William Hann (26 February 1837 – 5 April 1889) was a pastoralist and explorer in northern

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. His expedition in 1872 found the first indications of the

Palmer River The Palmer River is a river located in Far North Queensland, Australia. The area surrounding the river was the site of a gold rush in the late 19th century which started in 1873. Course and features The headwaters of the Palmer River rise in ...

goldfield.

Early life

He was born in

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, on 26 February 1837. Fellow explorer

Frank Hann Frank Hugh Hann (19 October 184521 August 1921) was an Australian pastoralist and explorer. Early life Hann was the son of Joseph and Elizabeth Hann. Fellow explorer William Hann was his older brother. They were born in Wiltshire, England a ...

was his younger brother.

North Queensland exploration

In 1871, Hann wrote to the Queensland minister for public works and goldfields

William Henry Walsh William Henry Walsh (18 December 1823 – 5 April 1888) was an Australian pioneer pastoralist or squatter and politician in early Queensland. He was a Member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly 1859-1859, Member of the Queensland Leg ...

with the proposition of a northern expedition. In Brisbane in early 1872, Hann presented geological specimens and attended a meeting with Premier

Arthur Hunter Palmer Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer (28 December 1819 – 20 March 1898) was an Irish-Australian politician who served as the fifth Premier of Queensland, in office from 1870 to 1874. He later held ministerial office in Thomas McIlwraith's ministry from ...

and the colonial secretary about the proposal. In February 1872 the Queensland government approved the proposal for an expedition with the aim of: 'ascertaining, as far north as the 14th parallel of latitude, the character of the country and its mineral resources, with the view to future settlement and occupation.' The expedition members consisted of: *William Hann (1837–89) – expedition leader *Jerry (1852–1942) – Indigenous guide and translator *Norman Taylor (1834–94) – geologist *Thomas Tate (1842–1934) – naturalist and botanist *Frederick Horatio Warner (1842–1906) – surveyor *William Nation (1818–74) – pastoralist and bushman *William Robert Stewart – pastoralist and bushman On 26 June 1872, their journey began with fifteen packhorses, ten spare horses, twenty sheep and five months' supplies of flour, tea, sugar, rice, potatoes and dried apples. Hann set out from Fossilbrook, an outstation of Mount Surprise Station owned by Ezra Firth. In early August the expedition encountered a waterway which they named the

after the Colonial Secretary of Queensland,

. Gold was found in a nearby gully by Frederick Warner the expedition's

surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...

on 6 August and further deposits were located on following days. They also surprised a camp of sleeping local Aboriginal residents who were terrified by Hann's presence. The group travelled further north and east, naming the

Coleman River Coleman River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 26, 2011 stream that is located in the Blue Ridge Mountains, mostly within Rabun County, Georgia. It is one of ...

, Stewart River and

Normanby River The Normanby River, comprising the East Normanby River, the West Normanby River, the East Normanby River North Branch, the East Normanby River South Branch and the Granite Normanby River, is a river system located in Far North Queensland, Aust ...

. They encountered numerous native people along their journey and the botanist of the expedition brought an Aboriginal boy into their group. Although Hann believed the boy came willingly, the relatives of the child clearly displayed their displeasure at his removal. Conflict was initially avoided by the return of the boy; however, on the next day, the Aboriginal people went on the offensive, throwing spears upon Hann's camp, to which Hann responded with a couple of gunfire shots that ended the dispute. In late September the exploratory group travelled to the mouth of the

Endeavour River The Endeavour River ( Guugu Yimithirr: ''Wabalumbaal''), inclusive of the Endeavour River Right Branch, the Endeavour River South Branch, and the Endeavour River North Branch, is a river system located on Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queen ...

and soon became lost for a number of weeks in the rainforests around

Cape Tribulation Cape Tribulation is a headland and coastal locality in the Shire of Douglas in northern Queensland, Australia. In the , Cape Tribulation had a population of 118 people. Geography The locality is north of Cairns. It is within the Daintree Na ...

. The Aboriginal residents were very numerous and Hann retreated back through to the Normanby River and Kennedy River regions. When their camp was visited at night, Hann thought it necessary to disperse them with a "shot or two". On 27 October, they had returned to the Palmer River and in early November they reached their initial starting point of Fossilbrook where Hann made a report of his findings. The expedition found numerous marine

cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda (Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head ...

fossils including ''Peratobelus'', and several

ammonites Ammonoids are a group of extinct marine mollusc animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscs, commonly referred to as ammonites, are more closely related to living coleoids (i.e., octopuses, squid and cuttlefish) ...

(''Aconeceras Toxoceratoides'' and ''Tropaeum'') various

bivalve Bivalvia (), in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class of marine and freshwater molluscs that have laterally compressed bodies enclosed by a shell consisting of two hinged parts. As a group, bival ...

and scaphopod molluscs and a

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

''Enoploclytia''. Warner found ''

Ichthyosaur Ichthyosaurs (Ancient Greek for "fish lizard" – and ) are large extinct marine reptiles. Ichthyosaurs belong to the order known as Ichthyosauria or Ichthyopterygia ('fish flippers' – a designation introduced by Sir Richard Owen in 1842, altho ...

'' vertebrae. During the expedition Hann named the waterways: Tate River, Walsh River, Nonda Creek, Elizabeth Creek; Garnett Creek; Palmer River; Coleman River, Stewart River, Normanby River, Oaky Creek and Hearn River. He also named the geographic locations of Taylor's Carboniferous Range, Mt Mulgrave, Mt Daintree, Mt Taylor, Jessie's Tableland, Mt Newberry and Mt McDevitt. Hann's expedition enabled

James Venture Mulligan James Venture Mulligan (13 February 1837 – 24 August 1907) was an Ireland-born Australian prospector and explorer. Early life Mulligan was born in Drumgooland, County Down and emigrated to Australia at the age of 21 in 1860. He settled at A ...

to conduct a gold-prospecting journey to the Palmer River in the following year which resulted in the unearthing of 102 ounces of gold. This in turn led to the

gold rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Z ...

on the Palmer River Goldfields.

Death

A death notice from ''

The Queenslander ''The Queenslander'' was the weekly summary and literary edition of the '' Brisbane Courier'', the leading journal in the colony—and later, federal state—of Queensland since the 1850s. ''The Queenslander'' was launched by the Brisbane New ...

'',

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

, dated 11 May 1889 said: In addition to the above death notice, the following article appeared in the ''Brisbane Courier'', dated 6 April 1889, suggesting that the drowning was not accidental and took place at night.

Legacy

Memorial to William Hann, Lissner Park, 2016

A memorial to William Hann was erected in 1959 in

Lissner Park Boer War Veterans Memorial Kiosk and Lissner Park is a heritage-listed memorial at Bridge Street, Charters Towers City, Charters Towers, Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1883 to 1988. It was added to the Queens ...

Charters Towers Charters Towers is a rural town in the Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia. It is by road south-west from Townsville on the Flinders Highway. During the last quarter of the 19th century, the town boomed as the rich gold deposits under ...

. The stone used in the memorial was taken from Basalt River near the Bluff Downs homestead where William Hann first settled. Queensland's Hann River is named after him.

References

External links