Lockier Burges (1841-1929)

Two people named Lockier Clere Burges have been prominent in Western Australia. For the Lockier Clere Burges born in 1814, see Lockier Burges (Australian politician)

Lockier Clere Burges (1841 – 7 January 1929), also known as L. C. Burges junior was prominent – and controversial – in Western Australia as an entrepreneur, explorer and author.

Burges, the son of John Major Burges and Dorcas Bradshaw, was born at Fethard, County Tipperary, Ireland, in 1841.

During the early 1860s, Burges emigrated to Western Australia, where he three of his uncles lived, including L. C. Burges senior (c. 1814–1886) and William Burges (c. 1807–1876). In 1868, L. C. Burges junior married Ann Eliza Finnerty at Fremantle.

From late 1864, he worked for the Roebuck Bay Company (RBC) at the first, albeit short-lived station in the Kimberley, at Cape Villaret. In 1865, Burges took part in the La Grange expedition, which recovered the bodies of the explorers Panter, Harding and Goldwyer and explored the area between Cape Villaret and Lagrange Bay. The expedition was responsible for the killing up to 20 members of the Karajarri people.[1]

After the collapse of the RBC, Burges established Andover, a sheep station on the upper Harding River, in the Pilbara. Burges also invested in pearling vessels based in Nickol Bay. At the time, stations in North-West Australia were staffed almost entirely by local Aboriginal people who were paid in kind with "rations" (food and other goods) rather than money.[2]

In 1871, while droving sheep from the Pilbara to Geraldton, Burges shot and killed an Aboriginal man known only as "Mackle-yell", in a dispute over a stolen saddle.[3] [4] He was convicted of manslaughter in 1872, and sentenced to five years imprisonment. The sentence was commuted to 12 months.[5]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Robert Lewis, Tim Gurry, Merrillee Chignell, Laura Griffiths & David Arnold, 2015, What happened in a frontier conflict near Broome in 1864?, Canberra/Malvern, Vic., National Museum of Australia & Ryebuck Media Pty Ltd (17 January 2015).
  2. ↑ See, for example: Noel Olive, 2007, Enough is Enough: A History of the Pilbara Mob, Fremantle Press, pp. 66, 106, 111–3, 121–2 and; Fiona Skyring, 2007–9, The 1968–69 introduction of equal wages for Aboriginal pastoral workers in the Kimberley, National Museum of Australia (17 January 2015).
  3. ↑ The Perth Gazette & West Australian Times, 13 September 1872, p2S.
  4. ↑ John Michael Bennett, Sir Archibald Burt: First Chief Justice of Western Australia, 1861-1879, Annandale, NSW; Federation Press, 2002, p. vii.
  5. ↑ The Perth Gazette and West Australian Times, 28 February 1873, p.4.

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