Ludwig Leichhardt
Prussian-born naturalist and explorer Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt (1813 – c. 1848) studied philosophy, language, and natural sciences in various institutions in Germany, England, and France without following a prescribed curriculum or formally completing a degree. He then undertook fieldwork in France, Italy, and Switzerland before deciding to pursue his interests in Australia.
Leichhardt arrived in Sydney in February 1842, hoping to obtain a government appointment that would allow him to pursue his interests in inland Australia. After a visit to the Hunter River valley to study the region's geology, flora and fauna in September 1842, he set out on a collecting journey that took him from Newcastle to Moreton Bay. He returned to Sydney early in 1844, hoping to participate in a government-sponsored expedition from Moreton Bay to Port Essington. When plans for the expedition fell through, Leichhardt organised a privately sponsored expedition, which left Sydney in August 1844 to sail to Moreton Bay. The expedition departed on 1 October 1844 from Jimbour homestead on the Darling Downs at the start of October, moved along the Great Dividing Range to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and then crossed Arnhem Land to reach Port Essington on 17 December 1845 after a 4,800-kilometre overland trek. Her received a hero's welcome when he returned to Sydney on 25 March 1846.
A second expedition, subsidised by a government grant and attempting to cross the continent from east to west, attracted substantial private subscriptions and set out from the Darling Downs in December 1846 bound for the west coast, the Swan River, and Perth. However, heavy rain, malarial fever, and rugged terrain meant the party covered only eight hundred kilometres before turning back. Leichhardt blamed his men for the expedition's failure; they blamed his leadership, including his failure to carry medical supplies. Whatever the reason, Leichhardt seems to have suffered a nervous breakdown. Aboriginal guide Harry Brown brought them back to the Darling Downs.
After recovering from malaria, Leichhardt spent six weeks in 1847 examining the course of the Condamine River and the country between his route and that of another expedition led by Sir Thomas Mitchell in 1846. A second attempt to cross the continent set out from the Condamine in 1848. The party consisted of Leichhardt, four Europeans, two Aboriginal guides, seven horses, twenty mules and fifty bullocks. The party was last seen at Allan Macpherson's Cogoon run, an outlying part of Mount Abundance Station, west of Roma, on 3 April 1848. Although many search parties have attempted to investigate Leichhardt's disappearance, his fate remains a mystery. His journey had been expected to take two to three years, but when no sign or word was received, it was assumed that he and the rest of the party had perished, possibly somewhere in the Great Sandy Desert.
Various search parties, including those led by Hovenden Hely, Augustus Gregory and Duncan McIntyre, found trees marked with an "L". An 1869 Western Australian expedition led by John Forrest drew a blank. David Carnegie's 1896 expedition through the Gibson and Great Sandy Deserts encountered Aborigines carrying items that may have been relics of the Leichhardt expedition. A small brass plate found in 1900 bearing Leichhardt's name suggests he made it at least two-thirds of the way across the continent in a northern arc following the headwaters of rivers rather than heading straight through the desert interior.
Before his disappearance, Leichhardt made significant contributions to European knowledge of the country's flora and fauna, and his expedition journal is a classic narrative of Australian exploration. Although aspects of his leadership have attracted criticism, Leichhardt's accounts and collections were valued, and he was one of the most authoritative and best-trained natural scientists to explore 19th-century Australia. His disappearance remains one of the enduring mysteries of Australian history.
