The Coorong. Map of the top of the Coorong, the Murray River mouth, the barrages to separated fresh and salt water. On the Spirit of the Coorong cruise Goolwa..
Image by denisbin
Captain Charles Sturt and the origins of the province of South Australia. 39 monuments mainly in SA for Sturt.
We begin at the Murray River estuary. SA begins with Sturt’s epic rowing voyage with his officer and party of convicts. Second in Charge was George McLeay. The boat was carted overland by bullock drays and assembled on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River near the confluence of the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee Rivers north of where Balranald now stands. Sturt was an outstanding commander and avoided any conflict with the often fierce Aboriginal people along the River Murray. The Murrumbidgee River has its confluence with the Murray River at Boundary Bend halfway between Robinvale and Swan Hill. The next major confluence of the Murray River is as Wentworth where the Darling merges with the Murray River. It was Sturt’s reports on the countryside of South Australia that led to the Parliamentary action in London which allowed SA to be establish. In 1833 The South Australian Association was formed in London by Edward Gibbon Wakefield and Robert Gouger and others. This was followed by Westminster’s South Australian Act of 1834 to establish the Province of SA. The South Australian Company was founded in 1835 to promote land sales and fund the new settlement. Governor Hindmarsh declared the foundation of the Province in December 1836 but the Colonisation Commission set up under the 1834 Act failed to fund the settlement. The 1834 Act was repealed in 1842 when the British Colonial Office took control of SA as a Crown colony of Britain ending its days as a province. The sequence of these events demonstrate how South Australia’s foundation ensued from Charles Sturt’s reports on the River Murray lands. His arrival at the Murray River estuary solved the riddle of the western flowing rivers of NSW. Sturt originally set out to discover if there was a giant inland sea where all the westward rivers of the Great Dividing Range ended.
They began the journey on the south bank of Murrumbidgee on 29th Nov south of Yass. The exploration party with their drays and bullocks continued hauling the whaleboat along the banks of the Murrumbidgee in the drays and carts until Christmas Day when they reached the Lachlan River, a tributary of the Murrumbidgee north of Balranald. This confluence is about 35 kms north of Balranald. They camped at Yanga near a big swamp from 26 December to 6 January. Only after Sturt had explored and discovered that the Murrumbidgee did not end up in a huge marsh area with no outflowing river like the Macquarie River but continued as a major river, did he prepare to assemble the whaleboat. In addition to assembling the whaleboat they made a small skiff to be pulled behind it. The whaleboat was thought to be ideal as it had pointed ends for speed and it had a mast for sailing and usually it could be rowed along a river. They set off from here to solve the riddle of the rivers. Before they left Yanga on the 6th January Sturt selected some of the party to stay at that spot for a week in case they could not continue if the river became unnavigable. Then that group was to return the drays and horses to Goulburn. They said their goodbyes to each other on 7th January and from 7th to 14th January Sturt and his party rowed but mainly sailed their way down the Murrumbidgee River from the Balranald area to its junction with a bigger river. On the 13th January they reached this new river which Sturt named the Murray River. This junction is near the tiny settlement of Boundary Bend on the Murray Valley Highway.
On 22nd January they reached the Mildura area and on 23rd January they reached another river which Sturt correctly identified as the Darling River. On the 24th January Sturt named a new small tributary of the Murray River the Rufus River after MacLeay’s red hair. This river flows to Lake Victoria. On the 28th January they passed the border at Murtho. On the 9th February they camped on Hindmarsh Island and on the 11th February they reached the area of Goolwa barrages. Finally on the 12th February Sturt, McLeay and Fraser walked across the sand bar to the beach beside the Murray River mouth. They now knew that the western flowing rivers of NSW ended here at the Southern Ocean not at some big inland sea. The return journey took from 12th February to 25th May. Sturt named Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert and Point McLeay and Point Sturt on Lake Alexandrina. On the 16th March they reached the Murrumbidgee River again. On the 11th April they reached their old camp near Yanga. Sturt continued rowing along the Murrumbidgee River until they abandoned the whaleboat at Narrandera and then they moved over land. They went north when the Murrumbidgee River turn southwards not far from where Gundagai now stands and they passed through Yass on 12th May and reached Sydney 25th May. On the return journey they had downhill water flows to contend with; their provisions and food were scant; they were tired; and Sturt and McLeay also used the oars to get the vessel back upstream. On the return they passed Morgan on 21st February; on 4th March they reached Wentworth and the Darling River; on 23rd March they reached the depot near Balranald. On this gruelling and dangerous expedition eight men had spent 95 days in a 25 foot long whaleboat. Sturt and McLeay’s leadership had been praiseworthy. On the last 150 miles on land the men were near starvation. They were described as such. “Their arms appeared to be nerveless; their faces became haggard, their persons emaciated, their spirits wholly sunk; nature was so completely overcome, that from mere exhaustion they frequently fell asleep during their painful and almost ceaseless exertions."
Their small party of explorers consisted of 9 men including an Aboriginal boy whom they hoped would assist with meeting Aboriginal people along the way. Aboriginal people were seen in many locations along the river. When Sturt tried to check out the Darling River he encountered an Aboriginal fishing trap across it so he return to the Murray. In order to be friendly and make peace with the Aboriginal people, who were often at first aggressive and alarmed, Sturt had a supply of metal tomahawks which were always welcomed and appreciated by the Aboriginal hunters. Some of the Aboriginals accompanied the expedition until it reached the next clan or tribe to ensure their safe passage. The most troublesome spot for Sturt was the confluence of the Darling and Murray rivers. A large group of hunters with spears lined up to attack with women and children giving the group a total of 600 people. Sturt had prepared his men to avoid conflict at all costs. As life was in danger Sturt drew his gun ready to fire. Bright red haired McLeay stopped him from firing and jumped into the river and swam across it to approach the Aboriginal men and he argued for peace. The Aboriginal people encircled McLeay as they were fascinated by his bright red hair. No conflict ensued. Sturt also encountered aggression at the Murray River mouth. The Ngarrindjeri were chanting and when Sturt raised his gun the singing stopped. The Ngarrindjeri were familiar with guns from the American and other whalers who had camped near the Murray mouth since around 1802. No further trouble arose. Sturt also recorded that the Aboriginal people of the lower Murray River were more infected with European disease those higher up the river as early diseases were passed on from the early whalers and sealers. They recognised people suffering from smallpox, syphilis and gonorrhoea.
Goolwa. Sturt passed here on 10th February 1830. Population 9,000.
The Currency Creek Special Survey was taken out in 1839 by the Currency Creek Association based in England. Locally it was their agent Robert Wright who paid for it on behalf of about 30 men. The Currency Creek Association laid out a major town which they hoped would become the New Orleans of the South. It was after all on a good river, near a great lake and near the mouth of the mighty Murray River. Its location was similar to that of New Orleans which was at the mouth of the Mississippi in the USA. They named it after the local river- Currency Creek. They also laid out a much smaller port for the town which they called Goolwa. Currency Creek town covered 8 acres, Goolwa 2 acres. History would show they made the wrong decision as Goolwa prospered and Currency Creek withered! One of the early explorers of this region Young Hutchinson (who explored with Thomas Strangways) liked the area so much that he became a major landowner in Goolwa in 1856. Another explorer William Younghusband gave his name to the peninsula near the Murray Mouth. Although the town of Goolwa was laid out in 1840 sales were minimal until the Governor committed the state to developing Goolwa as a river port and Port Elliot as a coastal port for future riverboat trade up the Murray with a horse railway to connect the two. Work began on this £20,000 project in 1851. (An alternate plan to build a canal between the two at an estimated cost of £28,000 was not pursued by the government.) Apart from the Currency Creek Special Survey of 1839 the government also surveyed land along the proposed rail route to Port Elliot in 1849 making land available to buyers. The first land purchases in this region were made in 1849 at Middleton.
The Murray Mouth.
Collet Barker left Raffles Bay in August 1829 to take command of the penal settlement at King George Sound, which he administered with skill, and where he repeated his former success in conciliating hostile Aboriginals. The settlers at Swan River objected however, to the presence of convicts in their colony and Governor (Sir) James Stirling was not happy to have within his territory a military post under the command of the governor of New South Wales. In March 1831 the station was closed and Barker sailed with the convicts in the Isabella. On the voyage to Sydney he was asked to determine the outlet of the River Murray. He examined the eastern shore of Gulf St Vincent from Cape Jervis northward, climbed Mount Lofty, found Adelaide’s future port and named the near-by Sturt River. From Yankalilla Bay he went overland with a party to Encounter Bay where alone he swam the Murray mouth and was speared to death by Aboriginals on 30 April 1831. His journal of this exploration was not completed and accounts of it by his lieutenant were later to cause much confusion when South Australia was settled. His murder by the Ngarrindjeri was senseless and indicates the ferocity of the Ngarrindjeri.
Who was William Younghusband?
William Younghusband (1819 to 1863) was born in Cumberland England in 1819. He arrived in South Australia in 1840 and the ship Gunga but without his wife and family. He arrived in SA again on the barque Fortfield on 22 June 1842 and he returned in January 1843 as the Captain of his father’s trading ship the Fortfield. His wife Louisa arrived in SA on the 26 October 1844 from Liverpool on the barque named Bleng. She was accompanied by their maid and daughters Sarah born in 1838 and Eliza born circa 1840. (Twin sons were born in North Adelaide in 1852.) Before their arrival in Adelaide William Younghusband was managing the barque Fortfield for voyages with goods and passengers between Adelaide and Sydney from February 1843. In April 1843 he took out his first occupation licence over some pastoral land and in late 1844 he had a store or office built in King William Street. He then established his own wool broking and shipping service with a partner in 1845 with offices in Adelaide. In 1845 he also took out a leasehold run on the western side of the Flinders Ranges. The next run he obtained was between the Para/Gawler and Light Rivers on the Adelaide Plains in 1846. He was an early investor in copper mines in Sth Australia. Then in 1853 he helped establish the River Murray paddle steamer trade from Goolwa up to Echuca in Victoria and along the Darling River with Captain Francis Cadell of Goolwa. Next Younghusband became a partner in the Murray River Steam Navigation Company with Cadell. He later had his own steamship company Younghusband Ltd. It had offices in Lockhart in the Riverina near Wagga Wagga and elsewhere. In 1854 William Younghusband built a small stone cottage with an attic room for their maid on the front of Lake Alexandrina at Goolwa. This house remained in the hands of his descendants until the 1950s and was enlarged several times but it was not the main family residence. That was in North Adelaide. Younghusband became a member of the Legislative Council of South Australia from 1851 until full self-government was instituted in 1856. To obviate the need for extensive travel to the Legislative Council he had a house in Stanley Street North Adelaide in 1851. After full self-government was granted to South Australia in 1856 William Younghusband was elected to the Legislative Council and was Chief Secretary of Premier Hansen’s government from 1856 to 1860. He retired from parliament in 1861. He established several government departments during this time. As a successful businessman he was also a director of the Bank of Australasia. The nearby Younghusband Peninsula on the edge of the Coorong was named after him. He died of typhus fever whilst holidaying in Rome in 1863. He had married Louisa Thomas in Calcutta in September 1836 not long before he first ventured to the new province of South Australia. His wife died at their North Adelaide home in 1869.
The Barrages. Sturt passed here on 11th February 1830.
The waters of the Darling and the Murray are the life blood of SA. But current political discussions about saving the water flows of the rivers and irrigation rights are not new. History repeats itself. The first political furore over the Murray happened in 1886 when NSW and Victoria agreed to control the river, totally ignoring SA. Fortunately this agreement faltered when Sir Henry Parkes as NSW Premier in 1890 wanted no further negotiations. Then 123 years ago in 1902, after a prolonged drought between 1895-1902, the new Federal government joined with the Murray states (SA, Vic and NSW) for a major conference on water usage at Corowa near Albury. State premiers and the new Prime Minister met to discuss water regulation to maintain flows in times of drought. The outcome was not direct action but a Royal Commission. It later advised that navigation of the river in times of drought would be secured by the construction of weirs across the Murray but until then SA had to be guaranteed a certain amount of water so restrictions should apply to NSW and Victoria. A Murray River Commission should be established to enforce these restrictions but it was 1915 before this Commission was established. Little was actually achieved apart from the building of weirs over the next 20 years. We have not greatly progressed since this time! In the 1930s the construction of the Murray River Mouth barrages began as the last part of controlling the Murray River water levels as the locks along the river were nearing completion. Physical work on the barrages started in 1935 but preliminary work had started earlier. The five barrages were completed in 1940. They were designed to maintain the river levels between Goolwa and Lock One( Randell Lock) at Blanchetown and to keep the salt water from the Southern Ocean and the Coorong out of the Murray River channels to Lake Alexandrina. Basically the barrages keep lakes Alexandrina and Albert free of salt so that the water is usable by cattle and stock. The five barrages total 1.6 kms in length. We pass through the lock in the barrages to visit the Murray River estuary.
