Burke and Wills expedition

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 18 men with the intention of crossing Australia from Melbourne in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance of around 2,800 kilometres (≈1,750 miles). 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. All together, seven men lost their lives, and only one man, John King, travelled the entire expedition and returned alive to Melbourne..

Contents

Beginning

Gold was discovered in Victoria in 1851 and the subsequent gold rush led to a huge influx of migrants. Melbourne became Australia's largest city and the colony became fantastically wealthy. The boom lasted forty years and ushered in the era known as "marvellous Melbourne". The influx of educated gold seekers from England 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.

In 1857 the Philosophical Institute formed an Exploration Committee with the aim of investigating the practicability of fitting out an exploring expedition. [1] 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. [2] The Royal Society called for offers of interest for a leader of The Victorian Exploring Expedition, they dispatched George James Landells to India to buy 24 camels for use in the desert [3] and they purchased six camels from George Coppin's Cremorne Gardens.

Several people were considered for the post of leader and the Society held a range of meetings in early 1860 before announcing Burke as the leader, Landells, the camel man, as the second-in-command and Wills as third-in-command.

Neither Burke nor Wills was experienced in exploration, and it is strange that they were chosen to lead the mission. Burke was an Irish-born ex-officer with the Austrian army, and later became police superintendent with virtually no skills in bushcraft. Wills was a surveyor and meteorologist. Wills was more adept than Burke at living in the wilderness, but it was Burke's leadership that was especially detrimental to the mission.

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-seven camels imported from India especially for the mission.

There was an enormous amount of equipment; 6 tonnes of firewood, 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. [4] Burke decided not to take up Captain Francis Cadell's offer to transport the supplies to Adelaide by ship and up the Murray and Darling Rivers and everything was loaded onto the 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. They reached Swan Hill on 6 September 1860 and arrived in Balranald on 15 September 1860. There they left behind some equipment and a few men. At Gambala on September 24, Burke decided to load some of the provisions onto the camels for the first time, meaning that the men would have to walk the rest of the way. At Bilbarka during the first week of October, 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. 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.

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. When they reached Menindee on October 12, Burke split the group, taking eight men including himself and a smaller amount of equipment, with plans to push on quickly to Coopers Creek and then wait for the others to catch up. They left Menindee on October 19, guided by William Wright who was appointed third-in-command. At Torowotto Swamp Wright returned to Menindee to bring up the remainder of the men and supplies and Burke continued on to Coopers Creek.

Coopers Creek

In 1860 Coopers 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 November 11 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 Coopers Creek until Autumn (March the next year) so they would avoid having to travel during the hot Australian summer. However, Burke only waited until December 16, 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.

The Gulf of Carpentaria

The return journey

On 9 February 1861 they reached the Little Bynoe River, an arm of the Flinders River delta. They could not reach the ocean because of the 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 kilometres (15 miles) they decided to turn back. When they turned back they were by this stage desperately short of supplies. They had food for 5 weeks, but it would take 10 weeks to get back to Coopers 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 March 4 when it was unable to continue. Three other camels were shot and eaten along the way and they shot their only horse, Billy, on April 10 on the Diamantina River, south of today's 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 [5] mounted an expedition to verify the discovery of camel bones in 2005.

Gray fell ill, but the others thought he was "gammoning" (pretending). On March 25, on the Burke River near today's town of Boulia, Gray was caught stealing skilligolee (a type of watery porridge) and Burke beat him. Gray died on April 17 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 Coopers Creek on April 21, only to find the camp abandoned.

Meanwhile the other mission led by William Wright was having terrible problems of its own. He was supposed to bring supplies up from Menindee to Coopers Creek, but a lack of money and too few pack animals to carry the supplies meant he had not set out until the end of January. Wright's delay subsequently resulted in him being blamed for the deaths of Burke and Wills. (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.) 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 Coopers Creek. While he was there he met Brahe who was on his way back from the Cooper to Menindee.

Return to Cooper's 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 depôt camp on the Cooper for 13 weeks. The depôt 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. Brahe decided to leave Coopers Creek and 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 depot at Coopers Creek on Sunday 21 April 1861. Burke, Wills and King returned that evening. Finding the depot 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 9 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 which had been left in the cache, before making an attempt to reach the furthest outposts of pastoral settlement in South Australia, at 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 April 23 they set out into the Strzelecki Desert towards Mount Hopeless in an attempt to effect their own rescue.

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 the depôt camp on the Cooper and check to see if Burke had returned. When they arrived on May 8, 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.

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 Coopers Creek in south-west Queensland is a coolibah, Eucalyptus microtheca. The exact 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 a combination of these. The dates blazed indicated the date of arrival and the date of departure "Dec 6-60" carved over "Apr 21-61". The camp number was also cut into the tree, "B" over "LXV". 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. (Many tourists who visit the nearby 'Face Tree' mistakenly believe it is the Dig Tree.)

Cooper's Creek summary

Burke, Wills and King alone at Coopers Creek

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

Soon after leaving the Dig Tree the two remaining camels, Rajah and Landa, died. Without pack animals, Burke, Wills and King were unable to carry enough supplies to cross the Strzelecki Desert to Mt Hopeless, and so the three men were forced to return to Coopers Creek. Their supplies were running low and they were exhausted. The Cooper Creek Aborigines, the Yandruwandha people, gave them fish, beans called 'padlu' and a type of damper made from the ground seeds of the ngardu (nardoo) plant (Marsilea drummondii).

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.

Death

Artist's depiction of Burke's death

The three men lived on Coopers Creek, collecting ngardu seeds and accepting gifts of fish and baked rats from the Yandruwandha. Towards the end of June 1861, they decided to return upstream to the Dig Tree to see if a rescue party had arrived. Wills became too weak to continue, so he was left behind at his own insistence at Breerily Waterhole with some food, water and shelter.

Burke died at the end of June 1861. The exact date is unknown, but has generally been accepted to be June 28, 1861. King buried Burke's body and returned to Wills, but found that he was already dead. He found a tribe of Yandruwandha willing to give him food and shelter.

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 Coopers Creek.

Howitt arrived at the Dig Tree on September 11, 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. He is buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery.

Deaths on the Victorian Exploring Expedition

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 Coopers Creek to recover the bodies of Burke and Wills and the explorers were given a state funeral in Melbourne on 23 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 of time. It had 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 a memorial was erected overlooking the town of Castlemaine where Burke had been stationed before leading the expedition. The Victorian towns of Bendigo, Ballarat and Fryerstown also erected monuments. 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.

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

Cause of Death

While ngardu (nardoo - Marsilea drummondii) was available as a food source in abundance, Wills' journal entries reveal that it assuaged their hunger but provided virtually no nutrients and did nothing to curb their physical deterioration. Wills' last journal entry includes the following revelation:

"...starvation on nardoo is by no means very unpleasant, but for the weakness one feels, and the utter inability to move oneself, for as far as appetite is concerned, it gives me the greatest satisfaction. Certainly, fat and sugar would be more to one's taste, in fact, those seem to me to be the great stand by for one in this extraordinary continent; not that I mean to depreciate the farinacious food, but the want of sugar and fat in all substances obtainable here is so great that they become almost valueless to us as articles of food, without the addition of something else."

Unbeknown to the explorers, ngardu seeds contain thiaminase which depletes the body of Vitamin B1. 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[1].

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

See also

References

  1. ↑ Chaffey, Calder (June 2002). "A Fern which Changed Australian History". Australian Plants online. Association of Societies for Growing Australian Plants. Retrieved on 2008-04-12.

Further reading

External links