Strzelecki - Myth And Mystery

Few men have been able to stir up so much controversy, living and dead, as Paul Edmond Strzelecki, Polish discoverer of Australia’s highest mountain peak, Mt. Kosciusko.

THERE have been numerous bio graphies of this man who cut a swathe in Australian life in the 1830’s and 1840’s and a swathe in English social life at a later period, but probably few have been put together with such painstaking care as that of Miss H. M. E. Heney in In a Dark Glass.

She was in a unique position to do this as she spent five years in Poland in the 1930’s and speaks the

language.

Most Australians know of the range of mountains in Victoria called after Strzelecki and that he was the first man to climb Mt. Kosciusko and name it after a hero of his own country’s struggle for independence.

Few Australians of this generation have bothered to find out much about Strzelecki the man, although the wild claims of an American citizen of the same name did something to revive interest in late 1930’5.

Early in life Strzelecki began carrying a gigantic chip on his shoulders and this seems to have influenced must of his actions and his obvious craving for recognition.

But so much of his own careful build up of himself was bogus that many of his real achievements were re

garded with suspicion also. It has

subsequently been proved beyond

doubt that neither he nor immediate members of his family had right to the title of “Count”, which he used freely, but he went to some trouble to

icate his right to it and used up to his death, expedition to what sub ly became Mt. Kosciusko, was sd and financed by James iur, one of the younger mem f the Camden family, and ki was asked to accompany Macarthur was with him in the last of the ascent but in statements Strzelecki ignored iur altogether and Macarthur, itly an extraordinarily modest lade no claims. rding to the Pole, the final vas made February 15, 1840, s is still the official version, ti subsequent information, from Macarthur’s field note suggests that the real date rch 12. made their ascent from what the town of Tumut, and it is ed that the distance from > the top of the peak makes arch date more probable, ng their descent on the Omeo the range, the Count claimed 2 discovered Gippsland and in brought down the wrath "s who had been there before He started a newspaper 2rsy that brought interest into s of residents of both Sydney Ibourne. (ho Discovered Gold? ir controversy continued for ; to whether it was Strzelecki t E. H. Hargraves, as the books have it, who first dis gold in NSW. The Pole that he had discovered gold Bathurst district in 1839 but »t quiet about it because of it by the then Governor, who that the discovery of gold in lal colony would do great In 1851, when a reward for y was given Hargraves by the overnment, Strzelecki, then in , tried to get redress, but uccessful. 2cki left Australia in 1843 > years later published The Description of New South 'id Van Diemen’s Land which Jered the culminating triumph fe, although in Australia, at , it was received critically in arters. ied in England in 1873, at of 76, leaving an estate of —a modest sum in com with the fantastic claims that de by his namesake 60 years inspired the American is’ claim in 1935 is not clear nicely filled the sensational

newspapers there for some time, as well as others in Poland, France and Australia. Among some of the more extraordinary items the American Strzeleckis put on the bill which they presented to the Australian Government were $560,000 for the cost of the expedition the explorer had led to Mt. Kosciusko (which had been financed by Macarthur, anyway); the land itself (which includes the present Snowy River Scheme) was to be returned to the family; Gippsland, y ic ( Strzelecki Province”) was also to be handed over to the family as a reserve for Polish migrants who were to flow in at the rate of 25,000 per annum; finally, $1,350,000,000

compensation was claimed for the gold taken out of the Bathurst district.

It is difficult to believe that anyone could take such claims seriously although letters exchanged between Miss Heney and the American Strzeleckis left no doubt in her mind that they were in earnest. The reception it got at the hands of the Australian Government can be imagined.

As the author points out in her book, Strzelecki is a fairly common name in Poland, and relationship be tween the American and Australian Strzeleckis was never proved, (IN A dark glass. Angus and Robertson Ltd. 45/-.) (o V er)