Edmund Kennedy
Guernsey-born explorer Edmund Besley Court Kennedy J. P. (1818 – 1848) obtained a certificate in surveying from King's College London after a stint working in a business house in Rio de Janeiro and set sail for New South Wales in November 1839. After arriving in Sydney in March 1840, he passed an examination, was employed as assistant surveyor in the Surveyor-General's Department, and accompanied Captain Charles Tyers on an overland journey to Melbourne and Portland Bay to take up surveying duties. Although his work there impressed Surveyor-General Sir Thomas Mitchell, an altercation with the local magistrate and an indiscreet affair with an Irish immigrant girl produced an illegitimate daughter and a minor scandal that saw Kennedy recalled to Sydney in May 1843 and placed on half-pay.
Since land sales had fallen off, surveying work was hard to come by, but after a lengthy period of inactivity. Kennedy picked up a position as second-in-command of Sir Thomas Mitchell's expedition to find an overland route to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Mitchell was convinced that a significant river must run northwest to the Gulf. The expedition set off from Sydney in mid-November 1845 and tracked north to a location on the Balonne River near the present town of St George. Mitchell established a depot and set out northwards with a small party. After allowing time for the livestock to refresh, Kennedy would follow with the bulk of the expedition.
Following the Balonne took Mitchell too far north-east, so he veered west to the Maranoa. Kennedy and the main party caught up at the beginning of June 1846 but were left behind again as Mitchell continued to probe towards the northwest. When Mitchell found a river he named the Victoria that seemed to be flowing in the right direction, his supplies were almost exhausted. After he returned to Kennedy's depot in mid-October, the expedition beat a retreat to Sydney, arriving three months later.
Although Kennedy had spent most of his time in charge of the base camp, his leadership qualities and technical skills impressed Mitchell enough to recommend him as leader of a party of eight, which set off from Sydney on 13 March 1847 to determine the course of Mitchell's Victoria. By mid-August, near where Mitchell turned back, Kennedy decided to bury the bulk of his supplies in an enormous trench and proceed by packhorse.
From there, Kennedy followed the Victoria and found that instead of flowing to the Gulf, it flowed southwest to join Cooper's Creek. Kennedy renamed the 'Victoria' the Barcoo and decided to make a dash for the Gulf. That notion evaporated when he returned to the buried cache of supplies and found it had been tampered with. On the return journey, Kennedy discovered and named the Thomson River, followed the Warrego until it split into a multitude of channels, crossed southeast to the Culgoa and arrived in Sydney on 7 February 1848.
Since Kennedy proved himself a capable leader, his next assignment was more ambitious. Following a suggestion by Captain Owen Stanley of HMS Rattlesnake, Kennedy's party would land at Rockingham Bay, follow Cape York Peninsula's eastern coast to the continent's northern extremity after replenishing his supplies at Princess Charlotte Bay. After resupplying at the tip, Kennedy would continue down the Cape's west coast, link up with recent discoveries by Leichhardt and Mitchell and return to Sydney.
Kennedy's thirteen-man party sailed from Sydney on 28 April 1848 in the barque Tam O' Shanter, escorted by HMS Rattlesnake, and arrived in Rockingham Bay on 20 May. However, when the party landed four days later, they were hemmed in by mangrove swamps, rivers and mountains covered with thick rainforest. Two months later, still in about the same latitude, the party was a little over thirty kilometres inland. Once they had ascended the mountains, the going became easier, but sickness, a growing shortage of supplies, and extreme fatigue slowed them down. The slow start had effectively sealed their fate. They were two months late for the rendezvous at Princess Charlotte Bay. In any case, the supply ship could not get close enough to the shoreline to make the resupplying mission feasible.
Eventually, on 13 November, Kennedy decided to leave eight men at Weymouth Bay while he and four others made forced marches to the top of the Cape. Then, after crossing the Pascoe River, one of the party accidentally shot himself while tending his horse, so two others were left behind at Shelburne Bay to care for him. Kennedy and the Aboriginal tracker Jackey Jackey continued towards the rendezvous. By the second week of December, they were about thirty-two kilometres from the supply ship, hemmed in by the Escape River, crocodile-infested mangrove swamps, thick scrubs and increasingly hostile local people.
Kennedy was speared several times and died in Jackey Jackey's arms. After about ten days without supplies, Jackey Jackey reached the Ariel alone on 23 December 1848. When the Ariel made its way to Shelburne Bay, a search party found a few relics but no sign of the three men left there. William Carron and William Goddard were found to be the only survivors when the ship reached Weymouth Bay. The expedition's three surviving members returned to Sydney in May 1849.
