Burke and Wills Report – a monthly update on the progress of the Victorian Exploring Expedition 150 years ago
August 1862
King receives a gold watch and the last two relief expeditions return
On 18 August 1862, the Royal Society Victoria held a meeting and presented King with a gold watch awarded by the Royal Geographical Society, London in May 1862. The watch bore the inscription…
“To John King for his highly meritorious conduct on the expedition under the lamented Burke and Wills, May 26 1862”
Portion of a private letter from the President of the Royal Geographical Society to the RSV was read to the meeting that explained that they had earlier decided to award Burke a gold medal and they had now decided to award King a gold watch, which “cost more than the gold medal, and I hope the good soldier likes it”. The watch is still in the ownership of King’s relatives in New Zealand.
The Exploration Committee deliberated whether Howitt should be recalled from Coopers Creek yet, given that the whereabouts of Walker and Landsborough were known, and decided to telegraph the South Australian Commissioner of Crown Lands seeking any information regarding McKinlay’s whereabouts.
And while the Royal Society Victoria and the Victorian Government were just starting years of pontification and debate on the memorial to Burke and Wills at the cemetery and a suitable monument in the city, Bendigo followed Castlemaine’s lead of a month earlier, laying a foundation stone for a monument to Burke in Back Creek Cemetery on 20th August 1862 – exactly two years after the Expedition left Melbourne. The council declared a half day holiday and a procession left the Town Hall and marched to the cemetery. 8000 people gathered at the cemetery and another 4000 lined the route. John King was unable to attend due to ill health.
Howitt continues to wait at Coopers Creek
When Howitt’s party returned to the Cooper from their reconnaissance trip looking for McKinlay on 2 August, Aitken took a small party up the creek for a week looking for a missing camel. Howitt then made a third trip to Blanchewater on 16 August, arriving on 27 August and expressing disappointment in a subsequent dispatch to the Exploration Committee that there were no dispatches for him from them. He then travelled the extra 120 miles to Angepina where he discovered a dispatch had just been received.
Landsborough arrives in Melbourne
In August 1862, Landsborough’s Queensland Burke Relief Expedition reached Melbourne at last, after completing the first successful north south crossing of Australia in 5 months, albeit generally through the recently settled central Queensland and NSW.
On 18 August, at the same meeting of the Royal Society Victoria that King was presented with his gold watch, Landsborough addressed the meeting and gave a narrative of his expedition. During his speech, he defended himself from criticism by some that he was more interested in looking for available pastoral ground than in looking for Burke and Wills on his return journey south from the Gulf, this criticism being based on the route chosen by Landsborough on his return, which was predominantly through previously explored country. Landsborough stated that his decision not to head to the depot at Coopers Creek but to leave the Cooper and head towards the Warrego was based on the fact that his supplies were limited. He even wrote to the Queensland Colonial Secretary stating he had no immediate intention of tendering for the land he had travelled through, writing that the country near the Gulf which was called the “Plains of Promise” was “well adapted for sheep runs”.
The Royal Society certainly did not believe the critics, with Governor, Sir Henry Barkly, who was also President of the Society, welcoming Landsborough with effusive praise:
“I may just refer to the fortunate circumstances that our meeting should be graced by the presence of a gentleman who, partly from motives of humanity and partly with a view to share in the glory of the enterprise, volunteered to lead one of the subsidiary expeditions sent in search of the missing expedition of which you formed a member. Those subsidiary expeditions, it is well known, have led to a great increase in our geographical knowledge of the interior of the continent, and, I believe, among the most brilliant exploits which grace the history of Australian exploration. There is not one more brilliant to be found than the passage made by the party that our friend, Mr Landsborough, from the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Darling River (Applause)”
McKinlay completes his journy
McKinlay finally arrived at a station near Port Denison on 2 August 1862, suffering semi –starvation having subsisted on little else than horse and camel flesh since leaving the Gulf in May. He was surprised find William Brahe at the station; Brahe was the leader of the Depot Party that had waited patiently at Coopers Creek for five months for Burke and the Gulf Party to return and then fatefully leaving on the morning they arrived back. Brahe had opted for obscurity in the far outpost of civilization in northern Queensland after the stinging (and unfounded) criticism of the public and the Royal Commission for “abandoning his post”.
After resting a few days, McKinlay finally reached Port Denison. He was the last of the relief expeditions to return to settled country.
Next month: Landsborough and McKinlay are honoured in Melbourne
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