Charles Sturt
From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change
| Charles Sturt | |
 |
|
| Born | 28 April 1795 India |
|---|---|
| Died | 16 June 1869 England |
| Occupation | Soldier, Explorer of Australia, Farmer |
Charles Sturt (April 28, 1795 - June 16, 1869[1]) was an English explorer of Australia including the Murray River and the Murrumbidgee River. He was looking for an inland sea.
Sturt was born in India where his father was a judge. He went to England to go to school and in 1813 he joined the British Army. He served in France and Ireland. In 1826 Sturt went back to England and was then sent to Australia in charge of a group of convicts (criminals). On November 10 1828 Sturt was made leader of a group of 13 men (including explorer Hamilton Hume) which went to find the path of the Macquarie River. He followed the Macquarie River, the Bogan River and the Castlereagh River and found the Darling River which he named after Sir Ralph Darling, Governor of New South Wales.
Contents |
[change] Murrumbidgee - Murray Discovery
People at this time thought that Australia's inland rivers which flowed west, must have flowed into an inland sea. On November 3 1829 Sturt led another group of 8 men to follow the path of the Murrumbidgee River[2]. They went west from Sydney until they reached the Murrumbidgee near the present site of Jugiong and traveled along the river bank as far as the Lachlan River. From there Sturt used a small boat to travel down the river and reached the Murray River on January 14, 1830 which he named after Sir George Murray, a British politician. The group continued down the river and reached Lake Alexandrina (named after Princess Alexandrina, later Queen Victoria 1819 - 1901) on February 9, 1830. After finding where the Murray entered the sea, the group then had the difficult and tiring work of rowing the boat back up the river. They left the river near the present site of Narrandera on April 11, 1830 and then walked back to Sydney, getting there on May 25, 1830. Sturt became very sick after the trip and became blind (unable to see).
[change] Retirement from the Army
Sturt was sent to Norfolk Island in August 1830 on military duty. He stayed there until January 1832 and then went back to Sydney. Unable to get more important work and still unable to see properly, he went to England and left the army in July 1833. He wrote a book called "Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, 1828 - 1831"[3]. Sturt was rewarded with a large amount (5000 acres) of land in New South Wales, and in September 1834 sailed to Sydney with his new wife, Charlotte Green.
[change] Farmer
When he got back to Australia, he took up land near Canberra, then land at Mittagong, and in 1837 lived at Varroville, a farm near Liverpool. Sturt took a herd of cattle overland to Adelaide in 1838. He did more exploring around Adelaide including a trip back to Lake Alexandrina, and north to St.Vincent's Gulf. He moved his family to Adelaide in 1839.
[change] Government Administrator
Sturt was made the Surveyor-General (person in charge of surveying) by the Governor of South Australia, but a new surveyor arrived who had been put in charge by the government in England. He worked as Assisant Land Commissioner until this job was abolished (stopped) by England. For a short time he was paid less to work as Registrar-General. He was unhappy, and hoped a new expedition would improve his chances of a better job. He wanted to go into the middle of Australia and look for a inland sea.
[change] Central Australian Expedition
Sturt and 16 men left Adelaide on August 15, 1844 and followed the Darling River north to Menindee Laidley's Ponds. On January 15, 1845 the group rested for 6 months at the present site of Milparinka. The man who was second in charge, James Poole, died from scurvy. Sturt moved the group west to Fort Grey. His path west was blocked by Lake Blanche, so he took a small group north west between Cooper Creek and the Diamantina River. Here he found a desert of stone, called gibbers, which was difficult to cross. This desert has been named Sturt's Stony Desert. By September 1845 he had reached the Simpson Desert and could go no further. He went back 713 kilometres to Fort Grey.
He then tried to go north, getting close to the present site of Birdsville before the Stony Desert stopped him. It was very hot, his thermometer burst at 53 degrees Celsius and Sturt decided to go back to Adelaide, getting there on January 19, 1846. He was unhappy as he had not found a sea, or reached the centre of Australia.
[change] Return to England
In February 1846 Sturt was made Colonial Treasurer, he also received a gold medal from the Royal Geographical Society. He went to England and wrote a book Narrative of an Expedition into Central Australia[4] before going back to Adelaide. He was made a member of the South Australian parliament. He retired from work at the end of 1851 and in 1853 took his family back to England. He asked to be made Governor of Victoria, and later Governor of Queensland, but it did not happen. He died suddenly in 1869, just after being nominated for K.C.M.G., a British knighthood.
[change] References
- Australian Encyclopaedia, pub. Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1958
- Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, 1828 - 1831 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Two_expeditions_into_the_interior_of_Southern_Australia
