STUART OF THE TERRITORY
“…SOUTH AUSTRALIAN EXPLORER, WHO FIRST CROSSED THE CONTINENT…”
A rather short (168cm) and puny man (54kg) John McDouall Stuart – who first crossed the vastness of the Northern Territory in Australia – was born on September 7, 1815, at Dysart, Fifeshire, in Scotland, far away from the harsh wilderness where today his memory is honoured in many forms.
Over his short life, Stuart proved himself to be a strong, dogged bushman, a natural leader of men, and a man of faith and moral rectitude.
He dedicated his most productive years to blazing tracks across the inhospitable wastes of the Australian deserts, suffering starvation, thirst, sickness, attacks by hostile Aboriginal tribes, desertion and betrayal by many he trusted with an ever open heart.
Educated in Edinburgh, he attended the Scottish Naval and Military Academy, graduating as a civil engineer, Stuart later worked spasmodically as a clerk and a draftsman.
Hating being indoors, he sailed from Dundee on September 13, 1838, on the barque, “Indus,” aged 23, arriving in South Australia in January, 1839. Adelaide, only about two year’s old, was a conglomeration of crude bush huts with dirt floors.
The Scottish immigrant possibly suffered from undiagnosed tuberculosis. During the long voyage he had severe attacks of vomiting blood, it was noticed.
In South Australia, the young traveller worked for a time as a surveyor in unsettled country, working privately for speculators, William Finke, and James Chambers – both of whom were later to finance Stuart’s explorations into Australia’s unchartered hinterlands.
Dabbling with copper mining and surveying, Stuart was said to be very restless; he disliked living and sleeping indoors and was yearning for more an itinerant life in a pioneering role where he might pit his energies and wits against the forces of nature.
In 1844 Stuart accompanied the English explorer, Charles Sturt, in his search for a mythical “inland sea”, becoming the leader’s second-in-command.
About this time Stuart fell into the bad habit of wastefully squandering his pay cheques on extravagant drinking sprees with his friends, a life style that gradually led him into alcoholism.
In 1858, aged 42, Stuart embarked on his second inland expedition, funded by his friend, Finke.
He set out with an assistant and an Aboriginal (later to desert), six horses, flour, plus meat and tea to last six weeks.
Along the way, Stuart came across a place where tribal warfare was evident. He found lying on his back the corpse of a tall Aboriginal man, the skull shattered, and both feet and hands severed. Nearby was a tuft of human hair intertwined with emu feathers, and placed between two burnt pieces of wood.The site was presumed to be a place or burial or mortuary rites. Unimagined was the prospect of cannibalism – quite common among many Aboriginal groups.
The explorer discovered, within four months, 40,000 square miles of potential pastoral lands.
Back in Adelaide, his diary and maps were offered freely to the government.
Although promised 1,000 square miles of the new country he had traversed, he, in fact, received nothing but a gold watch presented to him by the Royal Geographical Society, of London.
Stuart’s third expedition, in 1859, travelled north to the arid Lake Eyre, his goal being to reach South Australia’s northern border.
He eventually returned to Adelaide with his companions, David Herrgott (botanist) and Louis Muller (stockman) three months after his departure.
In the same year (1859) the Scottish adventurer started his fourth expedition in an attempt to cross Australia from south to north, one of the incentives being that the government were offering a two thousand pound ($4,000) reward for the first person to cover the continent and determine a suitable route for the proposed Overland Telegraph Line.
Along the way, his men rebelled when rations were halved. Stuart dismissed them.
A well-liked and trusted assistant, William Kekwick, was retained and asked to recruit more men as replacements.
Kekwick was only able to employ one new man, Benjamin Head, and secured 13 new horses.
The newly-formed contingent left Chamber Creek in March, 1860.
Due to a scarcity of rations and the blistering outback country, all the men developed scurvy and rapidly lost weight, while Stuart was also steadily losing the sight in his right eye.
The party discovered a stream on April 4, which Stuart named the Finke River after his benefactor, William Finke.
They followed this “beautiful creek” across the northern border of South Australia to encounter an unusual geological oddity which was called “Chamber’s Pillar”.
Further north, the explorers were blocked by a magnificent mountain range which Stuart incorrectly spelt as the “McDonnell Range” after the governor of South Australia, Sir Robert Graves MacDonnell.
His journal notes: “This is the only real range I have met with since leaving the Flinders Range …”
The explorers found a route through the ranges via Brinkley Bluff (roughly, 72 kms west of the modern Alice Springs, or 49 kms as the crow flies).
A permanent rock hole still further north he called “Anna’s Reservoir” after Chamber’s youngest daughter.
On April 22, 1860, Stuart calculated he had reached “the centre of Australia,” where, on a nearby mountain, he had constructed a cairn of stones and raised a flag, calling the site “Mt. Sturt” after his fellow explorer.
This was later changed (by James Chambers, some claim) to “Central Mount Stuart.”
His journal noted: “My mouth and gums are now so bad I am obliged to eat boiled flour and water … pains in my limbs and muscles are almost insufferable … The last two nights have been most excruciating, one continual gnawing pain from head to foot with occasional most violent pains darting through the whole body that is almost beyond endurance; so much so that last night I almost wished that death would come and remove me from my fearful torture … I cannot long endure nights such as the last. I am so weak ….”
Stuart’s journal documents many incidents involving confrontations with wild Aborigines, whose favourite ploy was to fire the grass around the white men’s camps.
Along the Hugh River the explorers one time startled an Aboriginal man, his wife and child while fishing.
He wrote: “ … They did not see us until I called to them. The female was the first who left the water; she ran to the bank, took up the child, and made for a tree, up which she climbed, pushing her young one up before her … The man (an old fellow), tall, stout, and robust … ascended the bank, and had a look at us; he then addressed us in his own language and seemed to work himself up into a great passion … spitting fiercely at us like an old tiger …”
Near Katherine, the explorer wrote: “If the natives we have seen today are a sample of those that inhabit this country, they are certainly the smallest and most miserable race of men that I have ever seen …”
But, perhaps, the most extraordinary journal entry of all was recorded on June 23, 1860, when Stuart wrote: “One was an old (Aboriginal) man, and seemed to be the father of these two fine young men … After some time, and having conferred with his two sons, he turned around, and surprised me by giving me one of the Masonic signs. I looked at him steadily; he repeated it, and so did his two sons. I then returned it, which seemed to please them much, the old man patting me on the shoulder and stroking down my beard …”
Which begs the question: From where did tribal Aborigines in the wilds of northern Australia learn clandestine Masonic signs?
The Aborigines left behind two possums as a farewell gift.
The fifth expedition, “The South Australian Great Northern Expedition 1861-62,” – to become a mammoth 6,400 km journey across the centre of the Australian continent – commenced from Chamber’s Creek on January, 1861, with eleven offsiders and 46 horses, including favourite mounts named Gloag, Creamy, Polly, Wilberforce, Bagot, Rockaback and Teaser.
The original group were William Darton Kekwick, Francis W. Thring , Frederick George Waterhouse, Stephen King Jnr., W. P. Auld, James Frew Jnr., Heath Nash, and James Jeffries.
His diary daily records descriptions of country passed through: digging for water at the Finke River, getting rain at the MacDonnell Ranges, and discovering the dreaded Sturt’s Plains.
Aborigines constantly accosted the explorers, frequently setting the grass on fire around their camps and upsetting the horses.
Aggressive Aborigines were kept away with warning shots, though none were ever injured or killed.
Stuart’s sixth expedition was launched from Adelaide on October 26, 1861, and lasted for 15 torturous months.
On the first day, in an encounter with a difficult horse, Stuart had his right hand crushed, an accident which ultimately resulted in the hand becoming permanently useless.
The team initially consisted of 11 men and 71 horses.
Their journey north was again thwarted by the blistering Sturt Plains, necessitating four attempts before safely crossing it successfully.
In later years, Auld remembered: “… Our minor troubles, the ants, the sandflies, the common flies, and the mosquitoes… From the time we struck the Roper until we left it, the mosquitoes and flies were terrible. Our hands, wrists, necks and feet were all blistered with their bites, and many earnest inquiries were made as to who could explain their use in this world. One of the party thought they were sent to teach a man how to swear fluently”.
Pools along the way were named after the explorers, but were later changed to satisfy the egos of parliamentarians in South Australia who thought they had been overlooked.
The makeshift ambulance which carried the debilitated explorer across hundreds of kilometers of the Northern Territory:
On July 24, 1862, Stuart’s party gratefully sighted the Indian Ocean.
On a tree in the vicinity the initials “J.M.D.S.” were carved.
His journal noted: “While taking a drink of water, I was seized by a violent fit of vomiting blood and mucus … and has nearly killed me.”
Other laboured journal entries state: “I thought my career in this world was coming quickly to a close … I am yet suffering very much from scurvy, my teeth and gums are so bad that it causes me excessive pain to eat anything, and that which I do eat I am unable to masticate properly, which causes me to feel very ill indeed … My sight has been very much impaired during the last month, after sundown I am in total darkness. Even though the moon is full and shining bright and clear to the others, to me it is darkness; I can see her dimly but she gives me no more light than if she had been painted on a piece of canvas. I am now quite incapable of taking observations at night … What a miserable life mine is now. I get no rest night or day from this terrible gnawing pain, the nights are too long and the days are too long, and I am so weak that I am hardly able to move about the camp … I am afraid soon I shall not be able to sit in the saddle …”
On arrival at his southern destination, Stuart was seen to be obviously ill and largely incapacitated; he was damaged by scurvy, was virtually blind and could barely stay on his horse.
So bad had been his general physical condition, he needed to be carried on a sling, hung between two horses, over 400-odd miles of extremely rough terrain.
Almost totally blind, his hand uselessly crippled, on his return to Adelaide, Stuart was eventually paid the equivalent of $4,000 by the South Australian government, much of which was invested on his behalf, giving him $324 per year.
His health was ever afterwards deteriorating.
The 14-year-old son of a station owner, G. Hawker, remembered John McDouall Stuart in 1864: “Oh, he was such a funny little man. He was always drunk … Once when he got to Papa’s stations … he shut himself up in a room, and was drunk for three days.”
John McDouall Stuart sailed back to England in April, 1864, to live in London with his widowed sister, Mary.
He came to be afflicted with “confusion of mind … loss of memory, decline of power to spell conventionally … difficulty of speech … half foolish.”
In 1865, pressured by the Royal Geographical Society, the South Australian government resolved to pay Stuart “a sum … not exceeding one thousand pounds ($2,000) as recognition of his great service to the Australian community ….”
At a Glasgow reunion, where Stuart was supposed to give an address, it became obvious to everyone that the old explorer was in a bad state: … “his eyesight and his memory were so far gone that he was unable to compose a speech, or to recall many of the incidents that had occurred throughout his Australian exploring adventures.”
John McDouall Stuart, his health irrevocably damaged, finally passed away on June 5, 1866, in London, aged 50 years.
Stuart’s death certificate stated that the cause of death was due to a “softening and degeneration of the brain with a final cerebral haemorrhage.”
The softening and degeneration of the brain indicates dementia, and it is also likely that Stuart suffered atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries frequently associated with excessive smoking, but possibly due to his prolonged vitamin deficiency.
Of his former companions, William Keckwick died in 1872, aged 49; Francis Thring died in 1908, aged 71; J. Woodforde (deserted en route); F. G. Waterhouse (the great-great grandfather of the Australian astronaut, Andy Thomas) died in 1898, aged 83; S. King died on October 7, 1915; W. Auld died on September 2, 1912; J. Frew died in 1877, aged 34; J. Billiatt died in April, 1919; H. Nash died on December 12, 1913, aged 72; John McGorrerey died insane in hospital on January 9, 1914, aged 73, and James Jeffries was dismissed following a dispute with his leader.
Stuart’s grave is in the Kensal Green Cemetery, near London.
Only seven mourners attended his funeral.
The grave’s original headstone was erected by his sister, Mary Turnbull. This was purportedly bomb- damaged during World War 2.
The inscription reads:
TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN McDOUALL STUART, SOUTH AUSTRALIAN EXPLORER, WHO FIRST CROSSED THE CONTINENT FROM THE SOUTH TO THE INDIAN OCEAN. BORN 1815. DIED 1866. ERECTED BY HIS SISTER.”
Neither the governments of South Australia or England contributed anything to his burial or paid any tributes to the man or his splendid achievements.
Mr Murray Olsson, the Curator of the Masonic Centre Museum, in Adelaide, South Australia, comments:
“In the 1950s the Royal Geographical Society, in Adelaide, and the Northern Territory government, opened a Trust Fund (to fully restore Stuart’s grave site). This was the result of a visit to the grave … by the then Surveyor-General of the Northern Territory, Mr V. T. O’Brien. A substantial sum of money was raised and, to this day, money remains in the John McDouall Stuart Trust Fund for repairs …
“In 1998, the Old Treasury Building – one of the most important buildings in the history of South Australia – was sold by the State government for re-development.
“In January, 2001, with the help of the History Trust of South Australia, I was able to obtain State government approval for the Stuart Collection to be removed to the Adelaide Masonic Centre … Stuart became a Freemason in 1860 …
“The collection is wide-ranging, with items from all members of Stuart’s team … “The Royal Geographical Society also hold some important history in the Mortlock Library (containing) Stuart’s hand-written journal, along with a number of other artefacts – e.g., a chair and table made by Stuart.”
-C. O’Roie.
Footnote:
In Alice Springs, a site for a John McDouall Stuart Memorial was suggested in 1933 and was resolved in 1937-38 by the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, South Australia. The Memorial was constructed and completed. On July 3, 1939, it was unveiled by governor-general, Lord Gowrie, with “a happy little ceremony.”
The wording on the plaque is a little misleading in that it states the Stuart party crossed the MacDonnell Ranges “hereabouts.” Actually, the explorers crossed the Ranges at Brinkley Bluff, which is about 49 kilometres west of Alice Springs, or 72 kilometres by track.
To correct any misunderstandings, a second plaque was installed on the Stuart Memorial in 1960 depicting a map clearly indicating Stuart’s westward path. When viewed in August, 2004, the latter plaque, heavily damaged with graffiti, was virtually unreadable, and the Alice Springs council were notified.
Stuart memorial in Alice Springs
References:
John McDouall Stuart, M. Webster, Melbourne University Press, 1958. The Heroic Journey of John McDouall Stuart, Ian Mudie, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1968. Australian Explorers: John McDouall Stuart, Oxford University Press, Sydney. The History of Australian Exploration 1788-1888, Ernest Favenc, Golden Press.
Derek Poolier, of the Masonic Lodge, Alice Springs, and Murray Olsson, curator of the Masonic Centre Museum, Adelaide, in South Australia. Special thanks to Mandy Treloar, archivist, Alice Springs library.
I live at the foot of that range where the Cairn is built and still exists today. Mobile 0401079139 home ph:08 89 550 971
— Arapata Mackay · 18 06 2008 - 15:48 · #