Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt (1813-aft.1848)

Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (Ludwig) "Doctor Leichhardt" Leichhardt

Born 23 Oct 1813 in Trebatsch, Brandenburg, Prussia

Son of Christian Hieronymus Matthias Leichhardt and Charlotte Sophie (Strählow) Leichhardt

Brother of Mathilde Leichhardt, Hermann Leichhardt and Fettchen (Leichhardt) Schmalfuss

Died after 3 Apr 1848 after age 34 in (Australia)

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Profile last modified 8 Sep 2023 | Created 31 Aug 2019

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1 Biography
2 Sources
3 See also

Biography

Ludwig Leichhardt is Notable.

Ludwig Leichhardt was a Prussian explorer and naturalist, most famous for his exploration of northern and central Australia. Leichhardt's success in making it to Port Essington in 1845 was a major achievement, which ranks him with other successful European explorers of Australia. He disappeared, presumed died, whilst attempting to make the first east–west crossing of the Australian continent. The later practice of addressing Leichhardt as 'Doctor' arose out of recognition by his contemporaries that he was a man of learning dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, rather than the gaining of degrees.

'Doctor' Ludwig Leichhardt

formative years

Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt was born on 23rd October 1813 in the hamlet of Sabrodt near the village of Trebatsch, Kingdom of Prussia (today part of Tauche, in the Province of Brandenburg within the Federal Republic of Germany). He was the fourth son and sixth of eight children of Christian Leichhardt, farmer and royal inspector of peat, and his wife Charlotte Strählow.^[1] He was educated at Trebatsch, a boarding school at Zaue, and a gymnasium at Cottbus.^[2]

study

Leichhardt studied philosophy, language, and natural sciences at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Berlin (1831, 1834-36) and the University of Göttingen (1833) but did not complete a degree.^[2] He moved to England in 1837, continuing his study of the natural sciences at the British Museum, London, and the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, and undertaking field work in England, France, Italy and Switzerland.^[1] To enable Leichhardt to fulfil his plan to study the natural sciences in a vast new field, his friend and benefactor William Nicholson, paid his fare to Australia, provided clothes and necessities for the journey and gave him £200.

exploration

On 14th February 1842 Leichhardt arrived in Sydney, New South Wales, aboard Sir Edward Paget, with the aim of exploring inland Australia. In September 1842 Leichhardt went to the Hunter Valley, north of Sydney to study the geology, flora and fauna of the region, and to observe farming methods. He then set out on his own on a specimen-collecting journey that took him north to the Moreton Bay region, in what is now Queensland.^[1]

Port Essington expedition route

After returning to Sydney early in 1844, unable to procure government sponsorship (whilst the Legislative Council approved £1,000, Governor Gipps prevaricated, firstly requiring approval from London), Leichhardt launched an expedition with private funding, from Moreton Bay to Port Essington (300 km north of the future site of Darwin in the Northern Territory).^[3] His party sailed in August to Moreton Bay and then departed on 1st October 1844 from Jimbour Homestead, the farthest outpost of settlement on Queensland's Darling Downs. His team of eleven included ornithologist John Gilbert, amateur botanist and squatter Pemberton Hodgson, convict William Phillips, sixteen year-old John Murphy, John Mann, John Roper, James Calvert, American Negro Caleb, and Aborigines Charley Fisher and Harry Brown. After a nearly 4,800 kilometres (3,000 miles) overland journey, and having long been given up for dead, Leichhardt arrived in Port Essington on 17th December 1845. He returned to Sydney by boat, arriving on 25th March 1846 to a hero's welcome.^[1] In 1847, he published his Journal of an overland expedition in Australia, from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, a distance of upwards of 3000 miles, during the years 1844–1845.^[4]

Leichhardt's Port Essington

Leichhardt's second expedition, undertaken with a government grant and substantial private subscriptions, started in December 1846. It was supposed to take him from the Darling Downs to the west coast of Australia and ultimately to the Swan River and Perth. However, after covering only 800 km the expedition team was forced to return in June 1847 due to heavy rain, malarial fever and famine. After recovering from malaria Leichhardt spent six weeks examining the course of the Condamine River, which drains the northern portion of the Darling Downs, and the country between the route of another expedition led by Sir Thomas Mitchell in 1846 and his own route, covering nearly 1,000 km.^[1]

Condamine River, at Warwick on the Southern Downs

In 1848, Leichhardt again set out from the Condamine River for the Swan River. The team comprised Leichhardt, August Classen (Ludwig's brother's brother-in-law), Arthur Hentig, Donald Stuart, Thomas Hands (a ticket of leave holder), and Aboriginal guides Wommai and Billy Bombat. They took with them seven horses, 20 mules and 50 bullocks.^[1]

disappearance

The whole party disappeared whilst attempting to make the first east–west crossing of the Australian continent, last seen on 3rd April 1848 on the Darling Downs, Queensland. Leichhardt was 34 years of age. His team's feat has been compared to that of Burke and Wills 1861 crossing of Australia from south to north, failing to return.^[1] Numerous searches were made over the following decades for traces of the expedition, with little substantial evidence being discovered. Numerous theories as to what happened arose for some 150 years.

A letter found in the NSW State Library archives in 2012 appears to shed light at last on Leichhardt's disappearance. Dated 2nd April 1874, the letter was written by W P Gordon, who stated that he had met Leichhardt in the days before his party vanished. He related how after moving to Wallumbilla he had befriended the Wallumbilla tribe who in time came to openly share their stories and folklore with him. One detailed story referred to the death of a white man who was leading a party of mules and bullocks along the Maranoa River many years earlier. According to the Wallumbilla, a large group of Aboriginals had encircled the party and murdered everyone in it. If true, it would explain how items that could only have come from Leichhardt's expedition were found in the Gibson Desert and why the rifle butt with the brass plate was found some 4,000 kilometres west of the Maranoa River, in Western Australia.^[5]

faith

An interesting comment in a letter home to his eldest sister, Mathilde, sheds light on Ludwig's personal faith and Lutheran upbringing: "You are enjoying the beautiful flowers and their scent, you enjoy the tree and its shade, you gaze across the forest and meadow, from the earth to the starry sky and you feel yourself moved by higher emotions, confronted subconsciously by many voces speaking to you about a Supreme Being. If nature impresses you so kindly, how much more must I feel it, devoting myself to penetrate its deepest secrets and to discover the eternal laws according to which it acts so wonderfully. WOuld it not be sinful to give another answer than the one which our Saviour gave to His anxious mother whe she found Him in the temple? 'Let me be, I am in the service of my Father'."^[6]

Leichhardt showed his evangelical faith in letters home to his mother, stating on occasion: "I believe in Jesus Christ our Lord." Lacking in bushcraft, sense of direction and use of firearms, this simple faith was apparent when he set off on his extraordinary exploratory ventures across the north of Australia.^[7]

legacy

Leichhardt's contribution to science, especially his successful expedition to Port Essington in 1845, was officially recognised. In 1847 the Geographical Society, Paris, awarded its annual prize for geographic discovery equally to Leichhardt and a French explorer, Rochet d'Héricourt; also in 1847, the Royal Geographical Society in London awarded Leichhardt its Patron's Medal; and Prussia recognised his achievement by granting him a king's pardon for having failed to return to Prussia when due to serve a period of compulsory military training. In 2012, the National Museum of Australia purchased the medal awarded to Leichhardt by London's Royal Geographical Society in 1847. It came directly from descendants of the Leichhardt family in Mexico.^[1] In 1998, the federal state of Brandenburg awarded the village of Trebatsch the additional name "Leichhardt-Gemeinde" (Leichhardt Municipality).^[8]

Australia has commemorated Ludwig Leichhardt through the use of his name in several places: the inner western Sydney suburb of Leichhardt; the suburb of Leichhardt, City of Ipswich; the Leichhardt Highway and the Leichhardt River in Queensland; and the Division of Leichhardt in the Australian Parliament.^[1] The name of the eucalyptus tree species Corymbia leichhardtii commemorates Leichhardt.^[9] The insect Petasida ephippigera is commonly known as Leichhardt's grasshopper, and an alternative name for the largetooth sawfish (Pristis pristis) is Leichhardt's sawfish.^[10] Letters from Leichhardt to his fellow expedition team member Frederick Isaac are held in the State Library of New South Wales.^[1]

On 23rd October 1988, a monument was erected beside Leichhardt's blazed tree at Taroom by the local historical society and tourism association to celebrate Leichhardt's 175th birthday and the bi-centenary of Australia.^[11]