biography
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1838–72)
|
| biography:
| Traveller, born in Moy, Co Tyrone, W Northern Ireland, UK. He was a member of the Burke and Wills expedition which set out from Melbourne in 1860; four members of the expedition reached the tidal marshes of the Flinders R at the edge of the Gulf of Carpentaria. On the way back, three of them, including Burke and Wills, died of starvation; the fourth man, John King, was given succour by the Aborigines and was eventually found by a relief party six months later, emaciated but alive. He thus became the first white man to traverse the Australian continent from S to N and back again. |
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