Hunting Bag

This hunting bag was used by John McKinlay on the 'Burke Relief Expedition' in 1861. It was presented to the Art Gallery of South Australia by Miss L.A. Lamb who got it from Mrs Alfredy Wells of Collinswood, South Australia. Documentation indicates that Wells got it from the Fotheringhams who got it from John McKinlay. The bag was transferred from the Art Gallery of South Australia to the History Trust of South Australia on 30 July 1986.

Part of the Historical Relics collection (Burke and Wills Collection). This collection includes some of the only surviving examples of the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition of 1860 which crossed the Australian continent from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Departing from Royal Park on Monday 20 August 1860, the expedition of nineteen men, along with 21 tonnes of supplies, began the 3,250 kilometre trek to the county’s north-coast. The team was led by police superintendent Robert O’Hara Burke (1821-1861) and surveyor and astronomer William John Wills (1834-1861). On November 11 the expedition had reached Cooper Creek, the outer limit of the land that had been previously explored by Europeans. From here, Burke, Wills, John King, and Charles Gray set off for the Gulf alone, leaving William Brahe in charge of the depot camp. By February 1861, the four reached Little Bynoe River on the Flinders River delta, wading a further 24 kilometres through swampland before deciding to turn back. Trouble struck on the return journey however, the men battling against tropical monsoon rains and low supplies. Although they did manage to reach the Cooper Creek depot camp on 21 April 1861, Brahe and his party had abandoned the site only nine hours earlier. They followed Cooper Creek upstream in an attempt to find the Yandruwandha campsite, but only King survived the journey.
Five separate relief expeditions were organised to find the missing explorers and John McKinlay was assigned to lead the South Australian Burke Relief Expedition. His party of eight left Adelaide on October 26, traversing Lake Torrens and Cooper Creek where they discovered the grave of Charles Gray. An Aboriginal elder told McKinlay what had happened, expressing that Gray was killed by a 'native'. He was buried by King, Burke and Wills before they headed south.
McKinlay also explored lakes and pastoral land around Lake Eyre, and was rewarded £1000 by the South Australian government after handing over his journals and charts in Adelaide. This hunting bag represents McKinlay’s contribution to the Burke and Wills expedition, and to Australian exploration.