Edmund Colson
Edmund Albert (Ted) Colson (born June 3, 1881 in Richmans Creek near Quorn in South Australia , Australia , † February 27, 1950 in Adelaide , South Australia) was an Australian explorer who in 1936 was the first Australian of European descent to cross the Simpson Desert .
Early life
Edmund Colson grew up in a family with eight children. He was the eldest child of Peter Errick Colson (Carlsen), a farmer from Sweden, and his second wife, Ellen Amy, née Lines, from Great Britain. He went to Yatina Public School . In 1896 he was a gold prospector with his father on the Norseman gold fields and by 1904 an entrepreneur in Kalgoorlie . In 1917 he worked on the construction of the Maaroondah dam . In 1926 he founded a freight forwarding company with which he transported goods between Healesville and Melbourne with motorized vehicles. In 1927 he was working on the extension of the railway line in the north of Oodnadatta in the Simpson desert. In 1931 he leased Blood Creek Station , a sheep station near Abminga in northwest Oodnadatta. There he also ran a merchandise store and was involved in drilling for water.
In 1904 he had married Alice Jane Horne; the marriage remained childless.
Explorer
In 1928 Colson embarked on a voyage of discovery west of the Goyder River and discovered the northern route through the Musgrave Ranges . He was a camel driver and guide on Michael Terry's expedition through the Petermann and Tomkinson Ranges in the 1930s . He also served as the guide of the anthropological field study west of Charlotte Waters that Adolphus Peter Elkin was conducting. During the expeditions, Colson benefited from the fact that he spoke several Aboriginal languages and knew the customs and traditions of the Aborigines.
The great Australian explorers Charles Sturt and David Lindsay had failed on the more than 885 kilometer long crossing of the Simpson desert. In the middle of 1936 he and Eringa Peter from the Aboriginal tribe of Antakurinya made the first crossing of the Simpson Desert with five camels.
Late life
Edmund Colson continued to study expeditions and Aboriginal culture. He later settled in Finke in the Northern Territory , where he founded Colson Trading Co. On February 27, 1950, he died at Balaklava near Adelaide of the consequences of a car accident.
Afterlife
His manuscript Legend of the Innja and his correspondence from 1931 to 1932 with the anthropologist Norman Tindale about the Antakurinya dream time are kept in the South Australian Museum .
A memorial to Colson was erected in Birdsville in 1973 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d adb.anu.edu.au : Colson Edmund Albert, 1881-1973 , in English, accessed April 2, 2013
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Colson, Edmund |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Colson, Edmund Albert; Ted |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Explorer in Australia |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 3, 1881 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Richmans Creek , Quorn , South Australia , Australia |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 27, 1950 |
| Place of death | Balaklava , Adelaide , Australia |