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named the Jervois Range. On 28 May they were forced to turn back once more after almost reaching the then
unknown Sandover River. In June, with his provisions very low, two of his men in poor health and himself troubled
by his injury, Barclay made the decision to return to Alice Springs where he hoped the remainder of his rations
would be waiting for him. He arrived back at Alice Springs at the end of the month, and four weeks later Winnecke
received charge of the party. Barclay returned to Adelaide where in October/November he was forced by his injury
to resign.
For the next three to four months Barclay worked for the City of Adelaide as a surveyor. He was engaged on a
cadastral survey for the deep drainage of Adelaide. In December 1878 he left for New Zealand where for four years
he was a contract surveyor for the government. In June 1880 he was placed on the list of Authorised Surveyors for
the Colony. Following this work for the New Zealand government his whereabouts are unknown, till in mid-1887
he returned to Central Australia using an alias, H V Barclay Strathallan.
He returned as leader of the Strathallan Central Australian Exploration Party, which appears to have been
privately funded, and from 1887 to 1889 Barclay carried out an extensive triangulation of the Harts Range, east
of Alice Springs. F W Leech, a member of David Lindsay’s exploration through the area in 1886, and later
second-in-command to the Elder Scientific Exploring Expedition, assisted Barclay. The work in the Harts Range
was done during the ‘ruby rush’ and at the time of the discovery of gold there.
Barclay was back in Adelaide in 1890 and on 5 March his father died. He was not mentioned in his father’s
will. It seems that Barclay had had a major quarrel with his family. In September he was appointed as a surveyor
in the New South Wales Railway Construction Branch of the Public Works Department. He was employed on the
Cootamundra–Temora and Golgong–Walgett lines. In June 1891 Barclay was presumed dead by the Admiralty in
the United Kingdom and his ‘widow’ awarded a pension. Perhaps he had not responded to news of his father’s
death and the family presumed he had died in the colonies. Barclay finished up with the New South Wales Public
Works Department in August 1892 but stayed for a time in New South Wales. He was back in Adelaide by early
- In 1896 he took out pastoral leases over more than 38 000 square kilometres of land in the vicinity of the
Marshall, Hay and Field rivers. He held the leases for three years before they were forfeited. From about this time
he dropped his use of ‘Strathallan’.
By the end of 1897 Barclay was back in England. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Geographical
Society in November of that year. It is during this period that Barclay is supposed to have married Constance
Moreton in London. However, this second relationship appears to have been de facto. He returned to Australia
early in 1898 and read a paper on Easter Island before the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia in April.
From this time he began to use the title of Captain of the Royal Navy. While, at the time of his enforced retirement
from the Royal Marines, he was possibly entitled to call himself Captain RM, he was not entitled to the higher
naval rank. However the title was to stay with him for the rest of his life. By now Barclay had become a champion
of the future and resources of the Northern Territory and over the next decade gave several lectures in London,
Paris and Australia expounding its virtues.
He returned to England after his Adelaide lecture and continued his lectures there and in Paris. He also
wrote extensive unpublished articles on Central Australia and the geography of the Australasian colonies.
In September 1899 Mrs A M E Barclay notified the Admiralty that her husband was alive and in London and
her pension was stopped. Barclay’s mother died in January 1900; again he was not mentioned in the will. All the
mother’s property went to another son, Arthur Denny Barclay, and a daughter, Lucy Bodilly.
Barclay returned to Australia in March 1903. Soon after he began to raise interest in an expedition to explore
the vast unknown area of what today is known as the Simpson Desert. He received sympathetic help from the South
Australian Royal Geographical Society and succeeded in obtaining the loan of six camels from the South Australian
government. Ronald H Macpherson who was also the second-in-command largely financed the expedition. It left
Adelaide in April 1904 accompanied by Captain E J F Langley, the governor’s aide. From Dalhousie Springs the
expedition travelled to Anacoora Bore, across to Crown Point Station and then north to Loves Creek Station in
the MacDonnell Ranges. From there it struck out east to the Plenty River and at the end of October reached its
furthest point at Mt Winnecke. The expedition then returned to the Hale River and followed it into the Simpson
Desert to make a desperate dash through the desert, largely travelling at night, to reach Anacoora Bore at the
end of November. The section through the desert was the only unexplored area to be visited by the expedition.
Barclay and Macpherson again set out in 1905 and covered a similar route to the 1904 trip but this time explored
as far as Urandangie in Queensland.
Barclay continued to lecture on the Northern Territory and also read a paper on his explorations before a
meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science in Adelaide in January 1907. Also during
this time he wrote many articles about his experiences for magazines of the era. Barclay then moved to Melbourne.
In August 1910 he was employed as a surveyor by the Department of External Affairs in Melbourne and in
December, at age 65, was appointed to lead another exploring and surveying expedition to the Northern Territory.
Macpherson was appointed second-in-command, Gerald F Hill as naturalist and J J Waldron as cadet surveyor.
The expedition departed Adelaide in January 1911, travelled to Charlotte Waters and then followed the Finke River
to Hermannsburg Mission. At the mission Barclay carried out an inspection and subsequently submitted an adverse
report on the conditions and running of the mission. The expedition then travelled to Alice Springs before returning
to Haasts Bluff through the ranges. From there they followed a northerly course through largely unexplored and
semi-desert country before reaching Newcastle Waters and Borroloola where the expedition effectively ended
in November. Macpherson returned to Alice Springs with the camels on what turned out to be an extremely
arduous trip. Barclay stayed on in Borroloola where he carried out extensive survey work in the district and on the
Sir Edward Pellew Islands over the next two years. The main objective of this work was to survey a route for a