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Walker promptly telegraphed the department in Melbourne to report his party’s safe arrival and dispatched his
manuscript journal and traverse plan to Melbourne. In the covering letter, he drew attention to the discovery of a
lake that they had not named but which was ‘worthy of one on account of its large area’. No action seems to have
been taken to place the lake on official maps or to name it, though the name Atlee Creek was adopted. Walker’s
brother, Sydney, reported in person to the department in Melbourne in March 1914.
Walker indicated that he planned to prospect in the Meekatharra area for as long as his finances lasted, if allowed
to keep his camels. The department finally accepted his offer to buy the camels for 160 Pounds in January 1915.
Meanwhile the brothers had spent some six months developing the Macquarie gold mine at Meekatharra for what
was described as a Tasmanian syndicate but abandoned this early in February 1915 and went prospecting again.
In 1918 the brothers are recorded as working on gold mining leases at Yaloginda, near Meekatharra, but in 1924
moved south to Cue and reopened the abandoned Mainland Consols Mine, Lake Austin, where Walker had worked
earlier in his life.
Walker died in Perth at Saint John of God Hospital on 12 March 1930 after a long illness, survived by a son,
Roy, of his first marriage to Annie Mary Bailey in Hobart in 1892, and by his second wife, Ethel May Grimshaw,
whom he had married in about 1917 in Perth. He was buried next day in the Anglican Cemetery, Karrakatta.
His widow and his brother, A C Walker, seem to have continued to live and work on the Lake Austin field at least
for a few years after C H Walker’s death.
In June 1934, the Western Australian Minister for Lands, Michael Troy, member for Mount Magnet, wrote
to Canberra seeking a copy of the report of the Walker brothers’ journey. An edited version of the journal entries
covering their travels through Western Australia from 27 May until October 1913 was published in weekly
instalments in The Daily News, Perth, between December 1934 and February 1935 but otherwise this remarkably
efficient and successful exploration of the Western Desert area remained forgotten for many years.
Meekatharra Miner, 1 and 22 August 1914, 6 February 1915, 7 August 1915, 16 March 1918, 1 June 1918; Murchison Times, 22 March 1930;
Sydney Morning Herald, 16 March 1914; West Australian, 14 March 1930; Australian Archives, CRS A 1 34/9205; Probate Index 232/30- M/F
3436, no 50, Battye Library, Perth; Western Australian Electoral Rolls 1920, 1929, 1932.
JEREMY LONG, Vol 2.WALLACE, CHRISTINA: see GORDON, CHRISTINAWALTER, PURULA: see SMITH, WALTERWARBURTON, PETER EGERTON (1813–1889), soldier and explorer, was born on 15 August 1813 at Arley
Hall, Northwich, Cheshire, England, fourth son of the Reverend Rowland Egerton Warburton (1778–1843) and
his wife Emma (d. 1881), nee Croxton, niece of Sir Peter Warburton, Baronet. Educated privately and by tutors in
Paris and Orleans, he joined the Royal Navy at 12 and served as a Midshipman in HMS Windsor Castle. In 1829,
he left the sea and entered the East India Company’s military college at Addiscombe, Surrey. On graduation as an
Ensign in 1831 he went to India and joined the army’s 13th Native Infantry Battalion, Bombay, in which he served,
mainly in staff positions, until 1853 when he retired as Assistant Adjutant-General with the rank of Major and the
pension of a Captain.
Warburton originally had decided to settle in New Zealand but after a brief visit to his brother, George, at
Albany, Western Australia, settled in Adelaide where he was appointed Commissioner of Police for South Australia
on 1 December 1853. In 1857, he explored the dry country south and west of Lake Gairdner and in September he
was sent out by the government to recall and supersede B H Babbage’s exploring party; he discovered new grazing
land, several permanent springs and a route between Lake Eyre and South Lake Torrens. After further expeditions
in 1860 and 1864, with indifferent results, he set out in August 1866 from the northernmost point of his 1858
journey, rounded Lake Eyre and struck eastward along the creek, now called the Warburton, which he mistook for
the debouchment of Cooper Creek into Lake Eyre.
In 1867, as a result of circumstances that were never fully explained, he was dismissed as Police Commissioner
and, though later recommended for reinstatement, Warburton became instead Commandant of the South Australian
Volunteer and Reserve Forces, from 1869 until 1877, with the local rank of Colonel.
In 1872, Warbuton was commissioned and financed by Sir Thomas Elder and Sir Walter Hughes, men with
large pastoral interests, to explore the country west of the Overland Telegraph and if possible break through to
the coast. His party consisted of his 32-year-old son Richard, John Lewis (bushman and surveyor), Dennis White
(cook) and Sahleh and Halleem (Afghan camel drivers). They left Adelaide on 21 September 1872 and arrived in
Alice Springs in December where they recruited Charley, an Aboriginal youth. Acting on local advice about the
inhibiting effect of alleged summer rains they waited four months before setting out with seventeen camels and six
months’ provisions on 15 April 1873.
The terrible journey that followed is one of the great epics of Australian exploration. Skirting the northern
edge of the MacDonnell Ranges and reaching Central Mount Wedge, the party faced extremely arid country north
and northwest of Mount Stanley. After many detours in search of water, they reached Waterloo Wells (north of
Lake Mackay) on 18 June where they were detained by a series of misfortunes for forty-two days. In fact, the
party had been pinned down on the 130th meridian for eight weeks before Lewis, scouting ahead, found water
160 kilometres to the northwest. Enduring illness, little water and extreme hear which forced them to travel at
night, they survived only by killing camels for meat They arrived at Joanna Spring, about latitude 20°S and about
300 kilometres from the coast on 30 September with only seven fit camels. Warburton faced a dilemma: ‘If we