Where is Dr Leichhardt? The Greatest Mystery in Australian History by Darrell Lewis, xxix + 416 pp, Monash University Publishing, Clayton, 2013, ISBN 9783921867767 (pbk), $39.95.

Ludwig Leichhardt is perhaps Australia’s best-known and most controversial explorer. Various places are named after him and he is the subject of a voluminous literature that ranges from strong support to scathing criticism. In 1844 and 1845, the young Prussian scientist with a boundless curiosity about Australia led an exploration party from Moreton Bay in Queensland to Port Essington in the Northern Territory for almost 5,000 kilometres through mostly uncharted country. He returned to a hero’s welcome in Sydney and won international recognition. Leichhardt’s second intended major expedition that commenced in late 1846 was less successful. Planning to travel from eastern Queensland to Swan River in Western Australia, he was forced to turn back in the middle of 1847. Some detractors both then and later questioned the value of his achievements and noted the explorer’s inability to get on with his companions. Leichhardt set out again for Swan River in 1848. After being last seen at a Darling Downs station in April that year, he and his six men disappeared somewhere in the Australian outback far from the frontiers of European settlement. The circumstances of that disappearance have never been satisfactorily explained in spite of countless attempts to do so.

Darrell Lewis is particularly well equipped to examine what he calls ‘this marvellous mystery’ (p. xxiv). An archaeologist, bushman and historian, Lewis has worked closely with Aboriginal people and other residents in the Northern Territory and elsewhere in remote Australia. Among his many publications on Territory history is the well received A Wild History: Life and Death on the Victoria River Frontier that appeared in 2012. Where is Dr Leichhardt? was researched and written while he was based at the National Museum of Australia’s Centre for Historical Research. Like A Wild History, his latest book is a groundbreaking work.

Lewis does not solve the Leichhardt mystery. Instead he forensically considers the history of various search expeditions (including his own), the validity of relics claimed to have Leichhardt associations and the different theories proposed to allow readers to reach their own conclusions on where Leichhardt went, where he died, how he died and where any surviving evidence of him might be. Material is logically organised in ‘regional clusters’ that ‘fall along the lines of the two routes Leichhardt is suggested to have taken – a northern arc across the continent and a direct east-west line’ (p. x).

Where is Dr Leichhardt? shows that while search parties found ‘L’ marked trees and a few items possibly belonging to Leichhardt’s expedition, the only authenticated artefact is a small brass plate marked ‘LUDWIG LEICHHARDT 1848’ discovered during the early twentieth century. The ‘evidence is strong’, Lewis contends, ‘that the plate was found … in the north-west Tanami near Sturt Creek, and in turn this suggests that Leichhardt followed his stated plan [of how to reach Swan River] and made it at least two thirds of the way across the continent’ (p. 180).

This view is elaborated further in the important final chapter where Lewis proposes two reasons why Leichhardt planned to take the northern route. The first was the need for regular and large water supplies. The second was the powerful influence of the scientist Alexander von Humboldt, which meant that Leichhardt followed the longer route to Swan River in order to more accurately determine continental-scale biological and physical features.

Lewis also believes on the basis of Aboriginal evidence that at least some Leichhardt expedition members perished well south of Lake Gregory and that the explorers may have split into two groups, which could account for stories of white men living with Aborigines beyond the frontier and ‘about the massacre or perish of a party of white men’ (p. 377). He notes, though, that such evidence remains inconclusive and that arguments about where Leichhardt died ‘remain a matter of probabilities rather than certainties’ (p. 379). Lewis is justifiably dismissive of Dan Baschiera’s recent far-fetched claim that ‘the British’ deliberately poisoned all the expedition members after Leichhardt spoke about Aborigines having their own civilisation.

Lewis’s story involves ‘an amazing cast of characters – “wild” Aborigines, explorers, bushrangers, frontier squatters, prospectors, aristocrats, charlatans, clairvoyants, madmen, scientists, historians, “armchair experts” and others’ (pp. ix–x). They include well-known figures such as the explorers John Forrest and David Carnegie, and the politician Bill Grayden, who all searched for Leichhardt evidence. The most extraordinary of the characters was the charismatic ‘con man’ Andrew Hume, who falsely claimed to have discovered important Leichhardt relics and a survivor of Leichhardt’s party living with Aborigines during the 1860s and 1870s.

Where is Dr Leichhardt? presents immensely detailed results of massive research yet remains highly readable. As Henry Reynolds notes on the front cover, the suspense is maintained until the final pages. The book’s sources include a wide range of secondary materials, newspapers, periodicals, collections of personal papers and government records. Lewis’s deep first hand knowledge of northern Australia also informs his discussion. Footnotes are where they ought to be at the bottom of each page and there is a comprehensive bibliography. Excellent use is made of numerous images and maps.

There are only minor weaknesses. Many readers will probably need a little more background information on Leichhardt than that Lewis very briefly provides. He makes the questionable assumption that in ‘the national consciousness Leichhardt is, perhaps, second to Ned Kelly’ (p. ix). Although the book is generally well written, there are very occasional lapses such as ‘Years later he later claimed’ (p. 98) and ‘a man named Andrew Hume’ (p. 138).

Where is Dr Leichhardt? is a splendid addition to historical scholarship that deserves the wide readership for which it is intended. It is well designed and sturdily produced. There is much in it about European contacts with Aboriginal people and the use of Aboriginal accounts. Lewis convincingly and entertainingly tells a wonderful story but one that also provides perceptive observations about Leichhardt’s continuing role in the Australian imagination. Perhaps one day with the discovery of new evidence Leichhardt’s fate will be finally revealed. Until that happens, Lewis’s book is likely to remain the standard source on his disappearance.

David Carment

Charles Darwin University