Gregory Blaxland - Blue Mountains Expedition

Blue Mountains Expedition

In 1813, he led the first known European expedition across the area of the Great Dividing Range known as the Blue Mountains, along with William Lawson and William Charles Wentworth, on a journey which would open up the inland of the continent.

Blaxland's diaries show that he had a clear grasp of the scale upon which agricultural and pastoral activities would be profitable in Australia. In 1814, like many others almost insolvent because of drought and depression, he tried to persuade Governor Macquarie to sanction a scheme for the exploitation of the interior by a large agricultural company similar to the later AustrafutiAgricultural Company of the 1820s. Macquarie would not agree nor would he allow Blaxland land in the interior for his own flocks. Since Blaxland then had to dispose of his livestock, he joined the colonial opposition to Macquarie, and in 1819 sharply criticized his administration to Commissioner John Thomas Bigge.

Blaxland visited England and in February 1823 he published his Journal of a Tour of Discovery Across the Blue Mountains:

"On Tuesday, May 11, 1813,, Mr. Gregory Blaxland, Mr. William Wentworth, and Lieutenant Lawson, attended by four servants, with five dogs, and four horses laden with provisions, ammunition, and other necessaries, left Mr. Blaxland's farm at the South Creek, for the purpose of endeavouring to effect a passage over the Blue Mountains ..."

Later the same year Blaxland was awarded the silver medal of the Royal Society of Arts for some wine he had exported to London, and five years later he received its gold medal. In January 1827 Blaxland was elected by a public meeting with two others to present a petition to Governor Darling asking that "Trial by jury" and "Taxation by Representation" should be extended to the colony.