Burke and Wills

Our most recent excursion took us yesterday to the Victoria State Library, an impressive building located in the heart of the Melbourne Central Business District.  We went at the suggestion of a new friend who had mentioned a free exhibition currently on display there about Burke and Wills.  I am once again indebted to Bill Bryson for introducing me to these larger-than-life figures in Australian history, the down-under equivalents of Lewis and Clark,  albeit with a much more tragic storyline.  As Bryson puts it, "they are far and away the most famous of the of Australian explorers . . . which is perhaps a little curious since their expedition accomplished almost nothing, cost a fortune, and ended in tragedy."

Books have been written about the ill-fated expedition led by Burke that left Melbourne in 1860 with the goal of being the first Europeans to cross the unknown Australian outback (known as the "ghastly blank") from south to north, a distance of approximately 2000 miles.  A cheering crowd of more than 15,000 people gathered to watch the departure of the group led by Burke, a man with impeccable old-boy network credentials, but with limited navigational ability and even less knowledge of the skills necessary for survival in the almost unbelievably harsh environment of the Australian bush.  The team of nineteen were plagued by troubles from the very first day, many of them caused by poor leadership, worse planning, and in-house bickering.

After an inauspicious start in which it took several hours just to get the wagons moving, the squabbling began in earnest, and within weeks of starting out, two of the leaders had resigned.  Some of the more absurd items deemed necessary for the trip included a Chinese gong, a heavy oak table, and dandruff brushes.  Fifteen hundred pounds of sugar were dumped early on, as well as the all-important lime juice which would have helped to prevent scurvy.  It took the party two months to travel the distance to Menindee, a route normally covered by the mail coach in two weeks.  

Six months after starting out, the expedition had only gone as far as Cooper Creek.  Desperate to be the first to reach the Pacific Ocean, Burke chose to split the exploring party in two for the second time, leaving four men to guard the supplies at Cooper Creek and choosing three to make a run with him for the north coast in the height of summer.  Whatever one may think of the folly of such a decision, the determination, perseverance, and fortitude of those who endured this trip boggles the mind.  They did in fact reach the north coast, but by this time they had consumed two thirds of the food they had brought with them, and to their disappointment, they were unable to see the ocean due to the impenetrable mangrove swampland along the coast.

Suffering from malnutrition and exhaustion, three of the four who had traveled to the north coast somehow managed to crawl back to the camp at Cooper Creek.  One can hardly begin to fathom their despair when they realized they had missed their colleagues, who had finally given up on their safe return, by a mere nine hours.  They located the meagre supplies left for them in the ground, but both Burke and Wills perished shortly thereafter.  The remaining explorer was nursed by the local Aborigines but never fully regained his health.  He was the only one to make the full expedition and return alive to Melbourne.

Inside the Victoria State Library we were able to view original paintings and sketches of the main characters and events, documents such as the last notes left buried by the dying explorers, and objects such as firearms carried by the explorers.   We also came upon the armor worn by Ned Kelly, the famous Australian bushranger, in a separate exhibition.  His story, however, will be a subject for a later day.

Comments

[Deborah]

Interesting story. Reminds me of some of the explorers looking for a northwest passage. Have you or your kids read the book, "Buried in Ice" about Sir John Fisher and his crew? Interesting, and rather creepy account.

Again, I love the pictures. Everything looks so clean there.

[janetjames]

Thanks Christie for this info. I am going to share it with Ed Wills. Perhaps this is one of his relatives, who left Scotland for different parts of the world. I love seeing the pictures of Melbourne ( and the kids of course).

[janetjames]

Christie - correction - Ed Wills family actually lived in Ireland.