QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

There is more to the story of this great man’s journeys across Queensland and Australia than the lasting mystery of his disappearance, as Robin Kleinschmidt and others explain. Natural scientist and explorer, Ludwig Leichhardt’s place in the history of Australia has been made permanent in its geography. Place names ranging from a suburb in Ipswich, suburb and municipality in Sydney, Leichhardt Streets in Brisbane, Sunbury in Victoria, and Bull Creek in Western Australia – along with highways, rivers and mountain ranges, an electorate and a national park – all remind us of the name. Many remember Leichhardt for the mystery of the disappearance of he and his party on his third expedition across Australia, but what do we really know of the man before he vanished? Born in 1813 in Trebatsch in Brandenburg (about 150km southeast of Berlin) into a middle-class family, Ludwig was the fourth son and sixth of eight children. Between 1831 and 1836 he studied philosophy, languages and natural science at the universities in Berlin and Göttingen, but did not receive a degree. Aside from philosophy and languages, the natural sciences were his main interest, and he continued his studies in London and Paris, extending this with field work in Italy, France and Switzerland. On the recommendation of an English colleague, he sailed for Australia, arriving in February 1842. His primary objective was exploration of the flora, fauna and geology from his naturalist’s perspective. After an initial sortie into the Hunter Valley, he set out on a solo expedition to collect specimens between Newcastle and Moreton Bay. When he returned to Sydney in 1844, he found the government planning an expedition from Moreton Bay to Port Essington in the far north of what is now the Northern Territory. Those plans came to naught, so Leichhardt decided to mount his own with the support of volunteers and financed by private funding. The government, still hoping to establish an overland route to the north, and a connection with Singapore, gave its support but without a financial contribution. In August 1844 the party sailed to Moreton Bay, where Leichhardt visited the Gossner missionaries at Zion Hill (German Station), and commented favourably on their dedication, probity and sober lifestyle. The group then travelled to Jimbour station on the northern Darling Downs, the furthest limit of white settlement in 1844, where they were joined by a final contingent of four men. Setting off on 1 October, Leichhardt’s lengthy and detailed journal recorded the epic journey through 3,000 miles (4,800km) of country almost entirely unknown to Europeans. Ludwig Leichhardt

By the time they reached Port Essington over 14 months later on 17 December 1845, the party had long been given up as lost. He had completed one of the longest journeys of exploration in Australia’s European history and returned to a hero’s welcome, his discoveries of expansive pastoral lands causing great excitement throughout the colony. A year later Leichhardt set out again, leaving Moreton Bay in December 1846. This expedition received some government funding to supplement private subscriptions, its optimistic intention to cross the continent from east to west, from the Darling Downs to the Swan River settlement of Perth. However the party, beset by multiple difficulties with flooding rains, dwindling provisions and malarial fever, returned after seven months in June 1847, having penetrated only 800km into the interior of the country. After recovering, Leichhardt undertook another lengthy expedition on the western Darling Downs and beyond, tracing the course of the Condamine River and charting a large tract of previously unknown country. His thorough documentation of his journeys and his scientific findings won him recognition in Europe. On his return, he learned he was one of two people awarded the Paris Geographical Society’s annual prize for 1847. His expedition to Port Essington also won him the Patron’s Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in London for the “increased knowledge of the great continent of Australia” which it had generated. The latter medal is now in the possession of the National Museum of Australia. His vision of crossing the continent had not died. In March 1848 he set out once more from the Condamine River and, with his departure from Coogoon Station in the Maranoa on 3 April 1848, this was to be the last recorded sighting of Ludwig Leichhardt and his party. Above: A group of gentlemen in 1914 stand by the so-called “Leichhardt’s Tree” on the banks of the Dawson River at Taroom in central Queensland; the knot in the trunk has the distinct ‘L’ carved in it, seen (opposite) in a different close-up. Images Copyright State of Queensland

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