John McDouall Stuart: The Scot Who Opened Up Australia

It was a moment that changed Australia.

The first European, a Scotsman, called John McDouall Stuart, had crossed the continent.

Australia in the mid-1800s was isolated, divided between two cultures,

the red centre, a vast barrier to communications with the outside world.

Mr Stuart should be sent out with the very best revolvers and force his way, in spite of all opposition.

Fire, Mr Kekwick.

Two men took up the challenge to reach across the great unknown of the Australian outback.

One defied physical torment attempting the impossible.

The other staked his reputation on a breakthrough as profound as the modern internet.

For £128,000, I will build this line to the north coast or God strike me, die trying.

One a triumph,

the other, a tragedy.

Together, they built a wire that connected Australia to the world.

It's August, 1872.

The place, the very centre of the Australian continent.

This man is about to send a message over a revolutionary new medium.

A simple piece of number-eight gauge wire will flash his words across the vast Australian outback.

His action here today will change Australia forever.

The man is South Australian Superintendent of Telegraphs,

Charles Todd.

'Wish to inform of the completion of the telegraph, which is an important link

'in the electric chain of communication

'connecting the Australian colony with the mother country.'

Now he must wait. The answer, when it comes, is more than a simple reply.

It's the realisation of a dream he's pursued for nearly twenty years.

Charles Todd migrated from Britain with his young wife, Alice, in 1855.

He was 29, she barely 18.

They arrived in Adelaide, capital of the South Australian colony, under twenty years old.

Officially, Todd was to take up the position of government astronomer.

Alice had left a close family in England and keenly felt the gap that went with her new home.

Todd's job may have been astronomer but his obsession...

Look, you see that wire?

..was the telegraph.

One day,

that will connect us with home.

Just three months after arrival, he'd built the government's first telegraph line,

a mere twelve-and-a-half kilometres long, to the local port.

Three years later, he was thinking much bigger, and extended the link to Melbourne.

Newspapers of the day reveal the isolated Australian colony's hunger

for information from the outside world.

Special sections highlighted news from London, but it was often months old.

The news from Britain came via Perth, then by steamer to Adelaide and the eastern colonies.

But once the line was joined from Adelaide,

journalists from Melbourne rushed to Perth, catching the mail ships.

On the voyage back, they transcribed the British newspapers,

then telegraphed from Adelaide, beating the ship by days.

This meant that South Australia really became the centrepoint of communication.

As people arrived from Perth, the first news would come to Adelaide

and then be passed on commercially to the eastern colonies.

So Adelaide became the communication pivot,

and therefore earned the money for becoming the communication pivot.

The honourable member seems to be under the impression that the proposition

of an electric telegraph might be interfered with by the natives.

From 1858, Todd goes to his political masters with an even bigger plan.

Todd imagines a telegraph line running north,

through the mysterious centre of Australia.

At Darwin, it will connect to the international cable at Java, running all the way to London.

A telegraph wire to the world.

But Todd's telegraph will bring him up against the immensity of the Australian outback.

In 1858, no-one has crossed the Australian continent.

The vast centre is a blank on the map.

But one of the few who had pushed into the interior was a tough explorer,

John McDouall Stuart.

Born in Dysart and educated in Edinburgh, Stuart had emigrated to Australia in 1838.

In 1860, working as a bush surveyor for an influential grazier,

Stuart was the first European to reach the very centre of the continent,

and the mountain that would eventually bear his name.

He did it by travelling light and travelling quick.

Whereas other explorers from Europe

regarded the desert as something to be conquered by an army

with lots of equipment and lots of men,

Stuart took a few men, a string of horses and set out.

'We then gave three cheers for the flag, the emblem of

'civil and religious liberty, and may it be a sign to the natives that the dawn of liberty,

'civilisation and Christianity is about to break upon them.'

Stuart was attempting an epic first - crossing Australia south to north.

But his reasons were purely practical.

His grazier employer wanted to drive cattle from Adelaide to Darwin, for export to India.

The travelling was tough,

but in June 1860, Stuart encountered an even greater challenge.

His party had been travelling unannounced for months

through tribal lands, using up resources as they did so.

Finally, the Warramungu responded to what they saw as a gross insult.

'If they had been Europeans, they could not better have arranged and carried out their plan of attack.

'They had, evidently, observed us passing in the morning and examined our tracks to see which way we had

'gone and knew we could get no water down the creek,

'but must retrace our steps to obtain it from above them.

'They therefore lay in wait for our return.'

THREATENING SHOUTS

Fire, Mr Kekwick!

Stuart never revealed how many died that day.

With such as these for enemies in our rear, and most probably far worse in advance,

it would be destruction to all my party for me to attempt to go on.

Moreover, we have only half rations for six months, four of which are gone, so the men now complain

of great weakness and are unable to perform what they have to do.

The trek home is an ordeal.

By the time he returned to Port Augusta, a journey of 2,500 kilometres,

he was physically exhausted.

In December 1860, barely able to walk, Stuart arrives in Adelaide.

News of his exploits runs ahead of him.

Knowing the press would be eager for his story, he writes an account of his journey.

But he is unwilling or unable to talk.

For all of his skills in the bush, Stuart is a troubled character.

He was engaged to be married.

When he came around the corner and saw his cousin kissing his fiancee,

and without asking any questions, he turned on his heels

and left and never saw her again, and migrated to Australia.

So that was one theory about why he might have come here in the first place.

At that time, the British Empire was at its zenith.

So Stuart's part of the legion of young men who come to these colonies,

hopeful to make a fortune,

return in their mid-fifties and live like a squire.

Stuart's grazier employer was James Chambers.

Chambers was a self-made, very rich pastoralist and mining entrepreneur,

who came from England with nothing

and by building up a transport industry of coaches and horses,

was able to expand an empire

to the extent that he became the richest man in South Australia.

On this return, Stuart stayed at Chambers' house

where to the horror of Chambers' daughter, Elizabeth, he retreated to his room to drink for days on end.

Stuart was in poor health.

His trips left him with scurvy and dehydration, both made worse by his greatest weakness.

South Australia, like most frontier territories, was a place of hard drinking, no doubt about that.

But I think it was noted that Stuart was drinking more than the normal bushman would.

But in the outback, it was a different story.

Stuart was looking to gain his self-respect.

He was known around Adelaide as a failed businessman.

He drank too much, and didn't behave himself when he did so.

But in the desert, he could redeem himself.

He could get away from alcohol, and he could be...

respected and known as the great bushman that he was.

SHOUTS OF "Hear! Hear!"

In parliament, debate rages over the Aborigines' attack which turned Stuart back.

If civilisation is possible, the lives of a few savages are not to be considered!

The attack on Stuart made people feel vulnerable, even in Adelaide.

It was almost like the Japanese coming into Australia in 1942.

There was that same sense of imminence and of danger.

The public and the parliament

and the newspapers recognised that Stuart

was the best explorer that South Australia had.

If they wanted to know what was in the centre of their continent, Stuart was their man.

In colonial Australia, explorers were always front page news.

Good God.

Todd realised Stuart was the man he'd need to make his dream a reality.

"Three miles north of the centre is a high hill on which I planted the flag

"from which

"I could see the ranges to the north-east

"and which gave me a better idea of the country for water."

With Stuart's help, Todd could find a path across the continent,

the vital first step for an overland telegraph joining Australia to the outside world.

The South Australian parliament is quick to support another Stuart expedition.

They won't be stopped by an Aboriginal attack.

Mr Stuart must be sent out with the very best revolvers

and force his way in spite of all opposition.

Not all members agreed.

For the gratification of a mere curiosity,

we are not entitled to send an army expedition

for the purpose of fighting a way through a hostile tribe.

But they were roundly defeated.

Does this continent not belong to Great Britain?

And if it belongs to Britain, Britons, in passing through it, have the right to protect ourselves.

SHOUTS OF "Hear! Hear!"

This time, the expedition, with its search for a way across Australia,

will be for Todd's overland telegraph.

With the added government support, there's more men and weapons, and a greater sense of urgency.

South Australia isn't the only colony looking for a way across the continent.

Todd's telegraph line to Melbourne had brought unwelcome news.

The Victorian colony has appointed its own rival expedition

to cross the country.

"To the members of which, he would say in name, are all assembled

"and in the name of the colony at large.

"May God speed you and three cheers for Mr Burke."

Their leader, Robert O'Hara Burke, was determined to beat Stuart to the north coast.

Stuart was now in a race.

Across the 1850s, Victoria had been the centre of a massive gold rush

that had remade the Australian economy.

Thanks to the gold-rich Victorians, the Burke expedition had

five times the budget, and twice the number of men.

Burke was also four months ahead.

By the time Stuart left, they had already reached Coopers Creek in the far west of New South Wales.

What happened was that the Royal Society in Victoria

decided it was an affront to them,

as gold-rich gentlemen, to not know what was in the centre of Australia.

So they sent Burke and Wills out.

At the same time, the South Australian government

wanted to know what was in the centre of Australia,

so they could build an overland telegraph line.

But once the two explorers set off at about the same time, the newspapers

and the public got behind them in the belief that it was a race -

the first people

to cross the continent straight through the centre.

Stuart was ridiculed by the Melbourne press.

Yet on hearing of his departure, the Victorian government still sent a horseman warning Burke not to delay.

Stuart is unfazed.

An expert in crossing the desolate outback, he knew small groups travelled faster.

Time, Mr Kekwick?

12:01 and 15 seconds, sir.

'Stuart had this remarkable ability to find water.

'He studied where the birds went. He studied Aboriginal tracks.

'He studied the lay of the land.'

This was his great, great ability

and why he was such a good explorer,

better than anyone else.

He could find water where others couldn't.

After four months, he returns to the creek where he was attacked.

This time, he passes through without incident.

The country's harsher,

water harder to find.

But the party keeps moving forward.

Stuart has ventured deep into the north.

There, he met a barrier unlike anything seen before.

Stretching for kilometres at a time was a dense kind of scrub called bulwaddy bush.

It was like a natural form of razor wire.

'The horses would not face it.

'In the short distance we penetrated, it has torn our hands, faces, clothes,

'and what is of more consequence, our saddlebags, all to pieces.

'Had we gone further into it, we should have lost everything off the horses.'

Later, as the men recover, the real impact of the bulwaddy sinks in.

Stuart was less than 200 kilometres from the Victoria River,

from where he could have made it to the coast.

But now he must face an agonising reality.

He can't cut through the bulwaddy's dreadful forest of thorns.

It's the end. They're beaten, at least for now.

They return south, a two-and-a-half month journey back to civilisation, and familiar habits.

Every time Stuart comes back to Adelaide, he returns to his alcohol.

Maybe it was a comfort to him

to get over the mental deprivation of the trip

and help perhaps suppress

some of his bodily symptoms as well.

On the 23rd of September, 1861, just days after his return,

Stuart is called to the office of Governor McDonald.

Mr Stuart.

Mr Todd.

South Australia is not ready to give up.

They're determined the telegraph will be theirs.

Mr Stuart.

Governor.

McDonald was a visionary who supported Todd's plans

for a telegraph connecting Adelaide to the rest of the world.

Competition from other colonies was heating up.

Both Queensland and Western Australia had joined the race and were pushing different routes.

Meanwhile, nothing had been heard of the Burke and Wills expedition,

sponsored by the wealthy Victorians.

From this point here to here...

Todd and McDonald knew that Stuart was the key to finding a path for the overland telegraph line.

That's correct.

Every time Stuart set out on his six expeditions,

he always must have had at the back of his mind

that he would die in the attempt.

But this is particularly true in respect of the last one.

He was in serious ill health, even before he set off.

I would have advised him not to go back again like he did, straight away,

to do yet another expedition,

because he was putting his life at risk.

-To the Queen.

-The Queen.

In October, 1861, just five weeks after he returned, Stuart is again sent out.

The official send-off is an event for Adelaide society.

-Posts need to be 20 feet high, and 18 inches at the base.

-Got that.

We also need repeater stations every 150 miles, with reliable sources of water, of course.

That won't be difficult.

Todd had worked feverishly compiling details of the telegraph's requirements.

Stuart not only had to cross Australia, he also had to find the resources needed to build the line.

God speed you, Mr Stuart.

The party had only been gone a day when Adelaide received bad news.

Message for Mr Todd.

Thank you.

"A most unfortunate incident occurred at the Hart And Hound, a little inn just north of the city.

"One of the horses becoming restive,

"Mr Stuart advanced, but the horse reared and struck him

"in the temple with its forefoot, rendering him insensible."

It was five weeks before Stuart was again fit to travel,

but by then it was the middle of summer.

Temperatures soared above 40 degrees.

There was no shade.

Waterholes dried up behind him as he moved forward.

'Both men and horses suffered from the excessive heat.

'This is the hottest weather ever I have experienced in the latitude.'

His health was deteriorating rapidly.

'I feel this heavy work more than I did the journey of last year.

'I feel my capability of endurance beginning to give way.'

What made matters worse were the orders he was under

from Todd and the government which, as with the last trip,

directed him to make for the Victoria River.

What must be remembered is that he is not abiding by his rule

to go where the water leads him, and it proves to be a disaster.

Stuart's physical problems were getting worse.

Now he had sandy blight.

It would plague him for the rest of the trip.

He could barely see the horizon.

Sandy blight's a disease of the eyes where you get

mucus and pus pouring out of the eyes.

The eyelashes stick together and they turn inwards

and they scratch and scar the cornea,

so that eventually it renders you totally blind.

Mr Auld!

He was forced to entrust surveying duties to one of his men.

Climb that tree.

Yes, Mr Stuart, sir.

When Stuart's out in the desert,

the lack of water makes personal hygiene very difficult,

and the bug that causes sandy blight is spread by flies.

And they were certainly a massive problem for Stuart.

FLY BUZZES

'Stuart wrote in his diary that he would prefer to lay his head down'

and expire, rather than not succeed in his goal of crossing the Australian continent.

This time, to reach the Victoria River,

he must cross one of the bleakest environments in the country, the notoriously tough Tanami Desert.

But he had come prepared.

Back in Adelaide, George Hamilton, who provisioned Stuart,

had made large water-bags, ready for the desert crossing.

The aim was to effectively turn horses into camels.

Stuart, confident the bags would give him

extra time to find the scarce water, set out across the Tanami.

The bags last less than half a day.

Mr Stuart!

Mr Stuart! The water bags are leaking.

What a disappointment they turned out to be for Stuart who was relying so heavily on them.

It seems that they worked fine in Adelaide, but after several weeks

getting them to the centre of Australia, the binding tore apart.

Unfortunately they leaked.

Stuart now faced a serious problem.

The waterhole where they camped was drying up.

Food was now scarce, and his men were worn out.

But to turn back would be another failure to cross the continent.

'I am very much disappointed with the water bags.

'In coming this distance of 21 miles, they leaked out nearly half.'

And that night, the horses began to fail.

Mr Thring.

GUNSHOT RINGS OUT

Unable to make it to the Victoria River,

and desperate not to turn back, he makes a risky decision.

He abandons his orders.

He'll go north-east.

He turns for the Roper River, 300 kilometres away.

He knows nothing of the country but it's the only choice left.

His gamble pays off.

'Coming upon a small creek with running water and the valley being covered in beautiful green grass,

'I have camped to give the horses the benefit of the high grass.'

Stuart was near the end.

Exactly nine months after leaving Adelaide, he breaks through to a mangrove swamp.

It was the 21st of July, 1862,

the first time a European had crossed the continent of Australia.

'Thus have I, through the instrumentality and blessing of divine providence,

'been led to accomplish the great object of the expedition.'

Stuart had been very lucky.

The beach he arrived at was the only accessible landing for hundreds of kilometres.

They had found a route for Todd's overland telegraph.

When Stuart gets to the north coast,

it must have been a feeling of tremendous elation

to have achieved his goal.

And yet instead of staying for a while on the coast

to rebuild themselves,

they turn around the next day and head straight home,

and it's always puzzled me why he did that.

With all the food supplies, as it were, available to him on the coast, he didn't stay.

On his return journey, Stuart's condition deteriorates alarmingly.

He's virtually blind from the effects of sandy blight and scurvy, his body is completely emaciated

and at the very time that he needs good nutrition, he's trying to live on boiled flour and water.

It's mush. The guy's starving.

He kept himself upright in order to achieve that,

but after that he seemed to slump.

He no longer led from the front.

He gave that to one of his experienced bushmen.

For Stuart and his men, the return journey is one of incredible suffering.

The waterholes that served them on the way up are now often dry.

The struggle to feed and water both his stock and his men is acute.

The focus of the expedition turns to getting back to Adelaide alive.

Mr Stuart, sir. Mr Stuart.

Mr Stuart, please. Mr Stuart, sir.

He ends up being carried in a makeshift stretcher.

Scurvy, malnutrition, sandy blight and pure exhaustion drag Stuart into a delirium.

Are you all right, Mr Stuart, sir?

Poles need to be 20 feet high and 18 inches at the base.

Share a toast with me, John.

We need repeater stations every 150 miles, with reliable supplies of water, of course.

Good luck, Mr Stuart.

Twenty poles to the mile, and we'll need repeater stations every 150 miles.

-Share a toast with me, John.

-Mr Stuart, sir?

Are you all right, Mr Stuart?

Good luck, Mr Stuart.

Do you think you're up to it, Mr Stuart?

MOCKING LAUGH

God speed, Mr Stuart.

Stuart's convinced that he won't get back to Adelaide alive.

In fact, more to the point, he names the spot where he's going to die.

He tells those around him that he feels that his life would pass away at Central Mount Stuart.

That is, in the centre of the continent.

'I have kept King and Nash with me in case of my dying during the night,

'as it would be lonely for one young man to be there by himself.'

Meanwhile, all Australia is shocked by the news that the rival Victorian expedition has collapsed.

Burke and Wills are dead. A party's sent to Coopers Creek to retrieve their bodies.

Ironically, they pass through Adelaide on the return to Melbourne.

It can't be said, strictly, that anyone on the Burke and Wills expedition crossed the continent.

They never saw the sea.

On the 14th of November, 1862,

Stuart's ragged party reaches the outskirts of the settled districts.

The extraordinary trek has taken almost a year.

Their condition is pitiful, but Stuart has not lost a single man.

The local telegraph takes the news to Adelaide.

(The Commissioner Of Crown Lands.)

The Honourable Commissioner Of Crown Lands.

HE WHISPERS

Through you,

I beg to inform His Excellency

and the Governor-in-Chief...

..and the government...

(..that I have crossed the continent...)

..that I have crossed the continent.

"I have accomplished

"the object

"of the expedition party.

"I will be on the evening train tomorrow."

In the space of one message, Stuart's triumph meant Todd's

dream for an overland telegraph was now tantalisingly possible.

CROWD CHEERS

BAGPIPES PLAY "Auld Lang Syne"

When Stuart returns, Adelaide gathers to celebrate the biggest moment in South Australian history.

In Melbourne, on the same day, Burke and Wills are buried.

But Stuart is chronically unable to play the role of hero.

One gets the feeling that Stuart would rather not be there.

Stuart in fact says nothing.

Nothing's recorded in the newspapers of what occurs, or if he does say it, he says it in such a mumbling way

that it's not taken down by the journalists.

Congratulations, Mr Stuart.

Stuart and Todd now go in different directions.

Stuart, a victim of his demons, retreated to a beachside hotel to drink.

For Todd, the struggle to make the telegraph a reality is only beginning.

In 1863, the South Australian government annexed all the land

to the north coast, creating the Northern Territory as a dependency.

The move gave them control of the vital landing spots

for the proposed international line from Java.

In the years to come, Todd mined Stuart's carefully kept journals to plot a course across the centre.

But the real battle was political.

The Queensland colony strongly campaigned to take control of the line, and had a compelling case.

In 1870, matters came to a head.

The South Australian parliament meet for a day of dramatic debate.

Todd had to convince them that if they wanted the telegraph, they had

to make an offer to the company that controlled the vital line to London.

More importantly, it had to top the offer already made by Queensland.

Gentlemen...

..I have done the figures

and I plead with you to take this chance.

For £128,000, I will build

this line to the north coast in two years, or God strike me,

die trying.

Let us not look back and say how once we might have been a mighty force.

Let us look to the future

and carve...

our names...

into history.

South Australia beat Queensland

because they offered to pay all construction costs for the line to Darwin.

The British Australia Telegraph Company had given the South Australians

just one day to make the biggest decision in their history.

The line was to be built in three sections - one north from Adelaide,

one covered the centre

and one down from the north coast.

Todd was under pressure.

We need the strongest horses, saddles, carriages.

Everything possible in only a few months.

We're going to have to draw on every ounce of goodwill in this colony.

Construction would be a massive undertaking, as work teams retraced the land first surveyed by Stuart.

The schedule was punishing.

Todd's biggest problem came from the north.

Within a year, tropical rains had made construction a nightmare.

Work was brought to a stop.

Fed up, the men refused to even try.

In November 1871, the British arrived early.

The telegraph company landed the undersea cable at Darwin.

Realising his teams were not even close to meeting their deadline

due in a month, Todd himself went north to take command.

Charles's great qualities was his personal example,

his character.

He led out the front, but he delegated as well.

He had the ability to inspire the men with him,

and he could tell stories, he could crack his jokes,

but it was always encouraging them to say, you know, there's another forty poles.

We've got so many miles to go.

He could just keep that encouragement going and going.

Todd got the crews back to work.

Gentlemen.

I reckon that is the closest thing we'll get to a bath for many months, eh? So well done.

Todd's performance was remarkable, but the line was now six months over schedule,

and there was still a yawning gap of 400 kilometres of wire to finish.

In their desperation for the telegraph, the South Australians

had agreed to heavy penalties if construction ran behind.

Now the British Telegraph wanted their money.

If the overland telegraph hadn't gone ahead, Charles would have had

to have left South Australia under a cloud, and that's a fact.

Todd's response is an Australian Pony Express.

Horsemen carried telegraph messages between the gap in the line.

Riding almost non-stop, it takes five days.

Suddenly, communication time with London is slashed from months to less than a week.

But then, a stroke of luck.

What saved the day for the overland telegraph

was that the submarine cable failed dismally

and that in fact let Charles off the hook. It gave him the extra time.

The submarine cable linking Darwin to London had broken down.

The British Australia Telegraph Company dropped their claims for compensation.

Once the line is complete, Todd makes a journey south.

As a tribute to the man who pioneered the route, he will

send the first message from beneath the shadow of Central Mount Stuart.

It's August 1872.

Standing in the middle of Australia,

Todd connected his portable relay to the overland telegraph.

But what of the man who made it possible?

After his return to Adelaide, Stuart's reputation rapidly declined.

'Mr Stuart has ruined his health by his explorations.'

No!

Some honourable members might think that brandy and tobacco had to do with this.

But there was no saying whether it was not the brandy and tobacco which had kept him alive!

Alcohol bit hard.

Public sympathy ebbed away.

In 1864, Stuart left Australia for good.

Two years later, he died, uncelebrated, in London, aged just 50.

Stuart's funeral was a very low-key affair. There was seven people there.

There was no great service or any great recognition, in either Britain or in Australia that the man

who had really blazed the path through the centre of Australia was finally being laid to rest.

At Central Mount Stuart, Charles Todd waited for his reply.

MORSE CODE IS TAPPED OUT

Finally, a string of responses flooded in,

announcing the wire was connected.

'Message from the Chief Secretary.

'Accept my congratulations that your troubles are now over.'

After spending hours relaying triumphant messages back and forth

to Adelaide, he signed off with a simple "Goodnight".

The overland telegraph line was open.

When the undersea cable was fixed two months later, Australia was connected to the world.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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