Thomas Burr, as deputy surveyor general for South Australia, charts some of its most fertile lands in 1840s ventures
Mount Burr (nset) , named after Thomas Burr's mathematics professor father George Dominicus Burr, was one of the names for South Australia's southeast region landmarks from an exploration in 1844, with a group led by governor George Grey. Inset: One of sketch maps by Burr from the venture, showing the southeast coast and features such as Lake Bonney (at right).
Mount Burr image by Darren Galwey. Map image courtesy State Library of South Australia
Thomas Burr, who became the first acknowledged 19th Century authority on South Australia’s geology and minerals, had an earlier effect by discovering and charting some of its most fertile country.
Born 1813 in England, Thomas Burr was son of George Dominicus Burr, an esteemed mathematics professor at Sandhurst military college 1813–53. Burr studied survey and landscape under his father, who also taught military surveying. He began survey work as a civil engineer in London. He was doing surveys under the Tithe Commutation Act when South Australian surveyor general Edward Frome recommended him as his deputy.
Burr sailed with his family aboard the barque Cleveland and reached Port Adelaide in December 1839. He found South Australia’s second governor George Gawler had appointed Boyle Travers Finniss to the same deputy post in September 1839. Gawler decided the two men would share the post while there was plenty of survey work needed in the nascent colony. One urgent task for Burr was fixing posts defining Adelaide city’s street corners and footways.
In 1840, 26-year-old Burr accompanied Gawler and explorer John Hill on the first land-based European exploration of Eyre Peninsula's east coast, from Port Lincoln, past Franklin Harbour (Cowell) to near Whyalla. Burr prepared notes and charts and Gawler named a headland Cape Burr.
Burr was detailed by Gawler to accompany the experienced John Hill in the cutter Water Witch to northern Yorke Peninsula. Coming back to Adelaide, the pair were the first Europeans to traverse a region of extensive fertile land. Burr accompanied governor George Grey and prepared charts during 14 days looking at country around Wellington, Lake Albert and the Coorong.
Burr made a sad return (his one-year-old daughter Elizabeth had died) to family's original residence at Meadows , but they later built Grove on 50 fertile acres, with and abundant garden with fruit trees, beside First Creek in the later Adelaide suburb of Hazelwood Park.
Burr's greatest discovery was almost by accident. In 1842, he was among searchers for a five-man cattle overlanding party led by C.C. Dutton that went missing around Whyalla or Port Augusta, believed killed by Aboriginal people. Returning to Adelaide, Burr, taking another man, crossed eastward over the rugged southern Flinders Ranges. In 1840, explorer Edward Eyre had named the distant Mount Remarkable but remained on the Flinders Ranges’s western (coastal) side.
Burr found that Eyre had overlooked extensive “well-wooded and watered country”, later called Willochra Plain, from Melrose north to Quorn, east to Orroroo and south to Laura. Burr also found fine grazing country east of the Campbell Range, around the later Jamestown and Yongala. Burr's encouraging reports of his discoveries in this vast region immediately led to European pastoralists arriving. In 1843, Burr discovered a “splendid” lode of copper on Government land in the Mount Lofty Ranges near Adelaide. Sold by public auction. This became the Montacute copper mine.
In 1844, governor George Grey led an overland party to closely explore and map South Australia’s southeast. Burr, effectively deputy leader, named geographical features including, with Grey, Mount Burr after the surveyor’s father. At Grey's direction, Burr's detailed journal was published in newspapers, as well as by the Royal Geographical Society. By now highly regarded, Burr developed strong theories on the physical geography of the unknown inland of Australia, particularly the potential for an inland sea, lecturing and writing on this topic.
In January 1846, Burr accompanied Governor Frederick Robe and captain Thomas Lipson in the Lapwing to Guichen Bay to examine setting up a port. It became Robe.