David Carnegie (explorer)

The Hon. David Wynford Carnegie (23 March 1871 – 27 November 1900) was an explorer and gold prospector in Western Australia. In 1896 he led an expedition from Coolgardie through the Gibson and Great Sandy Deserts to Halls Creek, and then back again.

David Carnegie was born in London on 23 March 1871, the youngest child of James Carnegie, 9th Earl of Southesk. He was educated at Charterhouse in Godalming, Surrey but dropped out without graduating, and was thereafter educated by a private tutor. He later entered the Royal Indian Engineering College, but again dropped out without completing the course. In 1892, he travelled to Ceylon to work on a tea plantation. Finding it boring, he quit after a few weeks, and set sail for Australia with his friend Lord Percy Douglas.

On arriving in Albany, Western Australia in September 1892, Carnegie and Douglas learned of Arthur Bayley's discovery of gold at Coolgardie, and immediately decided to leave the ship and join the gold rush. Together, they prospected around Coolgardie for a number of months, with little success. Eventually, Douglas left the field to raise finances in order for them to continue prospecting. Carnegie continued prospecting, joining the rush to Kalgoorlie after Paddy Hannan's discovery of gold there. He had little success, and by the middle of 1893 he was destitute. Unable to make a living as a prospector, he took a job at the Bayley's Reward mine in Coolgardie.

Late in 1893, Douglas was appointed a director of a new mining exploration company, thus securing finances for Carnegie's prospecting. In March 1894, Carnegie commenced his first prospecting expedition, in the company of a prospector and camel handler named Gus Luck. The pair initially explored the Hampton Plains immediately east of Kalgoorlie, but finding it extremely dry, they travelled instead to Queen Victoria Spring, about 250 km (160 mi) east of Kalgoorlie. From there they travelled north through unknown country to Mount Shenton, about 100 km (62 mi) north east of the present-day town of Laverton. After prospecting around Mount Margaret and Mount Ida, they returned to Coolgardie, having been away for ninety days and having travelled about 1,350 km (840 mi). They had found little evidence of gold, and nothing worth claiming a lease on.

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