Robert O'Hara Burke was an Irish soldier and police officer who achieved fame as an Australian explorer. He was the leader of the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition, which was the first expedition to cross Australia from south to north, finding a route across the continent from the settled areas of Victoria to the Gulf of Carpentaria. The expedition party was well equipped, but Burke was not experienced in bushcraft. A Commission of Inquiry held by the Government of Victoria to investigate the failure of the expedition was a censure of Burke's judgement.
Robert O'Hara Burke (painted by William Strutt)
Burke and Wills Statue on the corner of Collins and Swanston Street, Melbourne
Artur Loureiro, Death of Burke, 1892, private collection
William Strutt, Burial of Burke, 1911, State Library of Victoria
Burke and Wills expedition
The Burke and Wills expedition was organised by the Royal Society of Victoria in Australia in 1860–61. It initially consisted of 19 men led by Robert O'Hara Burke, with William John Wills being a deputy commander. Its objective was the crossing of Australia from Melbourne in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance of around 3,250 kilometres. At that time most of the inland of Australia had not been explored by non-Indigenous people and was largely unknown to the European settlers.
Robert O'Hara Burke by William Strutt
William John Wills
Instructions issued to Burke, leader of the Victorian Exploration Expedition
Nicholas Chevalier, Memorandum of the Start of the Exploring Expedition, oil on canvas, 1860