John Charles Darke | |
---|---|
Born | 1806 |
Died | October 22, 1844 37–38) | (aged
Cause of death | Blood loss from stab wounds |
Known for | Exploring Van Diemen's Land |
John Charles Darke (1806–22 October 1844) was a surveyor and explorer in Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) and South Australia. He died after being speared by Aboriginals in 1844.
Darke was born in Hereford, England, in 1806, the son of William Darke, a prosperous owner of property in Hereford, and Elizabeth Darke. Practically nothing is known of his early years in England.
He arrived in Van Diemen's Land in 1824, accompanied by two of his uncles: Edward Davey Wedge and John Helder Wedge who became the Second Assistant Surveyor in the Land Survey Department.
During 1824–25, Darke spent time with his Uncle John learning the profession of surveying as they moved around the state. In January 1826, Darke joined Lieutenant Williams of the 40th Regiment in pursuit and capture of the bushranger, Thomas Jeffries, and in consequence was granted 500 acres of land. In early March he again joined Lieutenant Williams, this time in search of Matthew Brady and his gang. Brady was wounded in the leg, but escaped. He was captured later in the month by John Batman and his party.
In 1832 the Land Survey Department, under Surveyor-General George Frankland, began preparing for a trigonometric survey of the island, and Darke was successful in obtaining a temporary position within the department. One area of particular interest to Frankland was the area west of Wylds Craig (then known as the Peak of Teneriffe). An escaped convict from Sarah Island, James Goodwin, has passed through the area on his way back to the settled districts.
With five men, Darke was sent to explore the region west of Wylds Craig beginning on 19 March 1833. One of the men was James Goodwin: "an excellent hand in the bush who had formerly escaped from Macquarie Harbour". [1] The expedition came to an end on 8 April due to hunger and fatigue, without achieving its survey aims. Darke began a second expedition to Wylds Craig in May 1833 which also ended without success when Darke suffered severe burns to his right foot. He was unable to obtain permanent employment as a surveyor and left Van Diemen's Land for the Port Phillip District in February 1836 where he took up land near Geelong.
Darke was recruited as a surveyor in South Australia 1838. He wrote a letter of resignation in November 1839 (probably due to his romantic attachment to a Miss Elizabeth Carter), and was sacked on 31 December 1839 for being absent from duty. [2] In 1840 Darke married Elizabeth Isabella Carter, sister-in-law to South Australia police inspector Alexander Tolmer.
In 1844 Darke was named as the leader of a privately funded expedition to explore the country west and north-west of Port Lincoln and Spencer Gulf. On 12 April, he and three other men left Adelaide on the Governor Gawler and sailed for Port Lincoln. The party left Port Lincoln on 29 August to begin their exploration.
Led by Darke, the party comprised Darke's friend and second in command, surveyor John Henry Theakston (d.1878), plus two men hired as tent-keepers and cooks. One was named James Howard, the other is unidentified. They travelled though an ocean of scrub to beyond the Gawler Ranges, Darke having found no land suitable for settling. The party began their retreat from this waterless area on 16 October.
Darke's final diary entry was on 22 October: "Accompanied by the [three] blacks who were joined by nine others, I proceeded to the waterhole, about three miles, but more easterly than our course; and came about 2 o'clock to a large gritstone rock where I found abundance of feed and water on a plain about 200 yards wide by half a mile long, surrounded by thick scrub. The natives accompanied us until just before encamping. I gave them all I could spare for taking us to the water. They seemed very friendly disposed..." [3]
The diary continues in the hand of Darke's second-in-command, John Theakston, and describes how Darke was speared in the stomach and knee by three natives. His death is recorded by Theakston: "I here dressed the wounds of Mr Darke, and bled him, but found his extremities getting cold, and I informed him. I feared the event. At 10 o'clock he told me he was dying, that mortification had taken place, he was out of pain; he gave me his last commands and died at five minutes to twelve, quite calm to the last minute. I carried the body of Mr Darke to the Table Topped Peaks and buried him on a small grassy plain at the foot of them, in a grave five feet deep." [4] [5]
In a letter to The Adelaide Observer in 1891, a Mr A.J. Foulds stated: "In a hollow on the north-west of the most northern peak or hump (which is the highest, and is in fact Darkes Peak) the grave is situated, and there the bold explorer lies, with all the country about to himself, for very rarely indeed does the feet of man – white or black – ever tread in that lonely desert." [6]
In 1909, Surveyor W.G. Evans located Darke's grave and confirmed the finding by partly opening the grave: "found part of a shin bone (decayed), hip bone – good preservation, but crumbled when exposed to air… did not disturb grave more than necessary, mounded up afterwards." [7]
The government of South Australia created a reserve around the grave site in 1910 and erected an obelisk surrounded by an iron fence.
Darke's name is perpetuated by Darke Peak, a mountain in the Darke Ranges located in the centre of Eyre Peninsula in the locality of Darke Peak. [8]
Two memorials in addition to the obelisk at the grave site commemorate the life of Darke. On the centenary of Darke's departure from Adelaide on his final expedition, a bronze tablet was fixed to the wall of a building in King William Street, Adelaide, near the spot where the expedition departed. In a similar tribute, a plaque was unveiled on 29 August 1944 in the Civic Hall at Port Lincoln.
John Theakston went on to serve as second in command to the expedition of the ill-fated John Ainsworth Horrocks, where again through the leader's misfortune he was obliged to assume command.
Darke's widow, Elizabeth, remarried at Sydney in 1858 to prominent physician and author Dr Julius Berncastle MD MRCS (1819–1870). [9] The couple and their family later moved to Melbourne, where Dr Berncastle died in 1870 and Elizabeth in 1881.
John Joseph William Molesworth Oxley was an explorer and surveyor of Australia in the early period of British colonisation. He served as Surveyor General of New South Wales and is perhaps best known for his two expeditions into the interior of New South Wales and his exploration of the Tweed River and the Brisbane River in what is now the state of Queensland.
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Captain Charles James Tyers RN FRSV was a 19th-century Anglo-Australian surveyor and explorer, and the Commissioner of Crown Lands for Portland (1842–43) and Gippsland (1844–67).
John Helder Wedge was a surveyor, explorer and politician in Van Diemen's Land.
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Darke Peak is a small agricultural town located in central Eyre Peninsula, South Australia. The town is the population centre for the surrounding agricultural district and has become a minor historical tourist town. It is situated on Barngarla lands. The J. C. Darke Memorial and Grave, commemorating early European explorer John Charles Darke, is located near the township and is located on the South Australian Heritage Register.
George Frankland was an English surveyor and Surveyor-General of Van Diemen's Land .
James Goodwin was a convict escapee and explorer in Van Diemen's Land. In March 1828, he escaped from the notorious Sarah Island prison with fellow convict Thomas Connolly, and the two were the first white men to pass through the Lake St Clair region. Assuming Goodwin was then taken on to Hobart, he is the first white man to have traversed Tasmania from west to east.
Darke is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
John Hill was an English explorer of South Australia and part of the European exploration of Australia. Hill was the first European to see and traverse the Clare Valley.
Water Witch was a single-masted vessel rigged as a cutter built during 1835 in Van Diemen's Land and sunk in 1842 whilst moored in the River Murray at Moorundie, south of Blanchetown in South Australia (SA). Her wreck site was discovered in 1982 and received statutory protection as a historic shipwreck in 1983. The wreck site was the subject of an underwater survey in March 1984. She was the first European vessel to enter the River Murray via its mouth, her role in the charting of the lower reaches of the River Murray including Lake Alexandrina whilst under the command of William Pullen and her association with Edward John Eyre.
Thomas Burr (1813–1866), surveyor and mine manager, was a British explorer and Deputy Surveyor General of South Australia 1839–46.
European land exploration of Australia deals with the opening up of the interior of Australia to European settlement which occurred gradually throughout the colonial period, 1788–1900. A number of these explorers are very well known, such as Burke and Wills who are well known for their failed attempt to cross the interior of Australia, as well as Hamilton Hume and Charles Sturt.
Cocata is a rural locality in the Eyre and Western region of South Australia.