Lockier Burges (1841-1929)

Lockier Clere Burges (1841 – 7 January 1929), also known as L. C. Burges junior was prominent – and controversial – in Western Australia as an entrepreneur, explorer and author.

Burges, the son of John Major Burges and Dorcas Bradshaw, was born at Fethard, County Tipperary, Ireland, in 1841.

During the early 1860s, Burges emigrated to Western Australia, where three of his uncles lived, including L. C. Burges senior (c. 1814–1886) and William Burges (c. 1807–1876). In 1868, L. C. Burges junior married Ann Eliza Finnerty at Fremantle.

From late 1864, he worked for the Roebuck Bay Company (RBC) at the first, albeit short-lived station in the Kimberley, at Cape Villaret. In 1865, Burges took part in the La Grange expedition, which recovered the bodies of the explorers Panter, Harding and Goldwyer and explored the area between Cape Villaret and Lagrange Bay. The expedition was responsible for the killing up to 20 members of the Karajarri people.

After the collapse of the RBC, Burges established Andover, a sheep station on the upper Harding River, in the Pilbara. Burges also invested in pearling vessels based in Nickol Bay. At the time, stations in North-West Australia were staffed almost entirely by local Aboriginal people who were paid in kind with "rations" (food and other goods) rather than money.

In 1871, while droving sheep from the Pilbara to Geraldton, Burges shot and killed an Aboriginal man known only as "Mackle-yell", in a dispute over a stolen saddle.  He was convicted of manslaughter in 1872, and sentenced to five years imprisonment. The sentence was commuted to 12 months.

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