Robert O'Hara Burke was born in the county of Galway, in Ireland, in 1821. He was the second son of John Hardiman Burke, of St. Clerans, and was educated in Belgium. In 1840 he entered the Austrian army, in which he rose to the rank of Captain. In 1848 he joined the Royal Irish Constabulary, but five years later emigrated to Tasmania. Thence he went to Victoria, where he entered the local police force, and became an Inspector. Such was his position when he was offered the command of the expedition which ended in his death.
William John Wills was born at Totnes, in Devonshire. He was the son of a medical man, and after his arrival in Victoria, in 1852, he led for a time a bush life on the Edwards River. He was later employed as a surveyor in Melbourne, and then became assistant to Professor Neumayer at the Melbourne Observatory, a post he quitted in order to act as assistant-surveyor on the ill-starred journey.
Sentiment, and an hysterical sentiment at that, seems to have dominated this expedition throughout. There was no urgent necessity for Victoria to equip and send forth an exploring expedition. Her rich and compact little province was known from end to end, and she had no surplus territory in which to open up fresh fields of pastoral occupation for her sons. But her people became possessed with the exploring spirit, and the planning and execution of the scheme was a signal indication of national patriotism. And if sense and not sentiment had marked the counsel, the results might have conferred rich benefit upon Australia.
The necessary funds were made up as follows: 6,000 pounds voted by Government; 1,000 pounds presented by Mr. Ambrose Kyte; and the balance of the first expenditure of 12,000 pounds made up by public subscription. But the final cost of the expedition and of the relief parties amounted to 57,000 pounds. And the exploratory work done by the different relief parties far and away exceeded in geographical results the small amount effected by the original expedition.
A committee of management was appointed, and to his interest with this committee Burke owed his elevation to the position of leader. He seems to have been supported by that sort of general testimony which fits a man to apply for nearly any position; but of special aptitude and training for the work to be done he had none. He was frank, openhearted, impetuous, and endowed with all those qualities which made him a great favourite with women; moreover, his service in the Austrian army had given people an exaggerated notion of his ability to command and organize. It would appear on the whole that his appointment was due solely to the influence he wielded, and to his personal popularity.
Wills appears to have been a man gifted with many of the qualities essential for efficient discharge of the duties and responsibilities appertaining to the post he held; but his amiable disposition allowed him to be influenced too readily in council by the rash and foolish judgment of his impetuous superior. If, for instance, he had persisted in combating Burke's incomprehensible plan of leaving the depot for Mount Hopeless, the last fatality would never have occurred.
When the expedition left Melbourne, it was amid the shouts and hurrahs of acclaiming thousands, who probably had not the faintest idea of the easy task that the explorers with their imposing retinue and outfit had before them. In fact, with all the resources at Burke's command, a favourable season and good open country, the excursion would have been a mere picnic to most men of experience. A number of camels had been specially imported from India at a cost of 5,500 pounds. G.J. Landells came to the country in charge of them, and had been appointed second in command. Long before they left the settled districts, Burke quarrelled with him, whereupon he resigned and returned to Melbourne. There he openly declared that under Burke's control the expedition would assuredly meet with disaster. Wills was then appointed second by Burke, and Wright, who was supposed to be acquainted with the locality which they were approaching, was engaged as third, another most unfortunate selection. Besides those already mentioned, there were Dr. Hermann Beckler, medical officer and botanist, and Dr. Ludwig Becker, artist, naturalist, and geologist, ten white assistants, and three camel-drivers.
The expedition in full reached Menindie on the Darling, where Wright joined them. On the 19th of October, 1860, Burke, Wills, six men, five horses and sixteen camels, left Menindie for Cooper's Creek. Wright went with them two hundred miles to indicate the best route, and then returned to take charge of the main body waiting at Menindie. On the 11th of November, Burke with the advance party reached Cooper's Creek, where they camped and awaited the arrival of Wright with the rest. Grass and water were both plentiful, and the journey had hitherto proved no more arduous than an ordinary over-landing trip.
The long delay and inaction worked sadly upon Burke's active and impatient temperament, and he suddenly announced his intention to subdivide his party and, with three men, to start across the belt of unknown country -- a distance of five hundred miles at the furthest -- that separated him from Gregory's track round the Gulf. Although his lavish outfit had been purchased specially to explore this comparatively small extent of land, he thus deliberately left it behind him during the most critical part of the journey. He had with him no means of following up any discoveries he might make, and his botanist and naturalist and geologist were also left behind. He killed time for a little while by making short excursions northward, and then, on the 16th of December, impatient of further delay, he started with Wills and two men for Carpentaria. The others were left, with verbal instructions, to wait three months for him. Thus, dispersed and neglected, he left the costly equipment containing within itself all the elements of successful geographical research. Certainly this was not the plan that had been anticipated by the promoters and organisers. We have now, at this stage, the spectacle of the main body loitering on the outskirts of the settled districts, four men killing time on the banks of Cooper's Creek, and the leader and three others scampering across the continent, all four of them utterly inexperienced in bushcraft.
As might have been expected the results of the journey are most barren: Wills's diary is sadly uninteresting, and Burke made only a few scanty notes, at the end of which he writes: "28th March. At the conclusion of report it would be as well to say that we reached the sea, but we could not obtain a view of the open ocean, although we made every endeavour to do so."