Burke, Robert O’Hara (1821?-1861), was an Irish-born explorer who led the first expedition that crossed the Australian continent from south to north. Although the group successfully reached the Gulf of Carpentaria, Burke died during the return journey.
Burke was born at St. Clerans, in County Galway, Ireland, probably in 1821. He was educated at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, England. He served in the Austrian army as a lieutenant in the cavalry. He left the army in 1848 and returned to Ireland, where he worked as a police officer. In 1853, he migrated to Australia, where he served as a police officer in the colony of Victoria.
In 1857, the Royal Society of Victoria, an organization that promotes science and discovery, organized the Victorian Exploring Committee. The group provided support for an expedition to cross Australia from Melbourne in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance of some 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers). Although he had no experience as an explorer, Burke was chosen to lead the expedition.
The party of 19 men, wagons of supplies, and horses and camels set out from Melbourne on Aug. 20, 1860. The expedition reached Menindee, on the Darling River, in early October. Burke was an impatient and impulsive leader, and his second-in-command resigned at Menindee. Burke appointed surveyor William John Wills to the position.
Burke left many of his supplies and some of the men in Menindee with instructions to follow him soon. He and a smaller group headed north and reached Cooper’s Creek (now known as Cooper Creek) in southwestern Queensland in November. Burke again split the group, leaving four men to maintain a base camp at Cooper’s Creek under the direction of William Brahe. Burke, Wills, John King, and Charles Gray continued north through the Stony Desert. They completed their journey to the Gulf of Carpentaria on Feb. 11, 1861.
The four men then began the return trip. Gray died during the journey. Burke, Wills, and King arrived at the Cooper’s Creek camp on the evening of April 21. They found the camp had been abandoned that morning, but Brahe had left supplies buried under a marked tree that later became known as the “Dig Tree.” Burke determined that their best chance for survival was to travel about 150 miles (240 kilometers) to Mount Hopeless in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia. The men were exhausted, and their progress slowed after the last of their camels died. They relied on assistance from the Yandruwandha people, an Aboriginal people who lived in the area. In late May 1861, Wills returned to the Dig Tree to bury his diary and journals.
Burke and Wills died between June 28 and the first few days in July. Several rescue parties were sent to discover the fate of the explorers. In September, a search party found John King alive. Local Aboriginal people had nursed him back to health. The Victorian government established a Commission of Inquiry into the death of Burke and Wills. Their bodies were recovered and brought to Melbourne, where a state funeral was held on Jan. 21, 1863.
