Edmund Kennedy

Edmund Besley Court Kennedy ( September 5, 1818 - December 1848 ) was an Australian explorer . He was a close associate of Sir Thomas Mitchell . Kennedy was scouting the hinterland of Queensland and New South Wales from. He explored the Thomson River , the Barcoo River , Cooper Creek and the Cape York Peninsula, among others .

Kennedy was born on the Channel Island of Guernsey in 1818 . In 1840 he emigrated to New South Wales (Australia) and became a land surveyor . He was killed in December 1848 on the Cape York Peninsula in an attack by the Aborigines on his reconnaissance party.

The Australian Edmund Kennedy National Park is named after him.

Expeditions

Kennedy's second and third expeditions to Australia, 1847 and 1848

First expedition

Edmund Kennedy was selected by Thomas Mitchell for an expedition to North Queensland in 1845 . In November they left New South Wales to find an overland route to the Gulf of Carpentaria . The expedition did not reach this goal, but they discovered a river, which they named "Victoria Stream". In January 1847 they returned to Sydney.

Second expedition

In 1847 Kennedy led a new expedition to find out whether the Victoria Stream flows into the Gulf of Carpentaria. The expedition left New South Wales on March 13, 1847 and followed the river to Cooper's Creek, which silted up in the desert. In doing so, they had proven that the river did not reach the Gulf of Carpentaria. Kennedy renamed the Victoria Stream after an Aboriginal name in " Barcoo River ". It reached Sydney again on February 7, 1848 .

Last expedition

On his last expedition, Kennedy was again sent to northern Australia to find a cheap inland route from the Gulf of Carpentaria to Sydney. On April 29, 1848 Edmund Kennedy and his crew left Sydney Harbor in the barque Tam O 'Shanter with the HMS Rattlesnake . In northern Queensland, however, Kennedy was killed by locals near Cape York .

Web links

• Journey of HMS Rattlesnake - sketches (English)