Hawker's diary

Extract from diary of J.C. Hawker.

James Hawker arrived in South Australia aboard the Pestonjee Bomanjee in 1838, as Aide-de-camp and assistant to Governor Gawler. Subsequently he became a surveyor; a pastoralist establishing Bungaree Station at Clare with his brother George; and Comptroller of H.M. Customs at Port Adelaide. He maintained diaries throughout his life and published some of his reminiscences in Early experiences in South Australia. In these he gives some detail of life in the surveying camps and of his acquaintanceship with John McDouall Stuart. Hawker returned briefly to England but came back to South Australia and took up land on the River Murray. It was here that he would renew his friendship with Stuart.

John McDouall Stuart remained with the Survey Department and is recorded as working there in 1841, but there is no detail of his next few years. Things were financially stringent in South Australia at this time and he may have been retrenched. However in 1844 he joined an expedition being fitted out by Charles Sturt. This was to explore central Australia and look for a mountain range and watershed. Sturt hoped to find an inland sea and took a boat with him carried on a wagon. Stuart was the expedition's draughtsman, and Sturt entrusted the map-making to him.

On its way back to Adelaide, the expedition was met by James Hawker who records the encounter in his diary:

'Jany 16th: Capt Sturt came back from his arduous trip inland the party having had the most extraordinary escape from being starved with thirst. They had had the scurvy very badly from want of fresh provisions. Capt. S. himself was obliged to be carried in one of the drays for 6 weeks being unable to use his limbs from it. The country was perfectly barren...

Mr Stuart came today with Capt. Sturt and his chart of the journey is certainly beautifully drawn.'

Stuart would name a creek for Hawker on his fifth expedition.

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