Australian Explorers
Tuesday, April 4, 1848. : Leichhardt departs Roma, Queensland, on his third and final expedition, never to be seen again.
Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt was born on October 23, 1813, in Trebatsch, Prussia (now Brandenburg, Germany). His thirst for knowledge led him to study philosophy, languages and natural sciences in Germany. Although he never received a degree, he was a passionate botanist. Leichhardt arrived in Australia in 1842, and immediately expressed an interest in exploration, although he lacked necessary bush survival skills.
Leichhardt made a total of three expeditions. In October 1844, he left from Jimbour, on the Darling Downs, on an expedition to find a new route to Port Essington, near Darwin. The 4800 km overland journey reached its destination on December 17, 1845. His second expedition, from the Darling Downs in Queensland to Perth in Western Australia, commenced in December 1846. However, wet weather and malaria forced the party to return after they had travelled only 800km.
Leichhardt’s final expedition began in March 1848, picking up where his second expedition left off. The last sighting of Leichhardt, six other men, fifty bullocks, twenty mules and seven horses was made as they departed Roma, Queensland, on 4 April 1848. Somewhere in Australia’s vast outback, the entire party vanished. Many theories have abounded as to what happened, and many claim to have found evidence of the remains of the expedition, but what really happened remains one of Australia’s enduring mysteries.
Australian History
Tuesday, April 4, 1820. : The foundation stone is laid for what later becomes the magnificent Queen Victoria Building in Sydney.
The Queen Victoria Building, or QVB, is a magnificent Victorian building of neo-Byzantine architecture located in the heart of Sydney’s CBD. Though an upmarket shopping centre now, it has had a varied past. In 1810, New South Wales Governor Macquarie designated the site as a marketplace. The foundation stone for the original two-storey building that would later become the QVB was laid on 4 April 1820.
Within a decade, the building was converted into the Central Police Court; shortly afterwards, the Governor issued a general order that the entire area be set aside as a market square. By 1869, the whole market area was roofed, and the street became an arcade within the market. The QVB as it now stands was designed by George McRae and completed in 1898, replacing the original Sydney markets on the site. Deteriorating through the years, the QVB was threatened with demolition during the 1950s, but an extensive restoration project saw it restored to its original glory.
Australian History
Saturday, April 4, 1846. : The first payable gold discovery in South Australia, gives rise to the first Australian gold mine, five years before the official discovery of gold in Australia at Bathurst.
The first recorded gold discovery in Australia was in 1823 by James McBrien who discovered flecks of alluvial gold in the Fish River of New South Wales. Further traces of gold were discovered in areas of the Blue Mountains in the ensuing decades. Early discoveries of gold were kept secret as it was feared that the promise of easy wealth would incite riots amongst the convicts. Further, discoveries were usually made by settlers who did not want their valuable sheep and cattle properties to be degraded by the sudden influx of prospectors and lawlessness that would inevitably follow. There was little incentive to report gold finds in the early 1800s, as all gold was owned by the government, and would not provide any personal gains. However, some enterprising individuals still saw the value in prospecting, realising the benefits of minerals and metals as the Australian colonies grew.
One of the first people to recognise the likelihood of mineral wealth in the Mount Lofty Ranges of South Australia was German immigrant Johannes Menge, who was employed by the South Australian Company as their Mine and Quarry Agent and Geologist. Observing the geology of the land, the promise of mineral wealth was also noted by Captain Charles Sturt, whose charting of the Murray River was a significant catalyst to the establishment of the southern colony. The men were proven correct when silver was discovered in the Adelaide Hills, first at Glen Osmond in 1841 and both copper and gold traces at Montacute in 1842. At a public auction in December 1845 Frederick Wicksteed, acting for the Victoria Mining Company, paid 799 pounds for “section 5597” which comprised 147 acres at Montacute, to be used for copper mining.
Investors were initially slow to come on board, but within a few months of opening in 1846, the investment paid off. On what was described as “an oppressively hot day”, 4 April 1846, the Captain of the copper mine, John Terrell (or Tyrrell), discovered gold at Castambul, north-east of Adelaide. Samples were shown to Captain Edward Charles Frome, Captain Charles Sturt, Thomas Burr and Dr Edward Davy (possibly Davey or Davis). Davy later signed the certificate stating that the samples ‘surrounded and embedded in dark chocolate coloured earth or gossan, were thickish layers of a bright yellow metal’ which contained 94 percent gold. The copper mine became Australia’s first gold mine, five years before gold was ‘officially’ discovered in New South Wales.
Australian History
Thursday, April 4, 1929. : The only dam-burst in Australia’s history to cause loss of life occurs in Tasmania.
Derby is a historic tin-mining town in the north-eastern region of Tasmania. The town was built following the discovery of tin in the region in 1874-5. To service the towns of the northeast and the tin mines, two dams were constructed: the Frome in 1908 and the Briseis in 1926.
Early in April 1929, heavy rainfalls of 450mm saturated the catchment above the Briseis Dam. On 4 April 1929, another 125mm was dumped in the space of an hour and a half. The deluge broke the dam, sending a wall of water down into the valley, which swamped Derby and the Briseis Dam. Fourteen people were killed in the only dam-burst in Australia’s history to date to cause loss of life. The final body was recovered early in May.
A coroner’s inquest concluded that no blame for the deaths could be attached to the Briseis Company, either in the construction of the dam, or in the safety standards of the tin mine.
World History
Thursday, April 4, 1968. : African American civil rights activist, Martin Luther King, is assassinated.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on 15 January 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He became a Baptist minister, and African American civil rights activist. In his fight for civil rights, he organised and led marches for desegregation, fair hiring, the right of African Americans to vote, and other basic civil rights. Most of these rights were successfully enacted later into United States law with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Martin Luther King’s life was tragically cut short when he was shot in the neck by a rifle bullet in Memphis, Tennessee, on 4 April 1968. James Earl Ray was convicted of his murder and sentenced to 99 years in prison. Ray’s appeals on the basis that he was only a minor player in a conspiracy gained support from some members of King’s family. Regardless, while King’s life was taken from him prematurely, his legacy lives on in the equal rights awarded to the millions of African American citizens in the USA.