Burke and Wills Expedition
Robert O'Hara Burke was appointed leader of the Victorian Exploring Expedition with Landells as second-in-command. William John Wills was surveyor and astronomical observer and King was appointed as one of the Expedition Assistants on a salary of £120 a year.
The expedition left Melbourne on Monday, 20 August 1860 with a total of 19 men, 27 camels and 23 horses. They reached Menindee on 16 October 1860 where Landells resigned following an argument with Burke. Wills was promoted to second-in-command and King was placed in charge of the camels.
Burke split the expedition at Menindee and the lead party reached Cooper Creek on 11 November 1860 where they formed a depot. The remaining men were expected to follow up from Menindee and so after a break, Burke decided to make a dash to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Burke split the party again and left on 16 December 1860, placing William Brahe in charge of the depot on Cooper Creek. Burke, Wills, King and Charley Gray reached the mangroves on the estuary of the Flinders River, near where the town of Normanton now stands, on 9 February 1861. Flooding rains and swamps meant they never saw open ocean.
Already weakened by starvation and exposure, progress on the return journey was slow and hampered by the tropical monsoon downpours of the wet season. Gray died four days before they reached the depot at Cooper Creek and the other three took a day to bury him. They eventually reached the depot on Sunday, 21 April 1861 to find the men had not arrived from Menindee and Brahe and the Depot Party had given up waiting and left just 9 hours earlier. Brahe had buried a note and some food underneath a tree which is now known as the Dig Tree.
Burke, Wills and King attempted to reach Mount Hopeless, the furthest extent of settlement in South Australia, which was closer than Menindie, but failed and returned to Cooper Creek. While waiting for rescue Burke and Wills died of exhaustion and starvation. The exact date of their deaths is uncertain, but has generally been accepted to be 28 June 1861.
King survived with the help of Aborigines until he was rescued in September by Alfred William Howitt. Howitt buried Burke and Wills before returning to Melbourne.
Read more about this topic: John King (explorer)
Famous quotes containing the words burke, wills and/or expedition:
“Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“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)