Sir,—Aodhán Crealey’s concise biographical piece about Tyrone-born John King (HI 32.1, Jan./Feb. 2024, ‘On this day’) is an apt tribute to the sole survivor of the 1860–1 well-equipped but badly led first European expedition to cross Australia from south to north. King was then a 20-year-old camel driver. Readers may be interested in two recent additions to King’s public record, the first from my family history, the second more dramatic.
When King returned to Melbourne in late November 1861, he was initially given a civic welcome. However, some alleged that King had failed to look after his older superiors, Robert O’Hara Burke and William John Wills (not Willis as printed), who died on the return journey. As Crealey noted, the worthies of the city rewarded King with a gold watch and a pension but, in contrast, erected a giant statue to Burke and Wills.
In Collingwood, at the working-class end of town, the local council celebrated King’s role. On 27 December the municipality hosted a reception ‘of congratulation and sympathy’ for him, led by the mayor, John Noone, my Galway-born great-grandfather, one of Melbourne’s first photographers. The overflow crowd included prominent figures of the post-Eureka democracy agitation.
In his address Noone defended King’s reputation, quoting ‘the notes left by your heroic leader and companions of your generous and self-sacrificing conduct in your attempts to aid and encourage them in the time of their misery and death’. In his reply, King claimed a spot in the historical record for his efforts in preserving the geographical, botanical and other scientific notes collected by various members of the expedition, findings that are relevant to this day.
The second addendum concerns King’s extraordinary relationship with the Yandruwandha people of the lakes area in northern South Australia. After the death of Wills and then Burke, they looked after King until a relief expedition found him. In the opening chapter of Ian Clark and Fred Cahir’s 2013 collection, The Aboriginal Story of Burke and Wills, Aaron Paterson, a Yandruwandha man and a legal aid officer, presented firm evidence that King fathered a daughter during his three months with the Yandruwandha. Paterson is a great-great-great-grandson of King’s daughter, whose European name was Annie King.
An interesting contemporary Irish connection is that Lord John Alderdice, sometime presiding officer of the Northern Ireland Assembly, is also related to John King, being a descendant of John King’s sister Amy: that is, John King was Alderdice’s great-great-granduncle. In September 2013, when Aaron Paterson and John Alderdice met up in Melbourne, one headline declared that ‘Distant cousins share a long-held family secret’. John King is indeed worthy of being called to mind.—Yours etc.,
VAL NOONE
Melbourne