Ludwig leichhardt biography
Leichhardt expedition
First expedition
Leichhardt hoped to join a government-sponsored expedition from Moreton Bay to Port Essington (north of what is now Darwin) to be led by Surveyor General Sir Thomas Mitchell. When this expedition fell through, Leichhardt mounted one himself.
Leichhardt left Sydney in August and set out from the Darling Downs on 1 October accompanied by nine volunteers, including two Aboriginal guides. He headed north-west to the Gulf of Carpentaria then tracked the coast of the Northern Territory, noting the plants, animals and geology as he went.
The expedition used horses and bullocks to transport their supplies. When they ran out of food they were forced to live off the land, adopting the behaviour of local Aboriginal people whose local knowledge Leichhardt greatly respected.
Though the going was hard, the expedition was largely uneventful except when one of their number, John Gilbert, was killed on 28 June by Aboriginal men who attacked their camp.
Leichhardt reached the small military outpost of Port Essington on 17 December , having covered kilometres. ‘I was deeply affected in finding myself again in civilized society, and could scarcely speak,’ Leichhardt wrote.
Long given up for dead, Leichhardt and his companions were feted as heroes on their return to Sydney.
Leichhardt’s journey provided a huge amount of information about the area he’d explored and, having carefully mapped the route of the expedition, blazed the trail for the expansion of European settlement into central Queensland and northern Australia.
Ludwig Leichhardt
German explorer of Australia (–)
Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt (German pronunciation:[ˈfʁiːdʁɪç'vɪlhɛlm'lu:tvɪç'laɪçhaːʁt]; 23 October – c.&#;), known as Ludwig Leichhardt, was a German explorer and naturalist, most famous for his exploration of northern and central Australia.
Early life
Leichhardt was born on 23 October in the hamlet of Sabrodt near the village of Trebatsch, today part of Tauche, in the Prussian Province of Brandenburg (now within the Federal Republic of Germany). He was the fourth son and sixth of the eight children of Christian Hieronymus Matthias Leichhardt, farmer and royal inspector and his wife Charlotte Sophie, née Strählow. Between and Leichhardt studied philosophy, language, and natural sciences at the Universities of Göttingen and Berlin but never received a university degree. He moved to England in , continued his study of the natural sciences at various places, including the British Museum, London, and the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, and undertook field work in several European countries, including France, Italy and Switzerland.
Exploration
On 14 February Leichhardt arrived in Sydney, Australia. His aim was to explore inland Australia and he was hopeful of a government appointment in his fields of interest. In September Leichhardt went to the Hunter River valley north of Sydney to study the geology, flora and fauna of the region, and to observe farming methods. He then set out on his own on a specimen-collecting journey that took him from Newcastle, New South Wales, to Moreton Bay in Queensland. On 23 September , at the invitation of Alexander Walker Scott, Leichhardt arrived at Ash Island, where he spent two or three days. Leichhardt's diary from 28 December July , mostly in German, is available on-line at the State Library of New South Wales.
The First Leichhardt Expedition (–)
Afte Well educated in natural history, Leichhardt arrived in Australia in February He led an expedition from Dalby (Queensland) overland to Port Essington (Northern Territory), October December A second expedition set out from the Darling Downs, Queensland, for Western Australia in , but failed and returned. An attempt to repeat this expedition in resulted in the disappearance of the party without trace. Interactive map of Leichhardt Expedition from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, Data from 3, specimens .
Leichhardt was based in Sydney (New South Wales) between expeditions, and collected there, between Newcastle (New South Wales) and Moreton Bay (Queensland), and on his expeditions.
His collections are lodged in MEL and NSW, with a few duplicates elsewhere (e.g. B, BM, HO and P). Collecting localities for 'Leichhardt, F.W.L.' from AVH ()