1819 - 1905
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Augustus Gregory was born on the 1st of August 1819 at
Farnsfield, Nottinghamshire, England. His father was a lieutenant in the
78th Regiment and had been wounded in action. Instead of a pension his
father accepted a grant of land at Swan River and the family left England. Augustus arrived in W.A. as a 10 year old in 1829 aboard the ship Lotus. The family were neighbours of J.S. Roe who helped Augustus get a cadetship to the Surveyor General's Department. Augustus worked on surveying roads and property boundaries and even invented the mechanism for the a revolving light for the first lighthouse on Rottnest. In 1846 he led two expeditions (which included his brothers Francis and Thomas) to the York and Toodyay areas then north towards the Murchison River before turning towards the coast where they found a natural harbour they named Port Gregory. The distance the expedition covered was 953 miles and took a total of 47 days to complete. In 1848, Augustus led settlers into the areas he had explored and in 1854 he went to Queensland where he led an expedition west all the way into the east Kimberleys. During his extensive travels he invented a simple
and reliable compass and improved the design of pack saddles so that they
could carry more and better distribute the load. |
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In 1854 Augustus led an expedition from Moreton Bay and reached Brisbane in December 1856.
In 1858 he led an expedition in search of Ludwig
Leichardt and did in fact find some traces of the lost expedition but in
the end conditions forced him to turn back. It was during this last
expedition that he marked the southern boundary of the new colony of
Queensland which he was soon to become Surveyor General of. |
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