Peter Warburton

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Colonel Peter Egerton Warburton (born August 16, 1813 in Cheshire, England, died November 5, 1889 in Adelaide, South Australia) was an English explorer who made one particularly daring expedition from Adelaide to cross the centre of Australia to the coast of Western Australia via Alice Springs in 1872.

Warburton was educated at home and by tutors in France before entering the navy at the age of 12, serving as a midshipman on the HMS Windsor Castle.

He served in the British Army in India from 1831 until 1853, when he retired as assistant adjutant-general with the rank of major. He married Alicia Mant on October 8, 1838. In 1853 Warburton visited his brother George in Albany, Western Australia. From there he went to South Australia to take up the position of Commissioner of Police in the Colony of South Australia on December 8.

Following a secret inquiry into the police force in 1867, in which evidence was given against him but not disclosed, it was suggested to Warburton that he should find ... other employment more congenial to his habits and tastes. It is not known what the nature of the claims against him were, but he refused to resign and was dismissed in early 1867. A subsequent Legislative Council inquiry recommended reinstatement; however, on March 24, 1869, he accepted a position of chief staff officer and colonel of the Volunteer Military Force of South Australia.

Based on expeditions undertaken, it is possible that he may have been accused of allowing his passionate interest in exploration, which required long periods in isolation at the detriment of normal police duties, to be the reason that his employers had concerns.

[edit] Expeditions

• In 1857, Warburton visited the Gawler Ranges and Lake Gairdner.

• In 1858 he travelled through Lake Eyre and south Lake Torrens during which he named the Davenport Ranges, after Sir Samuel Davenport. The expedition found good grazing land and water sources and he was granted £100 from the government for the achievement.

• In 1860 he explored Streaky Bay with three mounted police, reporting back that the area was unfavourable for farm use.

• In 1864 Warburton examined the area around the north-west of Mount Margaret.

• In 1866 he examined the area around the north shore of Lake Eyre searching unsuccessfully for Cooper's Creek but found a large river which was subsequently named the Warburton River. He traced this to the Queensland border.

• On September 21, 1872, Warburton departed Adelaide, leading an expedition of seven men and seventeen camels whose goal was to attempt to find an overland route to Perth and determine the nature of the country in between. The expedition included his son Richard; J. W. Lewis, a well known and experienced bushman; two Afghan camel drivers, Sahleh and Halleem; Dennis White, the expedition cook and assistant camel man; and Charley, an Indigenous Australian tracker. The expedition arrived in Alice Springs in early 1873 before heading westward on April 15, 1873. They endured long periods of extreme heat with little water and survived only by killing the camels for their meat. After finally crossing the Great Sandy Desert, they arrived at the Oakover River, 800 miles north of Perth with Warburton strapped to one of the two remaining camels and near death themselves. They were eventually brought to the De Grey station in a perilous condition. The men were all suffering from scurvy, and Warburton had lost his sight in one eye. They finally reached Roebourne on January 26, 1874 before returning to Adelaide by ship. Warburton received a grant of £1000 and his party received £500 from the South Australian parliament for the expedition. All of the men recovered from their ordeal, with Warburton later attributing their survival to the bush-craft skills of Charley.

He returned to England in 1874 but found the climate not to his liking, returning to Australia after a stay of only six weeks. Warburton's account of the expedition, Journey across the Western Interior of Australia was published in London in 1875, and Warburton was created C.M.G. and awarded the Royal Geographical Society's medal in the same year.

He died on his property and vineyard at Norley Bank, Beaumont near Adelaide.

Two ranges, a river, and a beetle were named after him and he was commemorated by an Australia Post stamp in June 1976 on one of a set of 6 Australian Explorers.

[edit] See also

• History of Western Australia

[edit] References

• Crossing West Australia. Retrieved on 2006-04-04.
• Serle, Percival (1949). "Warburton, Peter". Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. 
• (1976) in Deasey, Denison: Australian Dictionary of Biography 6. Melbourne University Press. ISBN 0-522-84108-2.