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the lure of gold in a time of economic depression led to the formation of a company to send out an expedition to
locate Lasseter’s reef.
The Central Australian Gold Exploration Company’s well-equipped expedition, which left Alice Springs west
for Ilbilba on 21 July 1930, consisted of Fred Blakeley, leader, Lasseter as guide, George Sutherland, prospector,
Philip Taylor engineer and driver of the Thornycroft truck, Fred Colson, light truck driver, Errol Coote, pilot of the
Gypsy Moth aircraft, and Captain Blakeston-Houston, the Governor-General’s English aide, who came along for
the experience. Lasseter, who paid 10 Pounds per week for his services, was insured for 500 Pounds.
Lasseter’s behaviour in the field was peculiar, in turn unco-operative, suspicious and sulky; he passed his
spare time singing Mormon hymns and writing his diary. No trace of a reef was found—not surprising in such
non-auriferous country—and when accidents, doubts and rough terrain forced the party back in September, Lasseter
carried on his search with Paul Johns, an English dogger who had a string of camels. According to Johns, Lasseter
‘did not impress [him] as a man who knew the country, but rather as one who had read about it’. They quarrelled
and parted company and Lasseter, after his two camels bolted, lived for about four months with Aborigines and
died, apparently of starvation at Shaws Creek in the Petermann Ranges. Bob Buck, engaged by the company to
search for Lasseter, attested that he found his body and buried it in March 1931. A death certificate was issued
giving the date of death as 30 January 1931, based on Aboriginal evidence that he had been dead ‘two feller moon
next jump up’. Lasseter, who claimed in his diary, later recovered, that he had ‘rediscovered’ his reef and pegged
his claim, was survived by his wives, two daughters of his first marriage and two daughters and a son of his second.
In 1958, his alleged remains were exhumed and reburied in Alice Springs.
Lasseter, nicknamed ‘Das’ or ‘Possum’, was stocky, about 160 centimetres in height, dark complexioned, with
a flat, chubby face; his partly bald scalp was deeply scarred. Self-educated, but literate and well spoken, Lasseter
was a poseur. To Blakeley he was ‘a man of jumbled moods’, lacking ‘a credible story about anything in all his
reminiscences’; Coote called him ‘a man of most eccentric nature’ and an old acquaintance wrote that ‘he was
more or less of a crank, very aggressive, very self-opinionated and full of large, hopeful visions’.
Lasseter’s obvious lack of knowledge of navigation, bushcraft and prospecting, his conflicting and vague
statements and his peculiar conduct during the expedition suggest that he had never before been in that part of
Central Australia, let alone found a gold reef. The myth of a cave or reef of gold (Earle’s) in the Centre long predated
Lasseter’s story which is remarkably reminiscent of several novels written between 1896 and 1920 which deal with
fabulous gold finds in the Australian desert. The American Harold Bell Wright’s The Mine with the Iron Door
(1923) was also a popular contemporary novel and photo-play on much the same theme and Lasseter’s addition
of ‘Harold Bell’ to his names on his second marriage, following the publication of Wright’s novel, is probably
a reflection of his fanciful mental state. Given the existence of the myth, Lasseter may well have been suffering
from an hallucination; or given his poor financial situation he may have been hopeful of accidentally stumbling on
a gold find once in the Centre.
The myth of ‘Lasseter’s Lost Reef has persisted and excited numerous expeditions by gullible people largely in
response to the publicity given by Ion Idriess’s romantic account Lasseter’s Last Ride, first published in September
1931 and which ran to 17 editions by 1935. Blakeley’s non-fictional account Dream Millions (1972), while highly
critical of Lasseter, adds to the legend by suggesting that he did not die in the Centre but somehow made his way
out, ultimately back to the USA.
‘Lasseter Country’, and the Lasseter Highway, from Alice Springs to Ayers Rock, serve to perpetuate a myth.
E Coote, Hell’s Airport, 1934; E Hill, About Lasseter, 1968; C T Madigan, Central Australia, 1936; A Stapleton, Lasseter Did Not Lie!, 1981;
V & P (LA WA), 1937, 1; ADB, vol 9; G F Joklik, Geological Reconnaissance of South-Western Portion of Northern Territory, Dept. of
National Development, 1952; J Bailey, History of Lasseter’s Reef, and F Blakeley, Dream Millions, (1972), A 3043, A 6964, Mitchell Library;
A1 30/512, 48/ 1143, C 64/7, AA, Canberra.
GERALD WALSH, Vol 1.
LAWLER, THOMAS ROBERT (TOM) (1922– ), agricultural scientist and lands administrator, was born at
Redcliffs, Victoria, on 7 May 1922, the son of Robert Leonard Lawler, a wheat farmer, and Cecilia Winifred,
nee Cunningham, a teacher. Both sides of his family were early settlers in Australia, a maternal great-grandfather,
Timothy Minehan, having arrived in Sydney in 1833 as a 16-year-old convicted for stealing pillows.
The family later moved to a farm outside Griffith in New South Wales, and Tom Lawler matriculated from
Griffith High School in 1939. From 1941 to 1946, he served with the Royal Australian Air Force. His service
included duties as a navigator in bombers in the Middle East and Italy, and in Transport Command in Northern
Europe and Burma.
In 1951, Lawler completed a Bachelor of Science Degree in Agriculture at the University of Sydney. While at
university he had also excelled at Australian Rules Football and was awarded a ‘University Blue’. After graduation,
he became involved in the rice industry at the Yanco Research Station in New South Wales. There he provided
background research for the change to high moisture harvesting of rice and hence, to aerated storage. In 1955,
he represented Australia at the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation’s Rice Conference in Penang,
Malaya.
On 15 June 1957, Lawler married Ella Mary Stack, a medical practitioner, who later became involved in
community affairs in the Northern Territory. She became Australia’s first female Lord Mayor when she became
Lord Mayor of Darwin. They had three sons, Matthew, Damien and Luke.
In 1958, Lawler established the Cotton Research Station at Narrabri in New South Wales where he later
proved the economic viability of irrigated cotton on black soil plains. In 1961, the family moved to the Northern
Territory, where he took up a post as Senior Agronomist with the Agricultural Branch of the Northern Territory