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Robert O’Hara Burke (Jack Thompson) addresses a large crowd as his expedition prepares to leave Melbourne in August 1860. He thanks the expedition committee of the Royal Society of Victoria, and his chief benefactor, the businessmen Ambrose Kyte (Hugh Keays-Byrne). He promises the people of Victoria that he will win the race to cross the Australian continent, ahead of the South Australian explorer John McDouall Stuart, who has already left Adelaide. Burke’s sweetheart, Miss Julia Matthews (Greta Scacchi), star of the Melbourne stage, beams with pride as Burke leads his team away. The young Englishman, William John Wills (Nigel Havers), assures his father (Peter Collingwood) that he’ll be home for Christmas.
Curator’s notes
The departure of what was then known as the Victorian Exploring Expedition was indeed a grand affair, attended by an estimated 15,000 people at Royal Park in Melbourne on Monday 20 August 1860. It was probably more chaotic than what we see here, given that a camel is said to have broken away from its handler, frightening a horse which threw its rider, breaking her leg. Burke actually dismissed one of his men for being drunk and hired three new men on the spot, according to Dave Phoenix, president of the Burke and Wills Historical Society. The man in the white turban is George Landells, master of the camels (played by Barry Hill), who would resign before the party crossed the Darling River. Landells had brought the camels from Afghanistan via India for the expedition. We see him shake the hands of Sir William Stawell (Arthur Dignam) and other members of the Royal Society, a shot that is meant to suggest that they would have preferred Landells to Burke. That is made explicit in a later scene.
There are some doubtful parts to this scene, in terms of historical accuracy. Ambrose Kyte did contribute £1000 to the costs of the expedition, but there is no evidence that he was in any way concerned with Julia Matthews, the beautiful opera singer played by Greta Scacchi. Burke certainly was attracted to her and did write a proposal of marriage, but Julia Matthews was 17 at the time of his departure and fully supervised by a protective mother. The script invents a triangle between Kyte, Matthews and Burke, presumably to add spice to the narrative. It is meant to suggest that Ambrose Kyte funded the expedition for motives that were not quite pure. Dave Phoenix confirms there is no evidence for this.
This scene gives a good sense of how cumbersome the expedition was, although the heavily loaded camels are wrong. One of the reasons that Landells and Burke clashed was Landells’ insistence that the camels be lightly loaded, to conserve their strength for the desert.
