This article is a contributed piece by well-known former local Peter Sutton.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
There are locally a number of memorial cairns that commemorate the Australian explorer Captain Charles Sturt.
These can be found in Cobram, Mulwala and other communities throughout the states of NSW, Victoria and South Australia.
This is because Sturt is an important figure in the exploration of Australia’s largest river, the Murray.
Indeed, it was Captain Charles Sturt who named the river.
Sturt has been honoured with many locations and items named after him.
These include Charles Sturt University, Sturt’s Desert Pea (the SA floral emblem), Sturt Desert Rose (Northern Territory floral emblem), commonwealth electorate of Sturt in SA, the Sturt Highway, Sturt National Park and the Sturt Stony Desert.
In Cobram, residents and visitors would be familiar with the Charles Sturt Motor Inn.
The Sturt Memorial Cairn, located in Cobram, has a plaque that simply states: “Capt Charles Sturt passed near here on 31 May 1838.”
This plaque was unveiled by the then Victorian governor, Lord Somers, in 1930.
The Mulwala Sturt Memorial inscription is similar: “Capt Charles Sturt the explorer passed here 29 May 1838.”
These memorials recall a great explorer, but do little in informing us about the man and his achievements.
It is time to update the memorials, recognising their importance and significance, while also educating us and reminding us of his remarkable contributions to Australia.
The Murray River is important to our local communities, including the Moira, Berrigan, and Federation local government areas and others, both upstream and downstream.
Who was Charles Sturt?
Charles Napier Sturt was born on April 28, 1795, in India, the eldest of 13 children.
He was sent to England at the age of five years to complete his education.
From there, he later joined the British Army and served in Canada, Spain, France and Ireland.
Sturt travelled to Australia, becoming, in 1826, Military Secretary to Governor Sir Ralph Darling.
He gained the support of the NSW Governor to explore the continent.
Sturt’s first expedition was undertaken in 1828, in which he followed the Macquarie River to the Darling.
Sturt named this river after his patron and supporter, Governor Darling.
In 1829-30, he explored the Murrumbidgee to the Murray River, and then on to the Murray Mouth at Lake Alexandrina.
The Australian Dictionary of Biography, compiled by the Australian National University, details his encounter with the Murray: “Apart from the loss of the skiff soon after embarkation, the journey was uneventful when the rapid current of the Murrumbidgee carried them to a ‘broad and noble river’, which Sturt later named in honour of Sir George Murray, Secretary of State for the Colonies.”
The naming of the Murray has been documented by a number of historians and is well chronicled, including in a number of local histories.
These include Kenn Rogers’ The Story of Cobram, published by the Cobram Historical Society, and Dr W.H. Bossence’s Numurkah.
Interestingly and amusingly, Thomas Keneally writes of the naming by Sturt.
In his book, Australians Origins to Eureka, he notes:
“Suddenly the river picked up its pace and tossed them through narrow banks into a narrow watercourse, which Sturt named after the British Colonial Secretary, Sir George Murray. Sturt was not aware that Hume and Hovell had already crossed this river and called it the Hume, but a Colonial Secretary in any case gazumped an Australian-born bushman.”
After experiencing exhaustion and ill health, he returned to England, between 1832 and 1834, to recuperate.
While there, he wrote Two Expeditions into the Interior of South Australia, 1828-31.
It’s believed this book was seminal in the selection of South Australia as the site for a new British settlement.
Sturt, undaunted, returned to Australia in 1835 with his wife, Charlotte, whom he had married in 1834.
In 1838, Sturt, with a party of 13 men and 300 cattle, travelled to Adelaide and South Australia, and mapped the course of the Murray above its junction with the Murrumbidgee.
Sturt was also instrumental in encouraging paddle steamers to navigate the Murray River.
Alan J. Dunlop, in his book Wide Horizons, a history of the Yarrawonga, Tungamah and Cobram shires, discusses this.
Dunlop in Wide Horizons writes, on page 40: “The Murray is important to our story of the Cobram-Tungamah area because it forms the northern boundary of the whole Cobram Shire, and the parish of Boosey in the Tungamah Shire reaches up to the River which constitutes its whole northern boundary for a distance of several miles.
“Early in the history of South Australia, there was considerable discussion as to whether the Murray River might be navigated.
“In 1840 Sturt officially examined the Murray Mouth and after striving manfully, failed to cross through rough water to the open sea, so reported unfavourably as regards navigating the river.
“Sturt was a soldier, but Governor Hindmarsh, sailor, believed the river could also be navigated.
“Sturt also later came to believe that the despite the unpromising river mouth, steamers might use the Murray. He was largely instrumental in persuading the South Australian Government to offer a £2000 prize each to the first two steamers to pass upstream from Goolwa to the Darling junction five hundred and ten miles upstream. The steamers were to be of iron, with engines more than forty horsepower and a draught of no more than two feet.”
The cairn commemorating Sturt in Cobram was unveiled in 1930.
Kenn Rogers notes in The Story of Cobram on page 191: “On Friday afternoon (January 10, 1930), all roads led to Cobram, residents from the surrounding districts assembling to witness the unveiling ceremony of the Sturt Memorial Cairn by the State Governor, Lord Somers, and also to hear speeches by various members of the Historical Society.”
The importance of the redoubtable Charles Sturt “blazing a track” in 1838 was recognised.
This cairn, said the Governor, is in itself, not only a monument to Sturt, but to the early pioneers who prepared the way for us.
The memorial sits on the Murray Valley Hwy.
Dr W.H. Bossence in his book Numurkah refers to Sturt on page 23: “Hume and Hovell discovered the Murray River in 1824 during the first exploration of Victoria by land, but the point where they crossed it was far upstream near Albury and more than a decade passed before white men passed before white men first moved in what is now in the vicinity of the Shire of Numurkah.
“In 1838 Sturt passed along the New South Wales bank of the Murray opposite Ulupna Island with a party of 13 men and three hundred cattle on his way to South Australia.
“Just before the point where the Edwards River leaves the Murray he crossed the Victorian side and, coming down through Barmah Forest, he also crossed the Goulburn a little upstream of its junction.”
Sturt went on to serve in various positions, including Surveyor General in South Australia, despite doubts as to his qualifications.
He also was appointed Assistant Commissioner of Lands and later Colonial Treasurer.
Yet, it’s as an explorer that he is best remembered.
He returned to England in 1853, though he sought to return, applying for the vice regal roles as Governor of Victoria in 1855 and Queensland in 1858.
He died in England in 1869.
— Peter Sutton, formerly of Yarroweyah and Cobram