Polly's Springs

Stephen King Jnr. was born at Gawler, South Australia in 1841. As a young man he joined the South Australian Lands Department. He became part of the expedition, led by John McDouall Stuart, that crossed the continent from 1861 to 1862. He was also a member of the Litchfield expedition in 1865 and was a surveyor and explorer for part of the Overland Telegraph in 1870.

King created 44 sketches during the 1861-1862 expedition with Stuart. An example shown here is a sketch of Polly's Springs along the Finke River, from the fifth expedition, in 1861. While travelling along the Finke, John McDouall Stuart's favourite mare Polly became very ill. She had been with Stuart on all of his previous journeys and was considered a faithful horse who could endure much hardship. After camping at a river spring overnight to allow her a little time to recover, Stuart named the place Polly's Springs before they moved on.

The next spring that they reached may have been named after another horse called Bennett, who died, possibly from eating poisonous plants. He was a packhorse much valued by Stuart, who often wrote in his journals of the terrible hardship and deprivation that the horses on his expeditions suffered (see Journal of the Fifth Expedition, John McDouall Stuart Society). Polly went with Stuart on the sixth and final expedition. She survived and made it back home with her master.

Stuart named a chain of waterholes after King; King's Ponds. King died on 7 October 1915, the last member of the expedition to do so.

View all King's sketches of the expedition.

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