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Activity page
8E
Were there others involved in the crossing in 1813?
We now know a lot about the three men named on
the memorial at the very start of this unit. But were
they the only ones involved in the crossing in 1813?
Here is some more evidence about that crossing.
Read it and decide on your answer to these
questions. Support your answers from the evidence.
8 Were Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson the only
people on the journey?
9 Did they have an Aboriginal guide?
10 How big was the exploring party?
11 Was Blaxland the leader?
12 Who was the most important person in the group?
13 How certain can you be that your answers to these
questions are correct? Explain your reasons.
Source 1
Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth are invariably
remembered as a trinity … the ‘dauntless three’. They
were not, however, a threesome at all, for the party
included four servants, five dogs, and four horses. This
was a collaboration between animals and men. Among
the latter was James Burns, selected by Blaxland, who
was probably key to their success …. By profession a
hunter of kangaroos, James Burns was one of those
people who had lived out on the edge [of settlement].
Martin Thomas The Artificial Horizon. Imagining the Blue Mountains,
MUP, Melbourne, 2003, p. 50-51
Source 2
Having made every requisite preparation, I applied to
the two gentlemen who accompanied me, to join in
the expedition, and was fortunate in obtaining their
consent. To these gentlemen I have to express my
thanks for their company, and to acknowledge that
without their assistance I should have had but little
chance of success.
Blaxland’s journal
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/blaxland/gregory/b64j/part1.html#part1
Source 3 Information in the National
Museum of Australia display Crossing
the Blue Mountains
In 1813 William Charles Wentworth, William Lawson
and Gregory Blaxland, keen to expand their holdings,
persuaded [Governor] Macquarie to support an attempt
to cross the mountains. They departed Emu Plains with
horses, an Aboriginal guide and three convict servants.
National Museum of Australia, 2012
Source 4
It took until 1813 for a way across the mountains to
be found. Once across, the three successful explorers,
Gregory Blaxland, William Charles Wentworth and
William Lawson, and their Aboriginal guide looked out
upon a lightly forested expanse that stretched to the
horizon.
David Day, Claiming a Continent, Angus&Robertson, Sydney, 1996, p. 81
Source 5
There is no record that local Aboriginal guides were
used for the 1813 crossing, but it does seem likely
that the ridge-line followed an Aboriginal track, as a
logical, fairly even route. The party used a colonial
bushman, Mr Byrne, as a guide, and the name Byrne
(or Burns) subsequently appears in Surveyor Evans’s
list of men who accompanied him on his journey the
following year, in which he followed up, surveyed and
extended the previous journey to Mount Victoria to the
site of Bathurst. Byrne was probably one of a number
of bushmen who were familiar with the mountain lands,
hunting there for game and exploring unofficially.
James Broadbent and Joy Hughes (eds) The Age of Macquarie,
Melbourne University Press, 1992, p. 67
14 Add any information to your
summary table on activity page 3A.
15 Write a brief paragraph or do a
comic strip sketch for your own
history textbook (in box 4 of activity page 3B)
to explain to readers who was involved in the
crossing of the Blue Mountains in 1813.
[*NOTE: The NMA has now
changed its information about
the Aboriginal guide]
Look back at the
inscription on the Mount York
memorial. Would you say it is:
True or False?
28
Myths and Mysteries of the Crossing of the Blue Mountains