Augustus Charles Gregory

Sir Augustus Charles Gregory KCMG FRSGS[1] (1 August 1819 – 25 June 1905) was an English-born Australian explorer and surveyor.

In 1829, the family emigrated to Western Australia on board the Lotus, arriving at the Swan River Colony only four months after its establishment.

With four horses and seven weeks' provisions they left T. N. Yule's station 60 miles northeast of Perth on 7 August 1846 and explored a considerable amount of the country to the north of Perth, returning after an absence of 47 days during which they had covered 953 miles (1534 km).

[3] In 1854 while Assistant Surveyor of Western Australia, Gregory was asked to lead an expedition to the interior, from a rendezvous point at Moreton Bay near Brisbane.

The party left Moreton Bay by sea on 12 August 1855, and Port Essington was sighted on 1 September.

They proceeded to Pearce Point (Joseph Bonaparte Gulf), and at the end of the month the party reached the estuary of the Victoria River.

[5] Gregory made a deal with Fahy to act as bush guide for the mission and lead him to the last known place of missing explorer Ludwig Leichhardt.

Gregory led several forays up the Victoria River and traced Sturt's Creek for 300 miles (483 km) until it disappeared in the Tanami Desert.

[citation needed] In September 1857 Gregory was hired by the government of New South Wales to search for traces of Ludwig Leichhardt, a fellow explorer who had disappeared on an earlier expedition.

[citation needed] In 1855 Gregory became a freemason in the Sydney Samaritan Lodge in New South Wales.

[9] He leased a home he had built on the Rainworth estate to surveying colleague, Walter C. Hume, which he and his family re-named "Fairseat".

[10] On 23 December 1862, Gregory was appointed Provincial Grand Master of the England masonic Lodge in Queensland.

[11] In 1865 Gregory, Maurice Charles O’Connell and John Douglas applied for a special grant of land to erect a Masonic Hall in Brisbane.

His funeral took place at the hall in the afternoon of 29 June 1905,[17] after which a funeral procession of several hundred people walked along Alice Street, William Street, North Quay and the River Road (now Coronation Drive) to the Toowong Cemetery where hundreds of people were already assembled at the cemetery.

Gregory was buried high on the northern slope of the hill below Governor Samuel Blackall's grave with Anglican rites conducted by his friend Rev.

His farm land was eventually subdivided and, to facilitate this, the house Rainworth was relocated to another site, now 7 Barton Street in the suburb of Bardon.

Augustus Gregory – Australian exploration routes
Gregory's Tree above Victoria River, appr. 20 km west of Timber Creek. The date, 2 July 1856, was carved into it by Thomas Baines, the expedition's artist.
Rainworth, residence of Sir Augustus Charles Gregory, Bardon, ca. 1885
Sir Augustus Charles Gregory lying in state, Masonic Hall, Alice Street, Brisbane, 1905
Funeral procession of Sir Augustus Charles Gregory, Brisbane, 1905
The grave of Sir Augustus Charles Gregory at Brisbane 's Toowong Cemetery .
Plaque on Gregory's grave.
Bust of Augustus Charles Gregory sculpted by Oscar Fristrom in 1905