John McDouall Stuart

John McDouall Stuart
John McDouall Stuart
Born	(1815-09-07)7 September 1815 Dysart, Fife, Scotland
Died	5 June 1866(1866-06-05) (aged 50) London, England
Occupation	Explorer of Australia, surveyor, grazier

John McDouall Stuart (7 September 1815 – 5 June 1866), often referred to as simply "McDouall Stuart", was a Scottish explorer and one of the most accomplished of all Australia's inland explorers.

Stuart led the first successful expedition to traverse the Australian mainland from south to north and return, through the centre of the continent. His experience and the care he showed for his team ensured he never lost a man, despite the harshness of the country he encountered.

The explorations of Stuart eventually resulted in the 1863 annexation of a huge area of country to the Government of South Australia. This area became known as the Northern Territory. In 1911 the Commonwealth of Australia assumed responsibility for that area. In 1871-72 the Australian Overland Telegraph Line was constructed along Stuart's route. The principal road from Port Augusta to Darwin was also established essentially on his route and is now known as the Stuart Highway in his honour.

Born in Dysart, Fife, Scotland, Stuart was the youngest of nine children. His father William Stuart was a retired army captain serving as a customs officer. Stuart's parents died when he was in his early teens and he came under the care of relatives. He graduated from the Scottish Naval and Military Academy as a civil engineer before emigrating to Australia at the age of 23. Stuart was a slight, delicately built young man, standing about 5' 6" tall (168 cm) and weighing less than 9 stone (about 54 kg).

In January 1839 he arrived in the three-year-old frontier colony of South Australia, at that time little more than a single crowded outpost of tents and dirt-floored wooden huts. Stuart soon found employment with the colony's Surveyor-General, working in the semi-arid scrub of the newly settled districts marking out blocks for settlers and miners. He later became a Freemason.

The South Australian Surveyor-General, Stuart's superior officer, was the famous explorer Captain Charles Sturt, who had already solved the mystery of the inland-flowing rivers of New South Wales, in the process discovering the Darling River, travelling the full length of the Murrumbidgee, and tracing the Murray to the sea. Stuart remained with the Survey Department until 1842 and then worked in the Mount Lofty Ranges as a private surveyor and grazier.