AustLit

19th-Century Australian Travel Writing

George Grey, Esq. (1812-1898) was Governor of South Australia and Late Captain of the Eighty-Third Regiment, explorer, governor and politician, and author of Vocabulary of the Dialects spoken by the Aboriginal Races of South-Western Australia (1839). He dedicated his two volume Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery to Lord Glenelg (Baron Charles Grant). The journals were the result of Grey's travels and his residence in the western parts of Australia between 1837 and 1840. The work was prefaced with the statement that the areas traversed were previously "unknown to the European traveller, and probably never before trodden by the foot of civilized man" (v). Beginning in England, Grey chronicled his journey to Australia via the Cape of Good Hope. Once in Australia, he focused on natural history, Aboriginal peoples, and his travels through Southern and Western Australia in a day to day diary format. He also included scientific, geographical, ethnographic and zoological information and concluded with an appendix of botanical and zoological drawings and information.