OK, how about this one?
Who am I?
Born in 1838 at Moy in County Tyrone, Ireland, I was the youngest of six siblings.
I was educated at the Royal Hibernian Military School in Dublin between 1847 and 1853, before joining the 70th Regiment in January 1853 at the age of 14. I was sent to Chatham and then posted to India, where the Regiment had been stationed since 1848.
The Regiment was stationed in Cawnpore in the Northern Province where I was an assistant teacher in the Regimental School. I was later stationed in Peshawar in the North West Frontier Province where I was involved in some of the principal engagements during the Indian Mutiny. I suffered a severe illness and spent sixteen months convalescing.
While convalescing I met George Landells who been sent to India by the Victorian government to purchase 24 camels to be used for exploration of the Australian desert. I obtained my army discharge in January 1860 and then travelled to Karachi where I was engaged by Landells to supervise the sepoys who had charge of the camels. Landells, myself, two other Europeans, eight Indian sepoys and 24 camels sailed for Melbourne aboard the S.S.Chinsurah on 30 March 1860.
We arrived in Melbourne on 8 June 1860. The camels were offloaded a week later and accommodated at the Victorian Parliament House stables in Spring Street. They were later moved to newly constructed stables at Royal Park.
Robert O'Hara Burke was appointed leader of the Victorian Exploring Expedition with Landells as second-in-command. William John Wills was surveyor and astronomical observer and I was appointed as one of the Expedition Assistants on a salary of 120 a year.
The expedition left Melbourne on Monday, 20 August 1860 with a total of 19 men, 27 camels and 23 horses. We reached Menindee on 16 October 1860 where Landells resigned following an argument with Burke. Wills was promoted to second-in-command and I was placed in charge of the camels.
Burke split the expedition at Menindee and the lead party reached Cooper Creek on 11 November 1860 where we formed a depot. The remaining men were expected to follow up from Menindee, and so after a break, Burke decided to make a dash to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Burke split the party again and left on 16 December 1860, placing Willian Brahe in charge of the depot on Cooper Creek. Burke, Wills, myself and Charley Gray reached the mangroves on the estuary of the Flinders River on 9 February 1861. But flooding rains and swamps meant we never saw open ocean.
Already weakened by starvation and exposure, our progress on the return journey was slow and hampered by the tropical monsoon downpours of the wet season. Gray died four days before we reached the depot at Cooper Creek and we took a day to bury him. We eventually reached the depot on Sunday, 21 April 1861 to find the men had not arrived from Menindee and Brahe and the Depot Party had given up waiting and left just 9 hours earlier. Brahe had buried a note and some food underneath a tree which is now known as the Dig Tree.
Burke, Wills and I attempted to reach Mount Hopeless, the furthest extent of settlement in South Australia, which was closer than Menindee, but failed, and returned to Cooper Creek. While waiting for rescue, Burke and Wills died of exhaustion and starvation. The exact date of their deaths is uncertain, but has generally been accepted to be 28 June 1861.
I survived with the help of the Yandruwandha people, with whom I lived for two and a half months. I was rescued in September by Alfred Howitt. Howitt buried Burke and Wills before returning to Melbourne.
When Howitt got to Menindee he sent me on ahead to Melbourne, escorted by Edwin Welch and Weston Phillips. We arrived back in Melbourne on 29 November 1861 where I was hailed as a hero and mobbed by the admiring colonists of Victoria. I received a gold watch and a pension of 180 a year from the Royal Society of Victoria. I was a deeply reluctant celebrity: still physically and emotionally fragile, I struggled to deal with the frenzied public interest in me.
I was cared for by my sister, Elizabeth, at her house in Westbury Street, St Kilda. In 1863 I went to Tasmania to see if it would aid my recovery, arriving in Hobart on the SS Black Swan on Sunday, 1 February. I returned to Melbourne and was present at the inauguration of the Burke & Wills statue on the corner of Collins and Russell Streets in Melbourne on 21 April 1865, the fourth anniversary of our return to Cooper Creek.
In 1865 I bought a house in Octavia Street, St Kilda, and on 22 August 1871 I married my cousin, Mary Richmond. I never fully recovered from the privations suffered while on the expedition, and in 1869 my health began to deteriorate. During November and December 1871 I was so ill I was cared for at my sister's house in Drummond Street, Carlton. I returned home to St Kilda and died prematurely of pulmonary Tuberculosis on 15 January 1872 aged 33. I am buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery.
Who am I?