In the field with McDouall Stuart - a dozen 'new' images revealed

Historian and ethnographer Dr Philip Jones will focus on Stuart's 1859 expedition, during which he discovered the mound springs which became the key to his successful transcontinental expedition of 1862-63.

It has been some time since the visual record of Australia's foremost explorer, John McDouall Stuart, has expanded with the discovery of new expedition imagery. Historian and ethnographer Dr Philip Jones will focus on Stuart's 1859 expedition, during which he discovered the mound springs which became the key to his successful transcontinental expedition of 1862-63. Until recently, through their misattribution on, twelve images from that expedition have escaped attention. This talk will discuss those images, the identity and background of the actual artist and how this discovery might influence our understanding of Stuart's expeditionary record.

Dr Philip Jones has been a curator in the South Australian Museum’s Department of Anthropology since the 1980s. He has undertaken fieldwork with Aboriginal communities in Central Australia, the Simpson Desert and South Australia, and has curated more than 30 exhibitions, ranging from Aboriginal art to the history of anthropology and natural science, expeditions, and frontier photography. 

Philip’s prizewinning book of essays, titled Ochre and Rust: Artefacts and Encounters on Australian Frontiers, has recently been republished. In recent years he has completed books on the Yuendumu school doors, Spencer and Gillen’s 1901-1902 pioneering anthropological expedition, and the Australian and New Zealand expeditions undertaken by the colonial artist and naturalist George French Angas.