This photograph album documents a remarkable, 3,000 kilometre expedition from Fowlers Bay to Wyndham on the Cambridge Gulf, via Uluru. It was funded and led by one of Australia’s most experienced, if least known, explorers, Richard Thirlwell Maurice (1859-1909). The distinctive panoramic photographs in the album were probably taken with a recently issued #4 Kodak Panoram panoramic camera. The photographs include images of a chain gang of Aboriginal prisoners (men and women) at Wyndham. The images were published in southern newspapers and attracted considerable controversy.
‘Sturt Creek – catching and branding calves’. A remarkable photograph, undoubtedly posed by the Aboriginal stockmen for Maurice’s panoramic camera. Taken at Sturt Creek Station, 25 August 1902.
Panoramic photograph of the expedition party at Wardulka (near Ernabella), Musgrave Ranges, 12 June 1902.
By the time of his 1902 Cambridge Gulf expedition R.T. Maurice was a seasoned explorer. He had undertaken seven expeditions from his base at Fowlers Bay, accompanied only by Aboriginal guides and had come to know the ‘great thirst land’ (as he put it) in fine detail. The Cambridge Gulf expedition party included an Afghan cameleer (who absconded), a German cook and the highly skilled surveyor William Murray, as well as Aboriginal guides Mungena, Yarrie and Peter. The expedition’s camels performed well until the last 200 kilometres, when six animals died after eating poisonous plants. Maurice documented the expedition’s progress through the ‘Federation drought’ (1901-1903). His fine photographs of Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Kata Juta (the Olgas) were unmatched until those of Charles Mountford (1940) and were complemented by William Murray’s meticulous scale drawings of Uluru’s rock art. Maurice photographed Aboriginal ritual dance at Flora Valley, south of Halls Creek, and documented Aboriginal stockmen branding cattle at Sturt Creek Station. His remarkable, panoramic images of Aboriginal chain-gangs of men and women at Wyndham (incarcerated for their role in spearing cattle on their own ancestral lands) had considerable impact after their publication.
Richard Thirlwell Maurice (1859-1909) was the third son of one of South Australia’s wealthiest pastoralists, Price Maurice. On his father’s death in 1894, R.T. Maurice abandoned his occupation as a kangaroo shooter and used his inheritance to fund a series of exploring expeditions from his base on South Australia’s west coast at Fowler’s Bay. His initial series of five expeditions were made solely with Aboriginal companions with two main objects: to locate the key waters lying north of the Nullarbor Plain, and to prospect for minerals, particularly gold. These expeditions took him to Boundary Dam (300 km north of Eucla) in 1897, to Punthanna in 1897-1898, on a ‘sight-seeing’ and collecting expedition to Central Australia in 1898-1899, to Waldana in 1899, and to Waldana and Boundary Dam in 1900. Maurice took a camera on the last two expeditions, and soon became proficient, securing ‘first contact’ images of Aboriginal people. He collected artefacts (including sacred ‘dream stones’, as he called them) and natural history specimens, which he lodged in the South Australian Museum.
Maurice travelled light, using camels, and despite several close shaves, managed to reach reliable waters even during drought, greatly assisted by his Aboriginal guides – principally a Wirangu man named Mungena. In 1901 Maurice set out on an expedition with the government surveyor William (Bill) Murray to explore the Rawlinson Ranges and country lying between that explored by Ernest Giles (1875) and the Elder Expedition (1891). Following the expedition’s successful return Maurice brought Mungena and his two expedition guides, Yarie and Peter, to Adelaide, where they were feted and photographed. Maurice’s 1902 expedition was his most ambitious, a camel trip through Central Australia accompanied by Murray (who made the first detailed drawings of rock art at Uluru). Despite the loss of several camels the party reached Wyndham on the Cambridge Gulf. Here Maurice’s photography reached new heights. Using a panoramic camera he captured fine views of Aboriginal people, stockwork at Sturt Creek station. Maurice also documented the harsh reality of Aboriginal chain gangs (of men and women) at Wyndham itself. Printed in southern newspapers and in parliamentary papers, these images fuelled intense discussion about the treatment of Aboriginal people.
Maurice’s last major expedition in 1904 was a prospecting expedition, undertaken with William Murray, traversing country between the northern edge of the Nullarbor and the Western Australian border, and partly underwritten by the South Australian Government. In general though, Maurice funded all his expeditions generously and relished the freedom from bureaucratic control. His reliance upon Aboriginal guides and his willingness to adapt his itinerary to their priorities distinguished Maurice from better-known Australian explorers. On his sudden death from heart failure in 1909, aged only 49, Maurice was mourned by Aboriginal people and Europeans alike. His photograph album documenting the Cambridge Gulf trip is one of the Society’s treasures, together with the meticulous journals of his major expeditions, kept by William Murray.
Maurice took several panoramic photographs of prison chain-gangs at Wyndham. The images raised a number of questions relating to ‘frontier justice’, the incarceration of Aboriginal women and forced labour. In fact, chain gangs continued to be used at Wyndham until the Second World War. Expedition members returned by ship to Adelaide from Wyndham
Maurice’s photograph of Uluru (Ayers Rock), from 50 km distance, 26 June 1902.
© The Royal Geographical Society of South Australia