The Burke and Wills expedition, originally called the Victorian Exploring Expedition, was an exploration expedition organised by the Royal Society of Victoria (RSV) in Australia in 1860–61.
The exploration party initially consisted of nineteen men led by Robert O'Hara Burke, with William John Wills being a deputy commander. Its objective was the crossing of Australia from Melbourne in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance of around 3,250 kilometres (approximately 2,000 miles). At that time most of the inland of Australia had not been explored by non-Indigenous people and was largely unknown to European settlers.
The expedition left Melbourne in winter. Very bad weather, poor roads and broken-down horse wagons meant they made slow progress at first. After dividing the party at Menindee on the Darling River, Burke made good progress, reaching Cooper Creek at the beginning of summer. The expedition established a depot camp at Cooper Creek, and Burke, Wills and two other men pushed on to the north coast (although dense swampland stopped them from reaching the northern coastline).
The return journey was plagued by delays and monsoon rains, and when Burke's party reached the depot at Cooper Creek, they found it had been abandoned just hours earlier. Burke and Wills died on or about 30 June 1861. Several relief expeditions were sent out, all contributing new geographical findings. Altogether, seven men died, and only one man, the Irish soldier John King, crossed the continent with the expedition and returned alive to Melbourne.
Background
In 1851, gold was discovered in what was then the Colony of Victoria. The subsequent gold rush led to a huge influx of migrants, with the local population increasing from 29,000 in 1851 to 139,916 in 1861 (Sydney had 93,686 at the time). As a result, Melbourne rapidly grew to become Australia's largest city and the second largest city of the British Empire. The boom lasted forty years and ushered in the era known as "marvellous Melbourne".
The influx of educated gold seekers from England, Ireland and Germany led to rapid growth of schools, churches, learned societies, libraries and art galleries. The University of Melbourne was founded in 1855 and the State Library of Victoria in 1856. The Philosophical Institute of Victoria was founded in 1854 and became the Royal Society of Victoria (RSV) after receiving a Royal Charter in 1859.
By 1855 there was speculation about possible routes for the Australian Overland Telegraph Line to connect Australia to the new telegraph cable in Java, then part of the Dutch East Indies, and then Europe. There was fierce competition between the colonies over the hypothetical route, with governments recognising the economic benefits that would result from becoming the centre of the telegraph network. A number of routes were considered including Ceylon to Albany in Western Australia, or Java to the north coast of Australia and then either onto east coast, or south through the centre of the continent to Adelaide. The Government of Victoria organised the Burke and Wills expedition to cross the continent in 1860. The Government of South Australia offered a reward of £2000 to encourage an expedition to find a route between South Australia and the north coast.
Exploration Committee
In 1857 the Philosophical Institute formed an Exploration Committee with the aim of investigating the practicability of fitting out an expedition of the Australian interior. While interest in inland exploration was strong in the neighbouring colonies of New South Wales and South Australia, in Victoria enthusiasm was limited. Even the anonymous donation of £1,000 (later discovered to be from Ambrose Kyte) to the Fund Raising Committee of the RSV failed to generate much interest and it wasn't until 1860 that sufficient money was raised and the expedition was assembled.
The Exploration Committee called for offers of interest for a leader for the Victorian Exploring Expedition. Only two members of the committee, Ferdinand von Mueller and Wilhelm Blandowski, had any experience in exploration. However, due to factionalism, both men were consistently outvoted. Several people were considered for the post of leader and the RSV held a range of meetings in early 1860. Robert O'Hara Burke was selected by committee ballot as the leader, and William John Wills was recommended as surveyor, navigator and third-in-command. Burke made for an unusual choice as he had no experience in exploration; he was an Irish-born ex-officer with the colonial forces, and later became police superintendent with virtually no skills in bushcraft. Wills was more adept than Burke at living in the wilderness, but it was Burke's leadership skills (or lack thereof) that were especially detrimental to the mission.
Rather than take cattle to be slaughtered during the trip, the Exploration Committee decided to experiment with dried meat. The weight required three extra wagons and slowed the expedition down appreciably.
Instructions from the Exploration Committee
The Exploration Committee gave Burke written instructions. These included suggestions for the expedition's route, but also gave Burke discretion depending on conditions and barriers he might encounter. The instructions were signed by the Honorary Secretary Dr John Macadam and in part advised:
"The object of the Committee in directing you to Coopers Creek is that you should explore the country intervening between it and Ludwig Leichhardt's track south of the Gulf of Carpentaria avoiding as far as practicable Sturt's route on the west and Gregory's down the Victoria on the east….. should you determine the impracticability of this route you are desired to turn westward into the country recently discovered by Stuart and connect his furthest point north with Gregory's furthest southern exploration in 1856.....
The Committee is fully aware of the difficulty of the Country you are called on to traverse and in giving you these instructions has placed these routes before you more as an indication of what it has been deemed desirable to have accomplished than as indicating an exact course for you to pursue.
The Committee entrusts you with the largest discretion as regards the forming of depots, and your movements generally….
Members of the Exploration Committee
The Exploration Committee of the Royal Society of Victoria included:
- Sir William Foster Stawell, Chief Justice of Victoria
- Dr David Elliott Wilkie MD., Treasurer
- Dr John Macadam, Honorary Secretary
- Professor Georg Neumayer
- Dr Ferdinand von Mueller, government botanist
- Sir Frederick McCoy, Melbourne University's first professor
- The Hon. Captain Andrew Clarke
- Dr Richard Eades, Mayor of Melbourne
- Charles Ligar, Government Surveyor General
- The Hon Sir Francis Murphy, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly
- Lieutenant John Randall Pascoe, JP
- Captain Francis Cadell
- Alfred Selwyn Esq., government geologist
- Reverend Father Dr John Ignatius Bleasdale
- Clement Hodgkinson Esq.
- Dr J William McKenna
- Edward Wilson, editor of The Argus
- Dr William Gilbee
- Sizar Elliott Esq.
- Dr Solomon Iffla
- Angus McMillan Esq.
- James Smith Esq.
- John Watson Esq.
Camels
Camels had been used successfully in desert exploration in other parts of the world, but by 1859 only seven camels had been imported into Australia.
The Victorian government appointed George James Landells to purchase twenty-four camels in India for use in desert exploration. The animals arrived in Melbourne in June 1860, and the Exploration Committee purchased an additional six from George Coppin's Cremorne Gardens. The camels were initially housed in the stables at Parliament House and later moved to Royal Park. Twenty-six camels were taken on the expedition, with six (two females with their two young calves and two males) being left in Royal Park.
Departure from Melbourne
The Burke and Wills expedition set off from Royal Park at about 4pm on 20 August 1860, watched by around 15,000 spectators. The nineteen men of the expedition included six Irishmen, five Englishmen, three Germans, an American, and four camel drivers from the Indian subcontinent. They took twenty-three horses, six wagons and twenty-six camels.
The members of the expedition at the time of departure were:
- Robert O'Hara Burke (leader)
- George James Landells (1825–1871) (second in command, charge of camels)
- William John Wills (third in command, surveyor and astronomical observer)
- Hermann Beckler (medical officer and botanist)
- Ludwig Becker (artist, naturalist and geologist)
- Charles Ferguson (1832–1925) (foreman)
- Thomas Francis McDonough (1834–1904) (assistant)
- William Patton (?–1861) (assistant)
- Patrick Langan (assistant)
- William Brahe (1835–1912) (assistant)
- John King (assistant)
- John Drakeford (assistant)
- James McIlwaine (1834–?) (assistant)
- Patrick Langan (assistant)
- Thomas Brooks (assistant)
- Samla (camel driver, a Hindu from India)
- Esau Khan (camel driver, a Muslim from Kalat)
- Dost Mahomet (camel driver, a Muslim from Ghazni)
- Belooch Khan (camel driver, a Parsi from Kanpur)
The expedition took a large amount of equipment, including enough food to last two years, a cedar-topped oak camp table with two chairs, pocket charcoal water filters, rifles, revolvers, rockets, flags and a Chinese gong; the equipment all together weighed as much as twenty tonnes.
Committee member Captain Francis Cadell had offered to transport the equipment from Adelaide up the Murray River to the junction with the Darling River to be collected on the way. However, Burke declined his offer, possibly because Cadell had opposed Burke's appointment as leader of the expedition. Instead, all of the supplies were loaded onto six wagons. One wagon broke down before it had even left Royal Park and by midnight of the first day the expedition had reached only Essendon, on the edge of Melbourne. There, two more wagons broke down. Heavy rains and bad roads made travelling through Victoria difficult and time-consuming. The party arrived at Lancefield on 23 August and set up their fourth camp. The first day off was taken on Sunday 26 August at Camp VI in Mia Mia.
The expedition reached Swan Hill on 6 September, where Charles Gray joined the expedition. They arrived in Balranald on 15 September. There, to lighten the load, the expedition left behind their sugar, lime juice and some of their guns and ammunition. Burke also dismissed several members of the expedition here, including the foreman Charles Ferguson, citing lack of funds. Ferguson later successfully sued for unfair dismissal. At Gambala on 24 September, Burke decided to load some of the provisions onto the camels for the first time, and to lessen the burden on the horses he ordered the men to walk. He also ordered that personal luggage be restricted to 30 lb (14 kg).
At Bilbarka on the Darling, Burke and his second-in-command, Landells, argued after Burke decided to dump the 60 gallons (≈270 litres) of rum that Landells had brought to feed to the camels in the belief that it prevented scurvy. At Kinchega on the Darling, Landells resigned from the expedition, followed by the expedition's surgeon, Dr Hermann Beckler. Third-in-command Wills was promoted to second-in-command. They reached Menindee on 12 October, having taken two months to travel 750 km (470 mi) from Melbourne—the regular mail coach did the journey in little more than a week. By this time two of the expedition's five officers had resigned, thirteen members had been fired and eight new men had been hired.
Menindee to Cooper Creek
In July 1859 the South Australian government offered a reward of £2,000 (about A$243,800 in 2023 dollars) for the first successful south–north crossing of the continent west of the 143rd line of longitude. The experienced explorer John McDouall Stuart had taken up the challenge. Burke was concerned Stuart might beat him to the north coast and he soon grew impatient with the expedition's slow progress, often averaging only 2 mi (3.2 km) an hour.
Burke therefore split the group, taking fifteen horses, sixteen camels and the seven fittest men; Wills, Brahe, Patton, McDonough, King, Gray and Dost Mahomet. He also reduced the amount of equipment, with plans to push on quickly to Cooper Creek (then known as Cooper's Creek) and then wait for the others left behind at Menindee to catch up. They departed Menindee on 19 October, guided by a Paakantyi man named Dick Barkinji, William Wright (the manager of the nearby Kinchega sheep station) and another local Aboriginal man. Wright was appointed third-in-command and travel was relatively easy because recent rain made water abundant, and the unusually mild weather temperatures exceeded 90 °F (32 °C) only twice. Wright and Barkinji had also travelled the same way near to Cooper Creek a few months beforehand.
Burke's party journeyed via waterholes at Bilpa, Langawirra, Mutawintiji and Wannaminta to the swamp at Torowotto. At Torowotto, Wright, Barkinji and the other Aboriginal guide were sent back to Menindee to bring up the remainder of the men and supplies, while Burke's party continued on to Cooper Creek. Aboriginal people living at Torowotto told them they would meet with opposition from the inhabitants further north.
Guided by another two Aboriginal men, Burke's party soon reached Lake Altiboulka (Altoka) and then travelled through the Caryapundy floodplains to the Bulloo River, which was also known as Wright's Creek. At the Bulloo, they encountered around 120 Aboriginal residents and at times used their pathways to make their way to Cooper Creek, which they arrived at on 11 November.