What was charles sturt famous for

View Previous Version. National Library of Australia, nla. Charles Sturt , explorer, soldier and public servant, was born on 28 April in India, eldest of eight sons and one of thirteen children of Thomas Lenox Napier Sturt, a judge in Bengal under the East India Co. Although his Sturt and Napier ancestors were both Dorsetshire families of some standing, his father had reached India too late to share in the golden harvest reaped by many early officials and his life is described by Sturt's biographer as '45 years of clouded fortunes'.

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Charles was sent at 5 to relations in England and at 15 entered Harrow. His father's economic difficulties prevented his entry to Cambridge and in he procured, through the intercession of his aunt with the Prince Regent, a commission as ensign in the 39th Regiment. He served in the Pyrenees late in the Peninsular war, fought against the Americans in Canada and returned to Europe a few days after Waterloo.

He spent the next three years with the army of occupation in France and in was sent with his regiment to Ireland on garrison duties. On 7 April he was gazetted lieutenant and promoted captain on 15 December In December after a brief sojourn in England he embarked with a detachment of his regiment in the Mariner in charge of convicts for New South Wales and arrived at Sydney on 23 May In Sydney the two main subjects of discussion among intelligent people were politics and the mysteries of Australian geography.

The savagely personal nature of local politics did not attract Sturt but the great unknown did. John Oxley and Allan Cunningham had charted a series of rivers, their courses directed towards the centre of the continent; the inference was that an inland sea lay beyond the horizon. Sturt and others longed for the honour of discovering it. Soon after his arrival Sturt was appointed military secretary to the governor and major of brigade to the garrison.

With these offices he could have taken an active part in politics, but preferred to interest himself in exploration and by November was able to write to his cousin, Isaac Wood, that the governor had agreed to his leading an expedition into the interior.