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British Empire (KBE) in 1919. In 1922 he was promoted to Vice-Admiral and retired. He went back to the land
on a farm at Silvan, near Melbourne. He and his wife had six children; two sons were killed in action during the
First World War. He died on 20 April 1933 at Armadale and was buried in the Brighton cemetery.
ADB, vol 8; W R Creswell, Close to the Wind, 1965; S D Webster, ‘Creswell, Australian navalist’, PhD Thesis, 1979; SAA 1374 (A8179, A8405,
A8842) N Creswell reward, Macarthur to Tennant Creek route; SAPP 53 of 1899, Indian Remount Service N article by W R Creswell.
V T O’BRIEN, Vol 1.CROKER, SAMUEL BURNS (SAM) (1852–1892), stockman, explorer, drover, adventurer and station manager,
was born on 20 June 1852 at Dungowan Station near Tamworth, New South Wales, the son of John Croker,
the station overseer, and Martha, nee Thompson. John Croker came from Ayrshire, Scotland, arriving in Australia
as an unassisted migrant at the age of 17 in 1840. Martha Thompson came from Cork, Ireland, arriving with
her family in 1835. They were married on 17 September 1851 at Aberbaldie Station, near Walcha. Shortly after
Sam was born his father became manager of the Manning River Company and the family moved to Cundletown,
near Taree. In about 1860 John Croker took over management of Dykehead Station a sheep property in the Burnett
district of Queensland, and in 1868 he joined the Queensland public service.
Almost nothing is known of Sam’s childhood though without doubt he grew up learning all the skills of
station life and many of the skills of the Aborigines. Gordon Buchanan, who knew Croker personally, described
him as ‘a natural backwoodsman, hardy and accustomed to hunt for and live on ‘bush tucker’ of all kinds, from
dingo and snakes to barramundi and wild duck... Though not a good tracker, he had all the other bush-craft of the
aborigine’.
By the time his father had joined the public service, Sam was probably working in the pastoral industry. In 1875
he was listed on the electoral roll as residing in the Clermont district and the following year he was, for a time,
a member of WO Hodgkinson’s North West Exploring Expedition. It was on this expedition that he first met the
famous bushman, Nat ‘Bluey’ Buchanan. In spite of a 26-year age difference, the two men became friends and
were to be closely associated for the rest of their lives.
In October 1877, Croker, Buchanan and a man named Tetley joined forces on a land seeking expedition into
the Northern Territory. Sam was well suited as a companion for such a venture. As well as his ability to find and
live on bush foods, ‘he was equal to any bush emergency... Fair, of medium height and wiry build... Never
enthusiastic, yet never downhearted, he was generally cheerfully imperturbable, with a tendency to romance,
and to chaff and banter’. The expeditioners set out from Rocklands Station at the Queensland–Northern Territory
border and travelled west onto the Barkly Tableland. From a description of the trip written by Croker, it is clear that
they made their attempts after exceptionally good rains. They discovered vast grasslands, creeks and numerous
swamps. Croker reported wading for two miles into one of the largest of these ‘lakes’ in order to obtain an estimate
of its size, but could not do so. This is believed to have been Corella Lake, one of the largest waters on the
Barkly. When they arrived at the Overland Telegraph Line near Attack Creek, they became the first Europeans to
successfully cross the Barkly.
After crossing the tableland Sam appears to have stayed on in the Territory. Buchanan returned to Queensland
to pick up 1 200 head of cattle from Aramac Station for delivery at Fisher and Lyon’s Glencoe Station on the
Daly River. The route he took across the Northern Territory was through essentially unknown country, and Buchanan
and his drovers encountered many difficulties. On the Limmen River they ran short of supplies, so Buchanan took
one man and travelled ahead to Katherine to obtain extra rations. When they rejoined the drovers they discovered
one man, Travers, had been murdered by blacks. Croker probably was a member of the punitive party that tracked
the culprits and shot at least one man dead. He definitely stayed on to help the drovers make their delivery, which
was achieved in May 1879 without further mishap.
After delivering the cattle at Glencoe, Croker and Buchanan set out on another exploration. No contemporary
record of this journey exists, but Buchanan’s son, Gordon, has left two accounts of where Buchanan and Croker
went. In one he claimed that they travelled to the southeast of Daly Waters, possibly to examine land taken up by
Buchanan after the 1877 Barkly Tableland crossing. In another he states that they travelled across to the Victoria
River district. In 1878 Buchanan had obtained pastoral leases, more or less where Auvergne Station is now situated,
so both scenarios are possible. A trip to the Victoria River in 1879 may explain why Buchanan later relinquished
these leases and obtained others further to the south.
In July 1880 Sam was with a party that explored country west and southwest of Katherine on behalf of
Dr W Browne, owner of Springvale and Newcastle Waters Stations. They discovered good pasture land and
Browne took up a 960 square kilometres lease, which became Delamere Station. During their explorations Sam,
at least, must have ventured as far as the upper Fitzmaurice River country because in November 1880 he advertised
the discovery of a horse, found ‘Near FitzMorice (sic) River’.
At the beginning of 1882 Croker went to work on Elsey Station and was there in July when Aborigines
murdered another Elsey stockman, Duncan Campbell. When Constable Lucanus arrived to investigate the murder,
Sam assisted in locating and burying Campbell’s remains, and tracking down and arresting the Aborigine accused
of the murder. At the subsequent trial of the alleged killer, a portrait of Croker as an independent and self-sufficient
bushman emerged. Sam described how Campbell had been in the habit of going out mustering with several station
Aborigines, whereas he was in the habit of going out alone. Sam also stated that for two weeks before a bush native
told him of the murder he had been out of rations, but rather than return to the homestead for more supplies he had
lived on snakes and lilies.