Robert Henry Buck IV (1881 - 1960)

Born 2 Jul 1881 in Alberton, South Australia, Australia

Ancestors

Died 9 Aug 1960 at age 79 in Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia

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Biography

Bob Buck IV was born in the Colony of South Australia (1836-1900)

Bob Buck IV is Notable.

See Australian Dictionary of Biography^[1].

Born JUL 02 1881. Alberton, South Australia, Australia. ^[2]

Died AUG 09 1960. Alice Springs, NT. ^[3]

This Week The Man Who Found Lasseter's Body Tighe's Hill has had a distinguished visitor this week: the man who found the body of L. H. B. ("'Das") Lasseter. He is big, bluff, 71-year old Robert Henry Buck, who arrived last Saturday from his cattle station, a 480 square mile property at Renner's Rock, 60 miles south-west of Alice Springs. Ion Idriess, in "Lasseter's Last Ride," describes him as "one of the finest bushmen in Australia," and his search for the missing prospector as "a trek that created a record for Australian tracking." Mr. Buck came to Newcastle by rail to visit his brothers and sisters at Tighe's Hill and Hamilton. One of his brothers, Mr. Tom Buck, of Elizabeth street, Tighe's Hill, made the journey with him after spending six months' holiday at Renner's Rock. The man who trailed Lasseter is a real Territorian, easy-going; cordial, yet reticent to the point where he would rather not have to talk to people who want to write about him. "'I've been in everything but the Bible and the Police Gazette," he said, when we began to ask him his story. "I don't want any of this." He wears a thick walrus moustache and looks no different from his 20-year-old portrait in the Idriess book. His brothers call him "young Bob," and he is the kind you like immediately. AFTER calling at the home of one of his sisters, Mrs. J. Rees, of Elizabeth street, where he is staying, we found him and two of his brothers in a bar. Anyone who had had one over the eight might have been a bit worried at one stage if he had looked to the corner where the group was standing. There were mountain devils crawling along the bar. Mr. Tom Buck brought two of the spiny, speckled devils home from "the Alice" and took them out of a cardboard box to show them to us. In the face of "young Bob's" reticence we had to get most of the details we wanted from another of his brothers, Mr. Allen Buck, of Devon-street, Hamilton. He told us "young Bob" was at Middleton Ponds when Lasseter set out for his El Dorado reef. In 1931, when nothing had been heard of the prospector for some time. Central Australian Gold Exploration Company Limited, the company which had been formed to locate and mine the reef, asked Bob Buck to look for him. WITH camels and a party of native boys Mr. Buck set out for the Petermann Range, 300 miles west of "the reticence we had to get most Alice," and eventually picked up Lasseter's trail, following it with the aid of documents the prospector buried in tins under the ashes of his successive campfires. The country he entered was inhabited by a tribe with a rather bad reputation, but "Young Bob got on well with the blacks" and was finally led by them to the spot where Lasseter's body lay "buried", in aboriginal fashion, under a canopy of leaves. Mr Buck removed documents from the body and buried the prospector properly erecting a rough timber fence around the grave. He was away from civilisation for 12 weeks and covered more than 600 miles. When he returned, he took the papers he had found to Lasseter's widow in Melbourne. "LASSETER'S Reef is a myth" he told us. "If there had been any reef, I'd have been down there long ago." Mr. Buck was born in South Australia but has lived in Central Australia for 53 years. He went there first to join his uncles, the Braeden Brothers—Joe, Harry and Allen—who are well remembered in the Territory as pioneers of the Fincke River district. Mr. Buck expects to leave for home on Monday.^[4]

See PERSONAL (1947, April 11). The Kadina and Wallaroo Times (SA : 1888 - 1954), p. 2. Retrieved September 17, 2020, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article110523049

Sources

1. ↑ http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/buck-robert-henry-bob-1621
2. ↑ Source: #S6 PtA 264 413 Given Name(s): Robert Henry Last Name: BUCK Birth Date: 1881, July 02 Gender: M Father: Robert BUCK Mother: Sarah Ann BRADEN Birth Place/Residence: Alberton District: Port Adelaide Symbol: Book/Page: 264/413 Certainty: 2
3. ↑ Source: #S9 Findmypast First name(s) Robert Henry Bob Last name Buck Gender Male Age at death 80 years Death year 1960 Death date 1960-08-09 Death place Alice Springs Hospital NT Burial date 1960-08-10 Cemetery/Memorial service Alice Springs General Cemete Certainty: 2
4. ↑ IAN HEALY'S Suburbia, This Week. (1952, December 13). Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate (NSW : 1876 - 1954) , p. 5. http:/nla.gov.au/nla.news-article133569464

• Biography: Alex Jelinek, 'Buck, Robert Henry (Bob) (1881–1960)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/buck-robert-henry-bob-1621/text9175, published first in hardcopy 1979

• Source: S6 SA BDM Publication: SA Genealogical Association South Australia Births Deaths and Marriages (Digger Index)
• Source: S9 Misc. internet source

• Bob Buck (bushman) from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. first accessed online on the 19th of October, 2023 at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Buck_(bushman)

• Find a Grave, database and images (accessed 19 October 2023), memorial page for Bob Buck (1880–1960), Find a Grave Memorial ID Find A Grave: Memorial #184433488, citing Alice Springs Memorial Cemetery, Alice Springs, Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia; Maintained by Paolo Trauner (contributor 47416911).