Lockier Burges (1841-1929)

Lockier Clere Burges (1841 – 6 January 1929),[1] also known as L. C. Burges junior was prominent and controversial in Western Australia as an entrepreneur, explorer and author.[2]

Two people named Lockier Clere Burges have been prominent in Western Australia. For the Lockier Clere Burges born in 1814, see Lockier Burges (Australian politician)

Burges, the son of John Major Burges and Dorcas Bradshaw, was born at Fethard, County Tipperary, Ireland, in 1841.

During the early 1860s, Burges emigrated to Western Australia, where three of his uncles lived, including L. C. Burges senior (c. 1814–1886) and William Burges (c. 1807–1876). In 1868, L.C. Burges junior married Ann Eliza Finnerty at Fremantle.

From late 1864, he worked for the Roebuck Bay Company (RBC) at the first, albeit short-lived station in the Kimberley, at Cape Villaret. In 1865, Burges took part in the La Grange expedition, which recovered the bodies of the explorers Frederick Panter, James Harding and William Goldwyer and explored the area between Cape Villaret and Lagrange Bay. The expedition was responsible for the reprisal killing of up to 20 members of the Karajarri people.[3][4]

After the collapse of the RBC, Burges established Andover, a sheep station on the upper Harding River, in the Pilbara. Burges also invested in pearling vessels based in Nickol Bay. At the time, stations in North-West Australia were staffed almost entirely by local Aboriginal people who were paid in kind with "rations" (food and other goods) rather than money.[5]

In 1871, while droving sheep from the Pilbara to Geraldton, Burges shot and killed an Aboriginal man known as "Mackle-yell", in a dispute over a stolen saddle.[6] [7] He was convicted of manslaughter in 1872, and sentenced to five years imprisonment. The sentence was commuted to 12 months.[8] Governor Frederick Weld dismissed Perth Police Magistrate E.W.Landor for failing to charge Burges with the capital charge of murder, convicting him of the lesser charge instead. The dismissal was appealed to London[9]

Footnotes
  1. "Death Registry ID No:4050". Death Registry Details. Midwest Heritage of Western Australia. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  2. "Pioneer passes". Geraldton Guardian and Express. 7 January 1929. p. 2. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  3. "The discovery of the bodies of Messrs Panter, Harding and Goldwyer". The Australian News for Home Readers. Melbourne. 25 August 1865. p. 9. Retrieved 5 March 2019.
  4. Robert Lewis, Tim Gurry, Merrillee Chignell, Laura Griffiths & David Arnold, 2015, What happened in a frontier conflict near Broome in 1864?, Canberra/Malvern, Vic., National Museum of Australia & Ryebuck Media Pty Ltd (17 January 2015).
  5. See, for example: Noel Olive, 2007, Enough is Enough: A History of the Pilbara Mob, Fremantle Press, pp. 66, 106, 111–3, 121–2 and; Fiona Skyring, 2007–9, The 1968–69 introduction of equal wages for Aboriginal pastoral workers in the Kimberley, National Museum of Australia (17 January 2015).
  6. The Perth Gazette & West Australian Times, 13 September 1872, p2S.
  7. John Michael Bennett, Sir Archibald Burt: First Chief Justice of Western Australia, 1861-1879, Annandale, NSW; Federation Press, 2002, p. vii.
  8. The Perth Gazette and West Australian Times, 28 February 1873, p.4.
  9. Landor, E. W. (Edward Willson), 1811-1878 (1872), The Case of E.W. Landor, Esq., J.P., police magistrate, Western AustraliaCS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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References
  • Lockier Clere Burges, c. 1919, Pioneers of Nor'-West Australia, pastoral and pearling, Perth WA, People's Printing & Publishing Co.
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