Gregory of Rainworth: A Man in His Time by Wendy Birman

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Dust jacket has some light creasing at edges and spine. Interior and binding are also very good.

With the more familiar figures of Eyre, Sturt, Leichhardt and Stuart, Sir Augustus Gregory (1819-1905) ranks as one of Australia's foremost pathfinders. Whether in Western Australia in the 1840s, or across the big top in his North Australian expedition 1855-56, or his 1858 search for Dr Ludwig Leichhardt through the drought-stricken western districts of Queensland along Cooper Creek to Adelaide, Gregory's prodigious successes in discovering new pasture lands, indicating the presence of mineral deposits, or assessing weather patterns and penetrating inhospitable desert country are impressive.

Also significant is that Gregory's tracings of his expeditionary routes enabled the famous cartographer John Arrowsmith to complete in 1858 his long awaited map of the great landmass which comprises the Australian continent.

While acknowledging Gregory's prowess as an explorer and a surveyor, this book also studies the explorer as the man of his time. Essentially a frontierman, Gregory was among the earliest settlers in two colonies. As a ten-year-old lad, he emigrated in 1829 with his family to the Swan River Colony, and thirty years later, in 1859, on promulgating Queensland as an independent colony, he became its first Surveyor-General. His lifetime endeavour unfolds as a story of endurance, survival, ambition and fortitude. (back cover)