Burke and Wills expedition

The Burke and Wills expedition was organised by the Royal Society of Victoria in Australia in 1860–61. It consisted of 19 men led by Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills, with the objective 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). At that time most of the inland of Australia had not been explored by non-Indigenous people and was largely unknown to the European settlers.

The expedition left Melbourne in winter. Very bad weather, poor roads and broken-down horse wagons meant they made slow progress at first. After dividing the party at Menindee on the Darling River Burke made good progress, reaching Cooper Creek at the beginning of summer. The expedition established a depot camp at the Cooper, and Burke, Wills and two other men pushed on to the north coast (although swampland stopped them from reaching the northern coastline).

The return journey was plagued by delays and monsoon rains, and when they reached the depot at Cooper Creek, they found it had been abandoned just hours earlier. Burke and Wills died on or about 30 June 1861. Several relief expeditions were sent out, all contributing new geographical findings. Altogether, seven men died, and only one man, the Irish soldier John King, crossed the continent with the expedition and returned alive to Melbourne.

Background

Gold was discovered in Victoria in 1851 and the subsequent gold rush led to a huge influx of migrants, with the local population increasing from 29,000 in 1851 to 139,916 in 1861 (Sydney had 93,686 at the time). The colony became very 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.

By 1855 there was speculation about possible routes for the Australian Overland Telegraph Line to connect Australia to the new telegraph cable in Java and then Europe. There was fierce competition between the colonies over the route with governments recognising the economic benefits that would result from becoming the centre of the telegraph network. A number of routes were considered including Ceylon to Albany in Western Australia, or Java to the north coast of Australia and then either onto east coast, or south through the centre of the continent to Adelaide.''Exploring the Stuart Highway : further than the eye can see'', 1997, p. 24 The Victorian government organised the Burke and Wills expedition to cross the continent in 1860. The South Australian government offered a reward of £2000 to encourage an expedition to find a route between South Australia and the north coast.

Exploration Committee

In 1857 the Philosophical Institute formed an ''Exploration Committee'' with the aim of investigating the practicability of fitting out an exploring expedition. 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 (later discovered to be from Ambrose Kyte) 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.

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. Robert O'Hara Burke was selected by committee ballot as the leader, and William John Wills was recommended as surveyor, navigator and third-in-command. 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. The weight required three extra wagons and was to slow the expedition down appreciably.

Instructions from the Exploration Committee

The Victorian Exploration Committee gave Burke written instructions. These included suggestions for the route to take but also gave Burke discretion depending on conditions and barriers he might encounter. The instructions were signed by the Honorary Secretary Dr John Macadam and in part advised:

Members of the Exploration Committee

The Exploration Committee of the Royal Society of Victoria included:

* Sir William Foster Stawell, Chief Justice of Victoria
* Dr David Elliott Wilkie MD., Treasurer
* Dr John Macadam, Honorary Secretary
* Professor Georg Neumayer
* Dr Ferdinand von Mueller, Government Botanist
* Sir Frederick McCoy, Melbourne University's first professor
* The Hon. Captain Andrew Clarke
* Dr Richard Eades, Mayor of Melbourne
* Charles Whybrow Ligar, Government Surveyor General
* The Hon Sir Francis Murphy, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly
* Lieutenant John Randall Pascoe, JP
* Captain Francis Cadell
* Alfred Selwyn Esq., Government Geologist
* Reverend Father Dr John Ignatius Bleasdale
* Clement Hodgkinson Esq.
* Dr J William McKenna
* Edward Wilson, Editor of the '' Argus''
* Dr William Gilbee
* Sizar Elliott Esq.
* Dr Solomon Iffla
* Angus McMillan Esq.
* James Smith Esq.
* John Watson Esq.

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.
The Victorian Government appointed George James Landells to purchase 24 camels in India for use in desert exploration. 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.

Departure from Melbourne

The expedition set off from Royal Park, Melbourne at about 4 pm on 20 August 1860 watched by around 15,000 spectators. The 19 men of the expedition included six Irishmen, five Englishmen, three Afghan and one Indian camel drivers, three Germans and an American. They took 23 horses, 6 wagons and 26 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.

Committee member Captain Francis Cadell had offered to transport the supplies from Adelaide up the Murray to the junction with the Darling River to be collected on the way.
However, Burke declined his offer, possibly because Cadell had opposed Burke's appointment as leader of the expedition.

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 reached only 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 at Camp VI in Mia Mia.

The expedition reached Swan Hill on 6 September and arrived in Balranald on 15 September. 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 he ordered the men to walk. He also ordered that personal luggage be restricted to . 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 12 October having taken two months to travel 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.

In July 1859 the South Australian government offered a reward of £2,000 (about A$289,000 in 2011 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 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 (then known as Cooper's 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 in unusually mild weather temperatures exceeded only twice before the party reached 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.

Cooper Creek

In 1860 Cooper Creek was the outer limit 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 depot 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 depot 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 that they would avoid having to travel during the hot Australian summer. However, Burke waited only 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 depot, 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 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; however, the more conservative Wills had reviewed the maps and developed a more realistic view of the task ahead, and secretly instructed Brahe to wait for four months.

Gulf of Carpentaria

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 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 mounted an expedition to verify the discovery of camel bones in 2005.

To extend their food supply, they ate portulaca. Gray also caught an 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 that the camp had been abandoned several hours earlier.

Return to Cooper Creek

Burke had asked Brahe and the depot party to remain at the camp on the Cooper for 13 weeks. The party had 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 depot on Cooper Creek on the morning of 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. 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 . 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 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 whether the supplies were still buried. They left to rejoin the main party and return to Menindee.

Controversy

Brahe might have stayed at Cooper Creek longer, but one of his men, the blacksmith Patton, had injured his leg after being thrown from his horse, so 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 his being blamed for the deaths of Burke and Wills. In 1963, Alan Moorehead wrote of the 'mystery' surrounding Wright's delay:

An in-depth study of Wright's action formed a part of Dr Tom Bergin's 1982 MA thesis. Bergin, who recreated the original journey from Cooper Creek to the Gulf of Carpentaria with camels in 1978, showed that 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 that the party moved extremely 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.

The ''Dig Tree''

Brahe blazed two trees () at Depot Camp LXV on the banks of Bullah Bullah Waterhole on Cooper Creek, both are coolibahs (''Eucalyptus coolabah'' formerly ''Eucalyptus microtheca'') and both are estimated to be at least 250 years old. One tree has two blazes on it; one denoting the date of arrival and the date of departure "DEC-6-60" carved over "APR-21-61" and the other showing the initial "B" (for Burke) carved over the Roman numerals for (camp) 65; "B" over "LXV". The date blaze has grown closed and only the camp number blaze remains visible today. On an adjacent smaller tree Brahe carved the instruction to 'DIG'. The exact inscription is not known, but is variously recalled to be "DIG", "DIG under", "DIG 3 FT N.W.", "DIG 3FT N.E." or "DIG 21 APR 61".

Initially the tree with the Date and Camp Number blaze was known as "Brahe's Tree" or the "Depot Tree" and the tree under which Burke died attracted most attention and interest. However, the tree at Depot Camp LXV became known as the "Dig Tree" from at least 1912.

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.

Burke, Wills and King alone at Cooper Creek

After leaving the ''Dig Tree'' they rarely travelled more than 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 and 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.

Death

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 dates on which Burke and Wills died are 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 group of Yandruwandha willing to give him food and shelter and in return he shot birds to contribute to their supplies.

Rescue expeditions

In 1861, five expeditions were sent out to search for Burke and Wills; two commissioned by the Exploration Committee of the Royal Society of Victoria, one by the Government of Victoria one by the Government of Queensland and one by the Government of South Australia. HMCSS ''Victoria'' was sent from Melbourne to search the Gulf of Carpentaria for the missing expedition, and SS ''Firefly'' sailed from Melbourne to Brisbane where they picked up Landsborough's Queensland Relief Expedition. The other expeditions went overland, with Howitt's Victorian Contingent Party departing from Melbourne, McKinlay's South Australian Burke Relief Expedition departing from Adelaide and Walker's Victorian Relief Expedition departing from Rockhampton.

Victorian Contingent Party

After six months without receiving word from the Burke expedition, the media began questioning its whereabouts. Public pressure for answers increased and on 13 June 1861, the Exploration Committee agreed to send a search party to find the Burke and Wills expedition and, if necessary, offer them support. The Victorian Contingent Party left Melbourne on 26 June 1861 under the leadership of Alfred William Howitt. At the Loddon River, Howitt met Brahe, who was returning from Cooper Creek. As Brahe did not have knowledge of Burke's whereabouts, Howitt decided a much larger expedition would be required to find the missing party. Leaving three of his men at the river, Howitt returned to Melbourne with Brahe to update the Exploration Committee. On 30 June, the expanded expedition left to follow Burke's trail. On 3 September, the party reached Cooper Creek, on 11 September the ''Dig Tree'', and four days later Edwin Welch found King living with the Yandruwandha. Over the next nine days, Howitt found the remains of Burke and Wills and buried them. In pitiful condition, King survived the two-month trip back to Melbourne, and died eleven years later, aged 33, never having recovered his health. He is buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery.

HMVS ''Victoria''

On 4 August 1861, HMVS ''Victoria'' under the Command of William Henry Norman sailed from Hobson's Bay in Victoria with orders to search the Gulf of Carpentaria. The Victorian Government also chartered ''Firefly'' (188 tons, built 1843) to assist with transportation. ''Firefly'' left Hobson's Bay (Melbourne) on 29 July and arrived at Moreton Bay (Brisbane) on 10 August 1861, the same day as HMVS ''Victoria''. ''Firefly'' transported the Queensland party led by William Landsborough, and thirty horses. The two ships sailed for the Gulf of Carpentaria on 24 August 1861.

The ships became separated in a storm on 1 September and ''Firefly'' hit a reef off Sir Charles Hardy Islands. The crew were able to free and save 26 of the horses by cutting a hole in the side of the ship. ''Victoria'' arrived shortly afterwards. ''Firefly'' was repaired and able to be towed by ''Victoria''. They recommenced their journey on 22 September, arriving near Sweers Island and Albert River on 29 September, where they rendezvoused with the brig ''Gratia'' and the schooner ''Native Lass'', which had also been chartered by the Victorian Government as support. They established a land base on Sweers, after visiting Bentinck Island and finding it inhabited by "hostile natives".

Using ''Victoria'' boats, ''Firefly'' was manoeuvred up the Albert River some to a suitable place to transfer the horses and stores to land.

Queensland Relief Expedition

After disembarking from ''Victoria'' in November, the Queensland Relief Expedition, under the leadership of William Landsborough, searched the gulf coast for the missing expedition. The party proceeded south and while they found no trace of the Burke and Wills party they continued all the way to Melbourne arriving in August 1862. This was the first European expedition to traverse mainland Australia from northern to southern coast. In 1881, the Queensland Parliament awarded Landsborough £2000 for his achievements as an explorer.

Victorian Relief Expedition

Frederick Walker led the Victorian Relief Expedition. The party, consisting of twelve mounted men, seven of them ex-troopers from the Native Police Corps, started from Rockhampton on 7 September 1861 with the goal of reaching the Gulf of Carpentaria. They found traces of Burke and followed them to Burke's northernmost Camp, but lost the trail from there. On 4 December, they came across a group of Aborigines, killing 12 in the fight that ensued. On 7 December, Walker met up with the HMVS ''Victoria'' in the Gulf. Walker's party went on to explore much of the Gulf region.

South Australian Burke Relief Expedition

The South Australian House of Assembly chose John McKinlay

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