author
Augustus Charles Gregory
1819–1905
A leading explorer of colonial Australia, he mapped huge stretches of the west, north, and interior at a time when much of the continent was still unfamiliar to Europeans. He later helped shape public life in Queensland as its first Surveyor-General and a long-serving legislator.
1 Audiobook
Journals of Australian Explorations
by Augustus Charles Gregory, Francis Thomas Gregory
About the author
Born in Nottinghamshire, England, on August 1, 1819, he moved with his family to Western Australia as a boy and developed an early talent for surveying. In the 1840s and 1850s, he led a series of major expeditions that brought him lasting fame, including journeys in Western Australia and a long overland expedition from the Victoria River across northern Australia to the Queensland coast.
His work earned wide respect for its practical skill and careful observation. He received the Royal Geographical Society's gold medal, and his reports helped expand European knowledge of Australia's landscapes, rivers, and grazing country during a key period of colonial exploration.
Later, he settled into public service in Queensland, becoming the colony's first Surveyor-General and serving for many years in the Legislative Council. Knighted late in life, he died in Brisbane on June 25, 1905, remembered as one of the most important explorer-surveyors of nineteenth-century Australia.