INDEX

WHO DID DISCOVER AUSTRALIA?

COLONIAL EXPLORATION


Colonial Exploration: Hamilton Hume (1797- 1872) and William Hovell (1786-1875)


Hamilton Hume was born in Parramatta,New South Wales on 18 June 1797. He had a good knowledge of bushcraft, and by the age of 17 was exploring, first to the Berrima district (between Sydney and Canberra), then with Surveyor Meehan to the Goulburn Plains and Lake Bathurst. Over the next few years he was a member of several exploring parties, to Yass Plains and the tablelands near Braidwood. He was the first Australian born explorer.

In 1824, Governor Brisbane asked Hume to join forces with an English sea captain, William Hovell, to go from Lake George to the Spencer Gulf (in what is now South Australia). Hovell was older than Hume, with little bush experience, but he was a good navigator. They left Lake George on 17 October 1824, with a party of six convicts, enough supplies to last 16 weeks loaded onto bullock carts, horses and dogs (which they used to hunt kangaroos).

In 1824 Governor Thomas Brisbane wanted an expedition to go from Lake George to the Spencer Gulf, in what is now South Australia. He asked Hamilton Hume and William Hovell to go together. Hovell was an English sea captain, eleven years older than Hume, with little bush experience but was a capable navigator. The government provided a small amount of equipment, but they had to pay most of the cost of the expedition themselves.

They left Hume's station at Lake George (Appin) on 17 October, with 6 convict servants and 16 weeks' supplies on a couple of carts drawn by four bullocks, two horses, a spare horse and a spare bullock and an unspecified number of dogs, which they later found very useful when they were hunting kangaroos. It appears that ny this time they decided not to go to Spencer Gulf, but to Westernport. On 22 October they crossed the Murrumbidgee which was then in flood, and soon after they found mountainous country. They left the carts behind, and loaded everything on the bullocks, which they found to be better than horses in the rough country.

By 16 November they had reached a river which they called the Hume, but it was later renamed the Murray. This was also a problem to cross, but they made a boat from some poles and a tarpaulin, and pulled the animals across with ropes. They headed south-west and discovered and crossed the Ovens and Goulburn Rivers (the latter was named the Hovell River, but it too was renamed). As the weather became warmer they suffered badly from flies, mosquitoes, ticks and leeches. They passed Mt Disappointment and Mt Macedon and crossed the Werribee River and by 16 December were camped at the site of the present city of Geelong. Here they had problems with aborigines, so they turned for home fairly soon.

Unfortunately their longitude calculations were about 40 miles out, and they thought they were at Western Port. Dr William Bland, who edited their journals and published them in 1831 (not enough paper being available in the colony before then), blamed the error on instruments that had been damaged on the journey and observations unavoidably taken in a hurry. It is not clear when the mistake was realised. Hume in 1825 and 1826 was still reporting on his expedition to Western Port, but by 1855 he was saying he knew all the time that he had been at Port Phillip.

The journey home was uneventful, apart from several meetings with aborigines. The rivers which had been in flood on their way south were often little more than puddles in the heat of the summer. They picked up their wagons where they had left them, but their main problem was very rough ground a few days south of Lake George where the stones were too sharp for even the bullocks to walk on. Hume arrived home at Lake George on 18 January. The bullocks had to be abandoned in the bush.

This three month expedition of Hume and Hovell was a considerable achievement. They showed there was much open land, suitable for farming and grazing, between Sydney and Port Phillip. The Governor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, described it as "new and valuable country". Hume went with Charles Sturt in 1828 when he discovered the Darling, but his health became poor and he did no more exploring. He retired to his properties in the Yass area and died 19 April 1873.

Hovell, William Hilton (1786 - 1875)

Born: 26 April 1786  England.  Died: 9 November 1875. Hovell, in conjunction with H. Hume, was involved in a major expedition of discovery to Port Phillip overland from Sydney in 1824-25.