper to Menindee.

[edit] The Dig Tree

The Dig Tree on Cooper Creek
The camp blaze, B LXV on the Dig Tree

The tree at the depôt camp that Brahe blazed to mark the location of the buried supplies on the banks of Bullah Bullah Waterhole on Cooper Creek in south-west Queensland is a coolibah, (Eucalyptus coolibah formerly Eucalyptus microtheca) estimated to be around 250 years old. Initially the tree was known as "Brahe's Tree" or the "Depôt Tree" and the tree under which Burke died attracted most attention and interest. As a result of the blaze on the tree and the subsequent popularity of the book "Dig" written in 1935 by Frank Clune, the tree became known as the "Dig Tree". There are three separate blazes on the tree; the camp number, a date blaze and the instruction to dig. Two of the blazes have grown closed and only the camp number blaze remains visible today.

The date blaze indicated the date of arrival and the date of departure "DEC-6-60" carved over "APR-21-61". The camp number blaze shows the initial "B" (for Burke) carved over the Roman numerals for (camp) 65; "B" over "LXV". The exact "DIG" inscription that Brahe carved is not known. It is variously recalled to be "DIG under" or "DIG 3 FEET N.W." or "DIG 40 FEET N.E." or "DIG 21 APR 61" or a combination of these.

In 1899 John Dick carved a likeness of Burke's face in a nearby tree along with his initials, his wife's initials and the date.

[edit] Burke, Wills and King alone at Cooper Creek

Aborigines fed the explorers seedcakes made from the sporocarps of this plant, Nardoo

After leaving the Dig Tree they rarely travelled more than 5 mi (8 km) a day. One of the two remaining camels, Landa, became bogged in Minkie Waterhole and the other, Rajah was shot when he could travel no further. Without pack animals, Burke, Wills and King were unable to carry enough water to leave Cooper Creek and cross the Strzelecki Desert to Mount Hopeless, and so the three men were unable to leave the creek. Their supplies were running low, they were malnourished and exhausted. The Cooper Creek Aborigines, the Yandruwandha people, gave them fish, beans called 'padlu' and a type of damper made from the ground sporocarps of the ngardu (nardoo) plant (Marsilea drummondii) in exchange for sugar.

At the end of May 1861, Wills returned to the Dig Tree to put his diary, notebook and journals in the cache for safekeeping. Burke bitterly criticised Brahe in his journal for not leaving behind any supplies or animals. While Wills was away from camp, Burke foolishly shot his pistol at one of the Aborigines, causing the whole group to flee. Within a month of the Aborigines' departure, Burke and Wills both perished.[9]

[edit] Death

Artist's depiction of Burke's death

The three men lived on Cooper Creek, collecting ngardu sporocarps and accepting gifts of fish and baked rats from the Yandruwandha. Towards the end of June 1861 as the three men were following the Cooper upstream to find the Yandruwandha campsite, Wills became too weak to continue. He was left behind at his own insistence at Breerily Waterhole with some food, water and shelter. Burke and King continued upstream for another two days until Burke became too weak to continue. The next morning Burke died. King stayed with his body for two days and then returned downstream to Breerily Waterhole, where he found that Wills had died as well.

The exact date that Burke and Wills died is unknown and different dates are given on various memorials in Victoria. The Exploration Committee fixed 28 June 1861 as the date both explorers died. King found a tribe of Yandruwandha willing to give him food and shelter and in return he shot birds to contribute to their supplies.

In Melbourne, several rescue parties had been mounted. John McKinlay led the South Australian Burke Relief Expedition, William Landsborough led the Queensland Relief Expedition, Captain William Henry Norman sailed the sloop-of-war HMS Victoria to the Albert River on the Gulf of Carpentaria, Frederick Walker led the Victorian Relief Expedition and Alfred William Howitt set off from Melbourne for Cooper Creek.

Howitt arrived at the Dig Tree on 11 September 1861 and four days later found King living with the Yandruwandha. In pitiful condition, King survived the slow trip back to Melbourne, and died eleven years later, aged 33, having never recovered his health. He is buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery.

[edit] Cause of death[10]

Unbeknown to the explorers, ngardu sporocarps contain thiaminase which depletes the body of vitamin B1 (thiamin). It is probable that they were not preparing the seedcakes in accordance with Aboriginal food preparation methods, as the food was a staple among the local people. It has been argued that they did not make the food into the requisite paste to begin with, which may have nullified deleterious effects they suffered.[11] Despite eating the men got weaker and weaker. Wills wrote in his diary:

"My pulse is at 48 and very weak and my legs and arms are nearly skin and bone. I can only look out like Mr Micawber for something to turn up, but starvation on nardoo is by no means unpleasant, but for the weakness one feels, and the utter inability to move oneself, for as the appetite is concerned, it gives me the greatest satisfaction."

As a result, it is likely that the deaths of Burke and Wills resulted in part from a thiamin deficiency called Beriberi. Evidence to this effect is further provided by King's account, which revealed that Burke complained of leg and back pain shortly before his death.

[edit] Cooper Creek summary

[edit] Deaths on the Victorian Exploring Expedition

[edit] Afterwards

Burke and Wills Statue by Charles Summers on the corner of Collins and Swanston Streets, Melbourne.

The Victorian Government held a Commission of Enquiry into the deaths of Burke and Wills. Howitt was sent back to Cooper Creek to recover their bodies and the explorers were given a state funeral in Melbourne on Wednesday, 21 January 1863. The funeral car was modelled on the design used for the Duke of Wellington ten years earlier. There were reported to have been 40,000 spectators. Burke and Wills were buried at the Melbourne General Cemetery.

In some ways the tragic expedition was not a waste. It completed the picture of inland Australia, and proved that there was no inland sea. More importantly, each of the rescue parties sent from different parts of the continent added in some way to the understanding of the land it crossed.

In 1862 monuments were erected in Back Creek Cemetery, Bendigo, and also on the hill overlooking Castlemaine where Burke had been stationed before leading the expedition. The Victorian towns of Beechworth and Fryerstown also unveiled memorials. In 1867 Ballarat erected the Explorer's Fountain on Sturt and Lydiard Streets. Wills, his brother Tom and their father, Dr William Wills, had all lived in Ballarat.

In 1890 a monument was erected at Royal Park, the expedition's departure point in Melbourne. The plaque on the monument states:

This memorial has been erected to mark the spot from whence the Burke and Wills Expedition started on 20 August 1860. After successfully accomplishing their mission the two brave leaders perished on their return journey at Coopers Creek in June 1861.

In 1983 they were honoured on a postage stamp depicting their portraits issued by Australia Post [1]. In August 2010 Australia Post will issue four stamps to commemorate the 150th anniversary.

A 1985 film, Burke & Wills, was made about the expedition with Jack Thompson as Burke, and Nigel Havers as Wills.

In November 2009 the Royal Australian Mint issued two coins, $1 and a 20 cent, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the expedition.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b http://www.burkeandwills.net.au/
  2. ^ http://www.burkeandwills.net.au/Royal_Society/Exploration_Committee/Exploration_Committee_1857.htm
  3. ^ http://www.burkeandwills.net.au/Royal_Society/Exploration_Fund_Raising_Committee.htm
  4. ^ http://www.burkeandwills.net.au/Royal_Society/Exploration_Committee/Exploration_Committee_1860.htm
  5. ^ a b c Wright, Ed (2008). Lost Explorers. Murdock Books. ISBN 978 1 7419 6139 3. 
  6. ^ http://www.burkeandwills.net.au/Camels/Camels_for_the_Expedition.htm
  7. ^ http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/bulletin/EdDesk.nsf/0/561eeb20413f1e3eca256b110014ba20?OpenDocument
  8. ^ http://www.burkeandwills.org/
  9. ^ Diamond, Jared (2005). "Yali's People". Guns, Germs and Steel. W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 296. ISBN 9780393061314. 
  10. ^ Earl, J.; McCleary, B. (1994). "Mystery of the poisoned expedition". Nature 368 (6473): 683–684. doi:10.1038/368683a0. PMID 8152477.  edit
  11. ^ Chaffey, Calder (June 2002). "A Fern which Changed Australian History". Australian Plants online. Association of Societies for Growing Australian Plants. http://asgap.org.au/APOL26/jun02-6.html. Retrieved 2008-04-12. 

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

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