Born to British parents in the Bengal Presidency, Sturt was educated in England for a time as a child and youth.

[3] An aunt appealed to the Prince Regent and, on 9 September 1813, Sturt was gazetted as an ensign with the 39th (Dorsetshire) Regiment of Foot in the British Army.

With a detachment from his regiment, Sturt escorted convicts aboard the Mariner to New South Wales, arriving in Sydney on 23 May 1827.

[4][2] Sturt found the conditions and climate in New South Wales much better than he expected, and he developed a great interest in the country.

[2] The Governor of New South Wales, Sir Ralph Darling, formed a high opinion of Sturt and appointed him major of brigade and military secretary.

[5] Sturt received approval from Governor Darling on 4 November 1828 to explore the area of the Macquarie River in western New South Wales.

A week was spent at Wellington Valley breaking in oxen and horses, and on 7 December the real start into comparatively little known country was made.

[2] The party faced the ordeal of rowing back upriver on the Murray and Murrumbidgee, against the current, in the heat of an Australian summer.

Sir Richard Bourke, who had succeeded Darling, was also unsuccessful in persuading Viscount Goderich to give "this deserving officer your Lordship's protection and support".

Though the colonial office did not seem to recognise the value of Sturt's work, publication of his book was important because it captured the attention of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who read it.

In July instructions were given that he was to receive a grant of 5,000 acres (2,000 ha); in exchange, Sturt agreed to give up his pension rights.

Sturt returned to Australia in mid-1835 to begin farming on his own 20 square kilometres (4,900 acres) of land, granted to him by the New South Wales government on the lower reaches of Ginninderra Creek, near present-day Canberra.

In 1838 he, with Giles Strangways, a Mr McLeod, and Captain John Finnis, herded cattle overland from Sydney to Adelaide, on the way proving that the Hume and the Murray were the same river.

[6] In September 1838, Sturt led an expedition to the mouth of the Murray, which settled all dispute as to the suitability of Adelaide for the colony's capital.

Sturt served briefly as the Registrar-General, but he soon proposed a major expedition with Henry Bryan into the interior of Australia as a way of restoring his reputation in the colony and London.

Two days late while riding in very hot weather, with their water supply dwindling, both the men and horses were suffering.

[8] In September 1841, Sturt chaired a Bench of Magistrates that conducted an official inquiry into the circumstances of the Rufus River massacre.

[10] Sturt believed that it was his destiny to discover a great saltwater lake, known as 'the inland sea', in the middle of Australia.

[11] In August 1844, he set out with a party of 15 men, 200 sheep, six drays, and a boat to explore north-western New South Wales and to advance into central Australia.

They travelled along the Murray and Darling rivers before being guided past the future site of Broken Hill by a local Indigenous teenager named Topar.

John Harris Browne, surgeon on the expedition, assisted Sturt, took over leadership of the party and, after travelling a total of 3,000 miles (4,800 km), brought it back to safety.

Sturt allowed himself to be persuaded by his friends to apply for a knighthood (KCMG), but afterwards regretted he had done so, when he heard there were innumerable applications.

He prided himself with some justice on his impeccable treatment of the Aboriginals, and earned the respect and liking of his men by his courtesy and care for their well-being.

Indeed his capacity for arousing and retaining affection was remarkable; it made him an ideal family man but a failure in public life.

Without toughness and egocentricity to balance his poor judgment and business capacity he had little chance of success in colonial politics.

He remained throughout his life an English Tory gentleman with an unshakeable faith in God.Sturt is buried in Cheltenham Cemetery, Gloucestershire.