author
Charles Sturt
1795–1869
A soldier-explorer whose journeys helped reveal the great river system of southeastern Australia, he became one of the key figures in early inland exploration. His expeditions down the Murrumbidgee and Murray, and later into central Australia, made his name famous far beyond the colonies.
4 Audiobooks
Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Complete
by Charles Sturt
Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Volume 2
by Charles Sturt
Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Volume I
by Charles Sturt
About the author
Born in Bengal, India, on April 28, 1795, and educated in England, he entered the British Army before eventually sailing to New South Wales in the 1820s. There he moved from military service into exploration, earning a reputation for persistence, careful observation, and a willingness to push into country that was still unknown to Europeans.
He is best remembered for major expeditions that traced the courses of the Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers in 1829–30 and helped show how the inland river system of southeastern Australia fit together. Later journeys from Adelaide took him farther into the interior, where he searched for an inland sea and crossed some of the harshest country he had ever faced. These expeditions brought both fame and lasting physical hardship, including serious damage to his eyesight.
Alongside exploring, he also served in public roles in South Australia. He died in 1869, but his place in Australian history endures because his travels expanded European knowledge of the continent's interior and shaped later settlement and mapping.