Ernest Giles

Ernest Giles (1835-1897), explorer, came to Australia at the age of fifteen, settling in Adelaide. After working in the Melbourne post office in the early 1850s, he went out into the country to look for pastoral country on which to grow hemp. In 1872 he made his first avowed journey of exploration, from Chambers Pillar to the Finke River, Charlotte Waters and Adelaide, taking four months. As a result, his friend, Baron von Mueller, raised a subscription for him to undertake a new journey, begun in August 1873, west from the Alberga River. Giles found a fine new river he called the Ferdinand, and was the first European to see The Olgas (now Kata Tjuta) and Lake Amadeus; he thought he was the first to see Ayers Rock (Uluru) but William Gosse claimed that honour. Giles's party suffered in the dry country; his friend Alfred Gibson perished, and Giles named the area the Gibson Desert in his honour. In 1875 he worked on his Geographic Travels in Central Australia. That year he made his third and fourth expeditions, reaching Perth via Port Augusta; after traversing 320 miles without finding water, his party discovered some in a hollow and averted death. Giles's fourth journey took him sixteen months. In 1880 he published The Journal of a Forgotten Expedition and in 1889 his Australia Twice Traversed appeared. He spent his last years as a clerk in Coolgardie, offering advice to prospectors. He died in Coolgardie; he has been commemorated only by a postage stamp and the Giles Weather Station near the WA/SA border.