John King: Ireland’s Forgotten Explorer – Australia’s First Hero
Description
In 1861 an Irish-born explorer emerged from the Australian outback, sole survivor of the country's greatest expedition. John King from Moy, Co. Tyrone, had crossed the arid continent and discovered tracts of rich, fertile land. With eight men dead, King's triumph was one of the world's great feats of endurance and thousands gathered to crown him Australia's first hero ...
Yet within weeks the handsome 22-year-old had been airbrushed from popular history. It was determined that King, an 'Irish working man' was an unsuitable champion and the two dead leaders of the party, the Anglo-Irish gentleman, Robert O'Hara Burke and English scientist William Wills, would be history's heroes.
Mentally and physically, King was a better equipped explorer than Burke or Wills. Educated at a Quaker primary school, King lived through the Great Famine, graduated after seven years at a tough Dublin military college, fought in the Indian Mutiny and was a teacher, linguist, musician, army sharpshooter, horseman and camel handler.
John King: Ireland's Forgotten Explorer - Australia's First Hero reveals the string of injustices done to John King by powerful contemporaries and subsequent historians, and on the 150th anniversary of his survival, seeks to give him his rightful place in the Burke and Wills historiography.
Contents
Foreword vi
Acknowledgements vii
Preamble xi
Introduction 1
- From Famine to Fame 9
- Music, Culture and War 17
- Burke Finds a Fellow Soldier 27
- Commotions and Promotions 39
- A Christmas Cosmic Epiphany 47
- King of the Outback 57
- Burke Ruins Last Chance for Survival 70
- The Rescue King 84
- A Hero is Born ... and Buried 95
- Honours, Dishonour and Extraordinary Secrets 107
Epilogue 120
Notes 128
Bibliography 136
Index 138
