8 EDUCATION THE AGE WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2002 WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2002 THE AGE EDUCATION 9 HISTORY

Ahero or a

The Burial of Burke by (1825?-1915) clown? Courtesy of the State Library of . SOURCES: THE DIG TREE BY Robert O’Hara Burke led the first European attempt SARAH MURGATROYD; THE JOURNEY OF BURKE AND WILLS BY MAX COLWELL; BEYOND THE MIST BY PETER O’CONNOR; BURKE AND WILLS: FROM to cross — a mission that brought him death, TO MYTH BY TIM BONYHADY; BURKEANDWILLS.NET; AUSTRALIAN DICTIONARY OF BIOGRAPHY; THE OXFORD Above and far right: glory and controversy. By Seamus Bradley. COMPANION TO IRISH HISTORY. Burke’s last note written in pencil on June 26, 1861. HAT great Australian myth, the before the expedition arrived in Menindie, less Melbourne to Myth exhibition at the State happened. He was born in 1820 or 1821 like a vagabond, dribbled saliva over his long wanted heroes and achievement to accompany Burke and Wills story, could be than two months into Australia’s most expensive Library maintain – on a journey into Australian (sources differ) into Protestant, landed gentry in beard, refused to wear braces and was in the its excess of gold-rush money. told this way: Did you hear the one and widely publicised venture of exploration. folklore. Galway, Ireland. The Burke (de Burgh) family habit of galloping 50 kilometres like a madman The Victorians also wanted to beat South about the Irishman and the Though the myth is of Burke and Wills, the Part of that mythmaking is the fact that had a bloody history, arriving in Ireland as for the sheer joy of annoying an ill-tempered Australia to the north coast, monopolise a Englishman? They set out to story belongs to Burke and, depending who you Burke, like Kelly, was Irish. Murgatroyd focuses Norman overlords and seizing native lands as magistrate by swinging on his gate. possible overland telegraph line that would becomeT the first guys (read “white guys”) to choose to believe, he was either a great hero or in on the tall, flamboyant figure of the early as 1185. It seems he had the bush skills of a dead fish; connect Australia with Europe and to satisfy cross Australia from south to north, failed to a big buffoon. expedition leader among the turmoil, standing Burke was raised in comfort on St Clerans it was reported that he got lost on a well-marked some minor scientific curiosity. reach the coast, insulted the people who tried to Those who tell the story usually start with a on top of a wagon “with flashing blue eyes and Estate and was the second of three sons. track between Yackandandah and Beechworth. Some writers have said Robert O’Hara save their lives and – in death and failure – were panorama of Royal Park on August 20, 1860. As a magnificent black beard”. Because he was number-one spare rather than He would sit naked, except for his police helmet, Burke was chosen for the mission because crowned national heroes anyway. the expedition prepares to set out, a warm north- And here Murgatroyd, an English-born radio the heir, he was forced – like most of us but with in a bath in his back yard and fell hopelessly in he was a death-or-glory man and he achieved Robert O’Hara Burke In a country that reveres the underdog and easterly breeze ruffles skirts and dislodges hats as journalist who died of cancer six weeks after her some considerable advantages – to make his love with Julia Matthews, a 16-year-old London- both. Burke made mistakes, and plenty of outlaw in the anti-establishment persona of thousands of Melbourne’s rich and curious mill book’s release, makes a logical assumption that own way in the world. born Catholic actress who came to Beechworth them. He was criticised as an awful leader, Ned Kelly, Burke is an unlikely hero and Wills, through the park, which is littered with the underpins how incompletely we understand In his early teens, he was educated at in 1858 with a touring company. She made failed to reach the sea and fired over the heads the obedient and faithful Englishman, is an expedition’s stores and equipment, tents, Burke. “Shouting orders in a strong Galway Woolwich Academy in England, where he £60 a week, he was on £700 a year and was of the Aborigines his life would later depend unusual sidekick. Had things worked out just harnesses, wagons, drays, arms, ammunition and accent,” she writes, “he was trying (and failing) apparently developed an interest in military about 22 years her senior. His courtship failed. on. Including the monument for the dead slightly differently, Australians would revere enough food to keep about 20 men alive for a year. to impose order on the mayhem below.” discipline. After serving at the Brussels No two people could agree on the character explorers, the final bill for Burke and Wills Burke and Landells and the loyal William John Mad horses and lunatic camels cut swathes It is unlikely that Burke, though born in Academy, he joined the military when aged of Burke. He was a tramp or a well-bred expedition came to £60,000 and seven lives lost. Wills’ name would appear as a footnote to the through the crowd. Galway, spoke with an Irish accent of any sort, about 20. But he chose the mostly Catholic gentleman, he was quick tempered or tender- More than 140 years after his death, Burke still main story rather than in the title. This is how Max Colwell begins his 1971 let alone one of the common herd. Burke was of Austrian army rather than the British service, hearted, he was reckless or generous, arbitrary draws judgment the way a church spire draws Instead, George Landells, the original second- account of the expedition, The Journey of Burke the landed gentry, well-educated, well-travelled, joining the elite 7th Reuss Regiment of or impulsive. With Burke there was no middle lightning but the story remains remarkable. While in-command and camel and Wills, and Sarah Murgatroyd sets a similar witty, erudite, charming and connected. In short, Hungarian Hussars as a cadet in 1842. Burke ground, he inspired devotion or animosity and we’re tempted to either praise him as a hero or William John Wills expert, clashed with scene early in her more detailed The Dig Tree, the accident of birth that ensured he was the rose swiftly through the ranks to become remains a sandpit of contradictions where we condemn him as an idiot, he was nobody’s fool. Below: Caricature of Burke and quit published this year. right type of chap to lead the expedition meant lieutenant and used his gold-braided uniform to can fossick for a hero of our own imagining. The question as to whether he was a hero Burke and Stuart in Royal Park is a good place to start because he had a plummy accent and bred in him the enjoy the salons of some of Europe’s great cities. Which returns us to Dr O’Connor’s mythic must be answered by the nation en masse, Punch, November, 1860. the scene captures the sense of occasion and prejudices that would seal his fate. In 1848 he left the regiment either because it hero model. We’ve dealt with conception and birth, keeping in mind Alwyn and Brinley Rees’ excitement, neatly Burke’s place in the Australian pantheon is disbanded or because he was in disgrace, facing youth and education, transition from boyhood to observation that “it is one of the great paradoxes introduces us to Burke often thought to rest on whether he was a hero court martial and jail, over gambling debts. manhood and the wooing of a maiden. of human life that it derives its deepest meaning and allows for some or an idiot, and though the balance of evidence He returned to Ireland to become an officer Next comes the voyage to the otherworld, from a mythological realm the inhabitants of ominous foreshadowing. points to him being something of a bonehead, in the newly-formed Irish Constabulary, serving return from the otherworld and death. The which conduct themselves in a way that is The expedition was in intelligence is not the yardstick by which in Kildare and Dublin and, perhaps spurred by outback is clearly the otherworld and, while antithetical to what is normal in everyday complete chaos, set off mythical heroes are judged. stories of the gold rush, arrived in Victoria in Burke’s adventure and death didn’t follow the behaviour and experience”. several hours late and Using several sources, Melbourne author and 1853, where he again joined the police. Burke hero-model sequence because he died before his Maybe Ellen Dogherty, the devoted nurse who one of the wagons broke psychologist Dr Peter O’Connor has developed a served in the parish of Jika Jika, Carlsruhe and body was returned, Dr O’Connor writes that the cared for Burke in boyhood, might, in light of his down before it had even simplified model of the essentials of the mythic Beechworth and, in 1854, set out to fight in the model is an aid to understanding, not a recipe. glorious death and exploits, have described him – left the park. hero story. Crimea War after his younger brother, James, The Burke and Wills expedition was a in a fulsome Galway accent no doubt – as “a bit Whatever was to Dr O’Connor’s model has seven key parts: became the first British officer to die in the schemozzle long before Burke got involved. The of an eejit”. Burke and Ned Kelly would have happen next, abject conception and birth; youth and education; conflict. Royal Society of Victoria faffed about for years understood the sentiment. Though the phrase is failure or triumphant transition from boyhood to manhood; wooing of But, as with a riot at the Ovens goldfield he before it finally set out, it had no clear aims and definitely not praise, it’s not an indictment either. success, as soon as the a maiden; voyage to the otherworld; return from raced to suppress, the action was over by the time the route was decided less than a month before Like Burke, it’s open to broad interpretation — expedition departed it had the otherworld; and death. he arrived. In 1858 he became superintendent of departure. The society hired an amateur to head perhaps even a kindly one. embarked – as the So does Burke qualify as a mythic hero? police in the Castlemaine district. the expedition because he counted as Victorian The exhibition Burke and Wills: From Melbourne organisers of the Burke We know nothing of Robert O’Hara Burke’s Descriptions of Burke, probably grog-fuelled and a gentleman, rather than a professional who to Myth is at the State Library of Victoria until and Wills: From conception, except his existence proves it yarns invented after his death, say he dressed could get the job done. The new, rich colony November 24. Entry is free.