Charles Sturt

Charles Sturt died on June 16, 1869, in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, at the age of 74. He was survived by his wife and three children.

Charles Sturt was born on April 28, 1795, in Bengal, British India, to Thomas Lenox Napier Sturt, a judge under the British East India Company. He was the eldest son among the 13 children in his family.

At the age of five, he was sent to his relatives in England to receive his education. After attending a preparatory school, he was further sent to Harrow in 1810.

His father was not wealthy enough to send him to Cambridge University or to establish him in a profession. Thus, on the appeal of an aunt to the Prince Regent, he was gazetted as an ensign with the 39th (Dorsetshire) Regiment of Foot in the British Army in 1813.

Charles Sturt served with the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsular War and was later commissioned in the American war. He also fought in the Battle of Waterloo before returning to Europe.

In April 1823, he became a lieutenant and was later promoted to the post of captain in December 1825. Following a detachment from his regiment, he escorted convicts aboard the Mariner to New South Wales, arriving in Sydney in 1827.

He found the conditions and climate in New South Wales soothing and developed a great interest in the country. The Governor of New South Wales appointed him the major of brigade and military secretary, and he struck friendships with other explorers.

In 1828, he received the approval for his first expedition which involved exploring the area of the Macquarie River in western New South Wales. In the voyage, the courses of the Macquarie, Bogan and Castlereagh rivers were followed, and the party also discovered the Darling River. In 1829, the crew returned to Wellington Valley.

His expedition deepened the mystery of where the western-flowing rivers of New South Wales went, and to solve it, he proposed another expedition down the Murrumbidgee River. In January 1830, his party reached the confluence of the Murrumbidgee and a much larger river, which he named the Murray River.

Between 1829 and 1830, he led expeditions down the Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers, considered as one of the greatest explorations in Australian history. The expedition disclosed extensive areas of land for future development in New South Wales and South Australia.