Leichhardt, Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (1813 - 1848?)

Summary

Friedrich Wilhelm L. Leichhardt was a German naturalist who arrived in New South Wales in 1842 to carry out inland explorations of Australia. He was the first European to lead a successful overland expedition from Derby, Queensland to Darwin, Northern Territory, beginning in October 1844 and arriving in December 1845. Leichhardt died on his third expedition attempting to cross the continent from Moreton Bay to Swan River.

Details

Chronology

October 1844 - December 1845

Career event - Led expedition overland from Derby, QLD to Darwin, NT

1906

Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus leichhardtii F.M.Bailey was named in his honour

Related entries

Archival resources

Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science

• Australian Botanists - Biographies, MS 064; Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science. Details

John Oxley Library, Manuscripts and Business Records Collection, State Library of Queensland

• Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt - Records, 1847 - 1848, OM66-28; John Oxley Library, Manuscripts and Business Records Collection, State Library of Queensland. Details

Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales

• Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt - Records, 1834 - 1841, A3032; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt - Records, Uncatalogued MSS SET 381; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt - Records, 1842 - 1847, MS 30, 231, Q591; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt - Records, April 1842 - December 1842, C145; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt - Records, 1842 - 1847, C154 and C160; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt - Records, 1844 - 1950, A2992; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt - Records, 1846 - 1902, A3938; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt - Records, 1963, ML MSS 816; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt - Records, 1844 - 1848, ML MSS 1087; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt - Records, c. 1957 - c. 1961, A4480 and B1659; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt - Records, 1841 - 1847, ML MSS 683; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Ludwig Louis Politzer - Records, 1842 - 1953, B1359-61; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details

National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection

• Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt - Records, 1840 - 1953, MS 334; National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection. Details

State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection

• Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt - Records, 1834 - 1864, MS 1580 and others; State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection. Details

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

• McCarthy, Gavan; Smith, Ailie; Moje, Christine; Rigby, Rebecca, The Study of Australian Eucalypts, eScholarship Research Centre, 2013, http://www.eoas.info/eucalypts/index.html. Details

Books

• Dr Ludwig Leichhardt's Briefe an Seine Angehörigen (Hamburg: 1879). Details
• Bailey, John, Into the Unknown: the Tormented Life and Expeditions of Ludwig Leichhardt (Sydney: Pan Macmillan, 2011), 396 pp. Details
• Bruce, Daniel, Travels with Leichardt (Melbourne: Fairfax, 1859). Details
• Bunce, Daniel, Travels with Doctor Leichhardt in Australia. Australasiatic reminiscences of twenty-three years' wanderings in Tasmania and the Australias (Melbourne: Steam Press of W. Fairfax & Co., 1859), 216 pp. Details
• Chisholm, A. H., Strange New World: the Adventures of John Gilbert and Ludwig Leichardt (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1955). Details
• Cotton, Catherine, Ludwig Leichardt and the Great South Land (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1938). Details
• Erdos, Rene, Ludwig Leichardt (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1962). Details
• Hurley, Andrew Wright, Ludwig Leichhardt's ghosts: the strange career of a travelling myth (Rochester, New York: Camden House, 2018), 345 pp. Details
• Lewis, Darrell, Where is Dr Leichhardt? The Greatest Mystery in Australian History (Clayton (Vic.): Monash University Publishing, 2013), 416 pp. Details
• Mann, John F., Eight Months with Dr. Leichardt in the Years 1846-47 (Sydney: Turner & Henderson, 1888). Details
• McKenna, Mark, From the edge: Australia's lost histories (Melbourne: The Miegunyah Press (University of Melbourne Publishing Ltd), 2016), xx, 251 pp. See pages: 86-88, 106. Details
• McLaren, Glen, Beyond Leichhardt: Bushcraft and the Exploration of Australia (Fremantle, W.A: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1996), 316 pp. Details
• Philbey, Glennis, Unmarked Lands: the Exploration of Unmarked Lands of Australia, 1830-1850, by Henry Stuart Russell, Ludwig Leichhardt, Sir Thomas Mitchell ([s. l.]: T. E. C. Print, 2006), 101 pp. Details
• Politzer, L. L., Dr Ludgwig Leichhardt's Letters From Australia...March 23, 1842 to April 3, 1848 (Melbourne: 1945). Details
• Politzer, L. L., Bibliography of literature on Dr Ludwig : German explorer in Australia during 1842 - 1848 (Melbourne: the author, 1953), 27 pp. Details
• Roderick, Colin, Leichhardt the Dauntless Explorer (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1988), 536 pp. Details
• Sprod, Dan, Leichhardt's Expeditioners: in the Australian Wilderness, 1844-1845 (Hobart: Blubber Head Press, 2006), 138 pp. Details
• Webster, E. M, Whirlwinds in the plain: Ludwig Leichhardt - friends, foes and history (Carlton (Vic.): Melbourne University Press, 1980), 462 pp. Details
• Zuchold, Ernst Amandus, Dr Ludwig Leichhardt: eine biographische Skizze. Nebst einem Berichte über dessen zweite Reise im Innern des Austral-Continents nach dem Tagebuche seines Begleiters, des Botanikers Daniel Bunce (Leipzig: 1856), 118 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Baigent, Elizabeth, 'Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt, 1813-1848?' in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Details
• Erdos, Renee, 'Leichhardt, Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (1813-1848?), naturalist and explorer' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 2: 1788 - 1850 I-Z, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1967), pp. 102-104. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020090b.htm. Details
• Kirchberger, Ulrike, 'Ludwig Leichhardt und die transnationalen Gelehrtennetzwerke des britischen Empire' in Der Australienforscher Ludwig Leichhardt, Hartmann, Heike, ed. (Berlin: Be.bra, 2013), pp. 79-93. Details
• Nicholls, Angus, '"The core of this dark continent": Ludwig Leichhardt's Australia exploration' in Transnational networks: Germans in the British Empire 1670 - 1914, Davis, John R.; Munz, Stefan and Beerbühl, Margrti Schulte, eds (Lewiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 141-61. Details
• O'Donnell, Dan, 'Ludwig Leichhardt - The Doctor' in Health, History and Horizons, John Pearn, ed. (Brisbane: Amphion Press, 1992), pp. 215-238. Details
• Roderick, Colin, 'The Education of an Explorer: Ludwig Leichhardt' in From Berlin to the Burdekin: The German Contribution to the Development of Australian Science, Exploration and the Arts, David Walker and Jurgen Tampke, eds (Sydney: New South Wales University Press, 1991), pp. 22-39. Details
• Thomas, Martin, 'The expedition as a cultural form: on the structure of exploratory journeys as revealed by the Australian explorations of Ludwig Leichhardt' in Expedition into empire: exploratory journeys and the making of the modern world, Thomas, Martin, ed. (New York: London: Routledge, 2015), pp. 65-88. Details

Conference Papers

• Jackes, Betsy R., 'Retracing the Botanical Steps of Leichhardt and Gilbert in June 1845', in History of Systematic Botany in Australasia: Proceedings of a Symposium Held at the University of Melbourne, 25-27 May 1988 edited by Short, P.S. (Melbourne: Australian Systematic Botany Society, 1990), pp. 165-170.. Details

Edited Books

• Aurosseau, M. ed., The letters of F. W. Ludwig Leichhardt, 3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the Haklyut Society, 1968). Details
• Bayerl, Günter and Müller, Tim S. eds, Ludwig Leichhardt (1813 - 1848), die Niederauslitz und Australien (Münster: Waxmann Verlag GmbH, 2013), 284 pp. Details
• Finger, Hans Wilhelm: Simson, Judith ed.; Crane, Kylie translator ed., Ludwig Leichhardt, Lost in the Outback (Dural (N.S.W.): Rosenberg Publications, 2013), 272 pp. Details

Journal Articles

• Bailey, F.M., 'Eucalyptus leichhardtii', Queensland Agricultural Journal, 16 (8) (1906), 493. Details
• Blake, S. T., 'Some Pioneers in Plant Exploration Classification', Proceedings of the Linnean Society of Queensland, lxvi (1) (1954), 1-19. Details
• Darragh, Thomas A., 'Leichhardt as a Geologist', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum: Culture, 7 (2) (2013), 575-97. Details
• Darragh, Thomas A., 'Ludwig Leichhardt: four previously unknown letters to John Nicholson and the involvement of Ferdinand von Mueller in publishing Leichhardt's letters', Historical Records of Australian Science, 29 (2) (2018), 153-61. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR18006. Details
• Darragh, Thomas A.; and Fensham, R. J., 'The Leichhardt Diaries: Early Travels in Australia During 1842-1844', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum: Culture, 7 (1) (2013), 1-540. Details
• Dewar, Mickey, 'The Leichardt Enigma', Journal of Northern Territory History, 5 (1994), 47-60. Details
• Dowe, J. L., 'Observations of Palms Made by the Botanist and Explorer Ludwig Leichhardt during the Australian Overland Expedition of 1844-1845', Palms, 49 (4) (2005), 167-182. Details
• Dowe, J. L., 'Ludwig Leichhardt's Australian Plant Collections, 1842-1847', Austrobaileya, 7 (1) (2005), 151-163. Details
• Falding, M.; and Benson, D., 'Adventures, Hardship and a Scientific legacy: Ludwig Leichhardt's 1843 Journey to Mt Royal in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales', Cunninghamia, 13 (2013), 305-30. Details
• Fensham, R. J. ed., 'The Leichhardt Papers: Reflections on his Life and Legacy', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum: Culture, 7 (2) (2013), 542-652. Details
• Fensham, R. J.; Bean, A. R.; Dowe, J. L.; and Dunlop, C. R., '"This Disastrous Event Staggered Me"; Reconstructing the Botany of Ludwig Leichhardt on the Overland Expedition from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, 1844-5', Cunninghamia, 9 (2006), 451-506. Details
• Fensham, Roderick J., 'Leichhardt's ethnobotany for the eucalypts of south-east Queensland', Australian journal of botany, 69 (4) (2021), 185-214. https://doi.org/10.1071/BT21007. Details
• Fisher, Clemency, 'Following in the footsteps of Leichhardt: the events of the first Leichhardt expedition and the route retraced by the Royal geographical Society fo Queensland, June/July 1990', Queensland geographical journal, 5 (1990), 80-95. Details
• Gill,, J. C., 'Duncan McIntyre and the search for Leichhardt', Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, 11 (4) (1983), 51-73. Details
• Hely, H., 'Expedition in Search of Dr Leichhardt', Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, South Australia Branch, 16 (1914). Details
• Hurley, Andrew and Schlunke, Katrina, 'Leichhardt after Leichhardt', Journal of Australian Studies, 37 (2013), 537-43. Details
• Jeffries, A., 'Leichhardt: His Contribution to Australian Aboriginal linguistics and ethnography 1843- 44', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum: Culture, 7 (2) (2013), 633-52. Details
• Larcombe, E. E., 'The Search for Dr Leichhardt', Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, 12 (1926). Details
• Lewis, Darrell, 'The Fate of Leichhardt', Historical Records of Australian Science, 17 (1) (2006), 1-30, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR05010. Details
• Martin, Richard J., '"Reading" the Leichhardt, Landsborough and Gregory exporer trees in northern Australia', Cultural studies review, 19 (2) (2013), 216-36. Details
• Panton, James, 'Some supposed further traces of Leichhardt', Report of the first meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, 1 (1889), 407-412. Details
• Price, A. Grenfell, 'The mystery of Leichhardt: the South Australian Government expedition of 1938', Proceedings of the Royal geographical Society of Australia (South Australia), 39 (1938), 9-48. Details
• Rod, Julian, 'Leichhardt's Telescopes and Clock Investigated', Queensland History Journal, 22 (2013), 40-53. Details
• Stephens, Matthew, 'From Lost Property to Explorer's Relics: the Rediscovery of the Personal Library of Ludwig Leichhardt', Historical Records of Australian Science, 18 (2) (2007), 191-227, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR07008. Details

Newspaper Articles

• Krefft, G., 'Biographical Sketch of Youth and Early Manhood of Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt', Sydney Morning Herald (1866). Details
• Nicholson, J. H., 'Leichhardt and His Friends', Queensland Daily Guardian (1866). Details

Resources

• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q57763. Details
• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/19812603. Details
• 'Leichhardt, Ludwig R H (18131023-1848)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-902695. Details

Reviews

• Bailey, John, Into the Unknown: the Tormented Life and Expeditions of Ludwig Leichhardt (2011)
  Althofer, Jayson, Journal of Australian Studies, 36, 515-6. Details
• Darragh, Thomas A. and Fensham, R. J., eds., The Leichhardt diaries: early travels in Australia during 1842-1844 (2013)
  Branagan, David, INHIGEO Annual Record, 46, (2014), 88-90. Details
• Lewis, Darrell, Where is Dr Leichhardt? The Greatest Mystery in Australian History (2013)
  Howes, Hilary, Historical Records of Australian Science, 24 (2), (2013), 339-40, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR13005. Details

See also

• Science and the making of Victoria, with Royal Society of Victoria, 2001, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/smv/index_l.html. Details
• Blyton, G., 'Harry Brown (c. 1819-1854): contribution of an Aboriginal guide in Australian Exploration', Aboriginal History, 39 (2015), 63-82. Details
• Donovan, Val, 'Exploration and settlement: conflict in Queensland - an overview', Queensland History Journal, 23 (9) (2018), 581-92. Details
• Hall, Norman, Botanists of the Eucalypts: short biographies of people who have named eucalypts, whose names have been given to species or who have collected type material (Melbourne: CSIRO, 1978), 101 pp. Details
• MacInnis, Peter, Curious Minds: the Discoveries of Australian Naturalists (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2012), 213 pp. Details
• Maiden, J. H., 'Records of Australian botanists:- (a) general; (b) New South Wales', Journal and Proceedings of The Royal Society of New South Wales, 42 (1908), 60-132. Details
• McConachie, Ian, 'Who discovered Macadamias?', Queensland historical journal, 24 (12) (2022), 1087-102. Details
• Serle, Percival, Dictionary of Australian biography (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1949). Details