Calvert Expedition window
From BPWiki
This was an expedition to the north of Western Australia which left Adelaide on Sunday 24th May 1896, after a service held in the Brougham Place Church. The expedition was led by L.A. Wells, a South Australian public servant, with his cousin, Charles F. Wells, as second-in-command. Other personnel included George L. Jones, a naturalist, and Bejah Dervish, an Afghan camel man.
To enable them to cover more territory it was decided at one stage that the party separate. C.F. Wells and Jones went off at a different angle, with the intention of rejoining the main party at a pre-determined spot, or, failing that, at the Fitzroy River. Unfortunately they perished in the attempt, due to excessive heat, lack of feed for camels, and lack of water. The window commemorates their loss.
The main party only just got through to the Fitzroy River after abandoning nearly all their stores, equipment and collections in the desert.
Miss Blanche Newman recalled the unveiling of the window [on 27 June 1937] and that Bejah Dervish, the Baluchi camel driver, was brought down from Marree, or thereabouts, for the occasion.
- “God grant that whenever soon or late our course is run and our goal is reached, we may meet our fate as steady and straight as he whose bones on yon desert bleached”.
