Capt. Bernard McGrath’s

Career

With the death of Captain Bernard McGrath, who was murdered on Feb ruary 17 by hostile natives near the Karu manantina River, north-west of the Morobe Goldfields, New Guinea, Australia lost one of her most gallant pioneers.

Mr. McGrath was born in Victoria in 1895, and was the son of the late Mr. L.

B. McGrath, mining engineer and lecturer in mining at the Bendigo School of Mines.

He commenced his career as a cadet on a training-ship and accompanied Sir Doug las Mawson on an expedition to the Ant arctic in 1911.

During the war he was an officer in the Royal Naval Reserve. After the armistice he was given command of an American vessel, the Montauk, and for many years traded in the British Solomon Islands and New Guinea. When gold was discovered in New Guinea at Edie Creek in February, 1926, Captain McGrath was one of the first white men on the field.

The prospecting expedition on which he was killed was sent to New Guinea by a Melbourne company, which had been floated by Captain McGrath, the Purari Alluvials (New Guinea) N.L., to examine its leases on the Karumanantina River.

The company has called for designs for a suitable headstone for his grave—the furthest inland grave in New Guinea.

Many were the messages of condolence

received by his family from those who knew Captain McGrath as a congenial friend and a valiant man. Major C. W. C.

Marr, Minister-in-Charge of Islands Ter ritories, in a letter to his sister, said, “His death is not only a loss to New Guinea— but to Australia also.” His former chief and friend, Sir Douglas Mawson, wrote of him: “His adventurous spirit took him from Pole to Equator, and now he has shared the fate, so often theirs, of those who dare so much.”