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Northern Territory News, 29 January 1960 and various editions for February 1960; Australian Archives, Northern Territory, E37, 58/185.
EVE GIBSON, Vol 2.TIETKENS, WILLIAM HENRY (1844–1933), surveyor, explorer and prospector, was born on 30 August 1844
at Ball’s Pond, Islington, London, the son of William Henry Tietkens, chemist, and his wife Emily, nee Dovers.
He was educated at Christ’s Hospital until June 1859 and immediately afterward left for Australia in the vessel
Alma, accompanied by his mother’s friend George A T Woods. They reached Adelaide in September of that year
and in 1860 went to the Castlemaine diggings in Victoria. There he worked as a newsboy, shop assistant and
cowherd and came to love the bush.
Soon abandoned by Woods, he moved to Melbourne and worked for three years as ticket clerk with the
Hobson’s Bay Railway. In 1865, he spent two months with his old school friend Ernest Giles assessing the
pastoral potential of the upper Darling. Apart from a droving trip to Adelaide, and three months on the Gippsland
goldfields, he remained in western New South Wales and northern Victoria, working mainly as a station-hand.
However, he did penetrate 320 kilometres beyond the Darling, opening up new country with a party from Corona
Station.
In January 1873, Tietkens accepted an invitation from Ernest Giles to accompany him on Giles’s second
attempt to reach Perth from Central Australia. The expedition left the junction of the Alberga and Stevenson rivers
on 4 August with Giles as leader, Tietkens as second-in-command, Alfred Gibson, and an Aborigine, Jimmy
Andrews. Following the Musgrave Ranges westward they headed for Mount Olga, which Giles had seen and
named on his previous expedition. Having observed the tracks of W C Gosse and his party, Giles and Tietkins
hurried on in a south-westerly direction to the Mann Ranges, discovered little more than a month earlier by Gosse.
Here they skirted the Tomkinson Ranges and later established a depot they named ‘Fort Mueller’ in Gosse’s
Cavenagh Range. From here, one degree within Western Australia, the party looked for water to the westward but
without success. From a point ninety-six kilometres west of where the Warburton Mission now stands the party
had to return to the depot. They later established another depot to the north at ‘Sladen Water’ in the Petermann
Range. While Tietkens repaired equipment in the camp, Giles and Gibson continued westward toward the Alfred
and Marie Range and it was here tragedy struck, in that, in an endeavour to get back to the depot after Gibson’s
horse dropped dead, Gibson strayed from the track and perished in the desert which bears his name. The party
had to forthwith return to Adelaide, but such was Giles’s confidence in the ability of his old school-friend that he
invited him to become second in command on the third and successful journey from South Australia to Perth.
Tietkens came from Melbourne in 1875 to join Giles and his party and on 6 May, they, with Jess Young,
Alexander Ross, Peter Nichols, Saleh, an Afghan camel driver, and Tommy an Aborigine, left Beltana via
Port Augusta for Perth. On this journey, Tietkens proved his ability as an explorer by mounting difficult trips in
search of water while his leader searched in other directions. After some six months, the party arrived in Perth.
During the triumphal procession into the city Giles had to lead his camel whilst Tietkins rode at what appeared to
be the head of the party, thus receiving the congratulation of the crowd. When Giles decided to return to Central
Australia by a more northerly route than the successful east-west crossing Tietkins excused he and returned to
Adelaide by sea.
Here he resumed his studies for the South Australian Licensed Surveyors examination, which he completed
in 1878. He visited England in 1877 and upon his return to Australia worked as a surveyor in the Richmond and
Windsor district in New South Wales. He sought valiantly in 1878–80 to open up pastoral country near Maralinga,
South Australia, but was unsuccessful. Louis Leisler of Glasgow, whom he had met in 1877, financed this enterprise.
He returned to surveying in New South Wales, and married Mary Ann Long on 14 June 1882 at Richmond. For a
time after this, he worked as a station-hand and prospected for silver near the Barrier Ranges.
Tietkens was a foundation member of the South Australian Branch of the Royal Geographical Society of
Australasia and in 1886 gave a lecture to the Society, shrewdly calculated to secure command of an expedition to
the Lake Amadeus District. He argued that the lake must have a supply channel coming from a chain of hills he
had seen to the northwest of it in 1873. This might open a reliable route to the northwest settlements. He secured
the position as leader of the Central Australian Exploring and Prospecting Association’s Expedition. The party
consisted of David Beetson, Frederik Warman, black-tracker ‘Billy’ of the Alice Springs police, and a small
Aboriginal boy called Weei. Twelve camels were to carry the men and their supplies, which were to last four
months, and Tietkins had a camera to record prominent features of the journey.
The expedition left Bond Springs homestead near Alice Springs on 14 March 1889 and travelled along the
north side of the MacDonnell Range. Two weeks later, the camels were in need of water, and the party was
fortunate in finding a permanent soakage at the foot of Mount Sonder. On 31 March, a cattle track led them into
Glen Helen Station which had been established in 1882 by a pastoral company called Stokes and Grant, and in
which Dr Chewings was a partner. While the party rested, Tietkens climbed Mount Sonder to get a better view of
the country to the west. He also inspected some silver workings and prospected over a wide area, but found nothing
of significance.
On 16 April Tietkens bade farewell to Mr McDonald, the manager, and recorded in his journal, ‘Many and
various have been the attentions that we have received from this kind-hearted gentleman during our stay near his
homestead...’ The party headed southwest to Giles’s Glen Edith. On 3 May, Tietkens and Weei left the depot to
search for water to the southwest. They took eight days’ rations, knowing from Giles’s diary that water would not
easily be found. However, it rained on the first night out and they were trapped in their tent for four days. Tietkins
wrote on 5 May, ‘I deem myself the most fortunate of travellers to have heard the sound of running water in such
a country as this.’ They returned at once to Glen Edith and with the whole party set off for some high hills to the