After The Expedition
When Howitt got to Menindee he sent King on ahead to Melbourne, escorted by Edwin Welch and Weston Phillips. King arrived back in Melbourne on 29 November 1861 where he was hailed as a hero and mobbed by the admiring colonists of Victoria. King received a gold watch and a pension of £180 a year from the Royal Society of Victoria.
King was cared for by his sister, Elizabeth, at her house in Westbury Street, St Kilda. In 1863 he went to Tasmania to see if it would aid his recovery, arriving in Hobart on the SS Black Swan on Sunday, 1 February. King returned to Melbourne and was present at the inauguration of the Burke & Wills statue on the corner of Collins and Russell Streets in Melbourne on 21 April 1865, the fourth anniversary of their return to Cooper Creek.
In 1865 he bought a house in Octavia Street, St Kilda, and on 22 August 1871 he married his cousin, Mary Richmond, at the Wesley Church on Lonsdale Street. King never fully recovered from the privations suffered while on the Expedition, and in 1869 his health began to deteriorate. During November and December 1871 he was so ill he was cared for at his sister's house in Drummond Street, Carlton. He returned home to St Kilda and died prematurely of pulmonary tuberculosis on 15 January 1872 aged 33. His pall-bearers were Ferdinand von Mueller, Dr David Wilkie and Inspector James M Gilmour. He is buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery.
Read more about this topic: John King (explorer)
Famous quotes containing the word expedition:
“It is a sort of ranger service. Arnold’s expedition is a daily experience with these settlers. They can prove that they were out at almost any time; and I think that all the first generation of them deserve a pension more than any that went to the Mexican war.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)