Calvert expedition
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The Calvert Expedition ( Calvert Scientific Exploring Expedition ) led from 1896 to 1897 through central and northern Western Australia . When the expedition got into trouble due to lack of water and sick camels, two participants left the group looking for a place and were killed in the process.
Order and participants
The name of the expedition goes back to Albert Frederick Calvert , a London- based mining engineer and multiple author who proposed and wanted to finance the expedition of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia from South Australia . In addition to a cartographic assignment, traces of the missing explorer Ludwig Leichhardt and a route for drovers from the Northern Territory to the western gold fields of Australia were to be found.
Lawrence Allen Wells was appointed expedition leader, other expedition participants were his cousin Charles Wells as deputy expedition leader, George Jones, a mineralogist and photographer, George Arthur Keartland, a naturalist and James Trainor with the Afghan camel drivers Dervish Bejah and Said Ameer.
course
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The expedition started on June 13, 1896 with 20 camels in Mullewa in Western Australia northwards towards the Fitzroy River , a place in the western Kimberleys . On July 21, she reached the end of the previously explored area and the known watering holes, and the Great Sandy Desert in early August . This is where the problems began, they couldn't find any water and camels became sick because they ate poisonous plants. In October the expedition split up, Lawrence Wells and George Jones set out to find a location that was marked on their map. Then they wanted to join the main group again, but the registered place turned out to be a map error, it didn't exist there. When the main expedition made its way from Derby to Fitzroy Crossing on November 9th, its survival was assured. In Derby, Charles Wells sent a telegram to the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia informing them that two expedition members were missing. On November 13th, the main group reached their destination, Quanbun Station. The Royal Society announced that it had no news of the arrival of the two missing expedition members. Then several search expeditions started, one of which found the mummified corpses on May 27, 1897. The found diary of George Jones made it possible to trace the date and cause of death. Both wanted to return to the main group, had followed their tracks, could no longer reach it and died around November 21, 1896 as a result of lack of water and extreme heat. Their bodies were transported to Adelaide , where they were buried in a government-organized funeral on July 18, 1897.
Aftermath
Albert Calvert could not bear the cost of the expedition and the governments of South Australia and Western Australia had to stand up for it. Charles Wells was heavily criticized in the press despite a parliamentary inquiry found him guilty.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wendy Birman: Calvert, Albert Frederick (1872–1946) , In: Australian Dictionary of Biography of May 26, 2012. (English)
- ↑ a b c Taking it to the edge: Land: Calvert expedition . In: State Library of South Australia of February 5, 2007. (English)