Reviewed by Norrie Sanders
Mt Townsend is Australia’s second highest mainland peak. It is an attractive mountain, with a rocky top that demands some scrambling, before revealing breathtaking views of the Snowy Mountains and Victorian Alps. But the mountain, much like the man it was named for, is little known despite its formidable attributes. Peter Crowley’s first book is about the man – Thomas Scott Townsend – who left a substantial legacy to this country.
Townsend learned surveying for two years in England before arriving in Australia at just 17 years old. In 1829, Sydney was a young town, Melbourne did not exist and the gold rushes were two decades in the future. The colony of New South Wales was rapidly expanding as settlers took up allotments to the west and south. Surveyors were in high demand to map the rivers and mountains, define land holdings and lay out new towns.
Despite his lack of experience, Townsend quickly proved to be an outstanding surveyor. He laid out many towns on “vacant” bushland – including Albury, Wagga Wagga and Cooma. He plotted the course of many great rivers, including the Murray and the Snowy. He surveyed large slabs of the Victorian and NSW coastal districts, both on the land and under the sea. But most of all, he mapped large areas of the high country of the Victorian Alps and Snowy Mountains – often in atrocious conditions and with primitive equipment.
Peter tells us that he wrote the book on the suggestion of his wife, and having grown up in Gippsland where Townsend undertook extensive surveys, but …. he earned hardly more than a few sentences in the published sources… [p15]. The problem for a biographer is that Townsend did not keep a diary and only a few private letters have come to light. Most of the knowledge comes from his official work – primarily maps and descriptions, plus work-related correspondence with his superiors.
The limited nature of the sources available to the author, coupled with Townsend’s abilities, means that there is a cyclical nature to the narrative. Townsend is sent to survey an area – Townsend does a good job – Townsend is ill or needs a break – his superiors refuse the leave and he is sent somewhere else to repeat the cycle. Being in favour with the Governor and Surveyor general, as Townsend was, does not necessarily warrant an easy life with plenty of promotion. In fact, because they found him indispensable, he was overworked and underpaid for his whole career.
Of course, the land was not “vacant” when Europeans arrived. Throughout the book, Peter Crowley is at pains to explicitly acknowledge the traditional owners, with particular attention to their tribal names and place names. Surveyors were indebted to them – in many cases following aboriginal pathways, using aboriginal guides and sometimes needing their help in a crisis. Unfortunately, the survey records failed to acknowledge the debt; and even the adoption of traditional place and feature names was more for pragmatic reasons than tribute.
The book offers many insights into the life of the young colony. It covered huge tracts of land, but roads and towns were rare away from Sydney. When Townsend was sent to Melbourne, it was a collection of cottages, barely a few years old. On arrival, Townsend may have had to sleep in his tent at what is now one of the busiest street corners in the city. Surveyors were de facto explorers (at least in European eyes) and without them, the rapid expansion into rural areas would have been even more undisciplined and chaotic. Squatters in particular were rushing to steal as much land as possible before the government caught up.
The stifling bureaucracy and constant demands for work from Melbourne, Sydney and even London were unmatched by a willingness to supply decent tools of trade. He often had to make do with broken or antiquated equipment and insufficient pack animals. Townsend’s later life was marred by mental health issues of uncertain origin, but whatever the cause, he undoubtedly endured hardships and deprivation over a quarter of a century that would have broken many people.
The survey of the Pilot Wilderness to locate the source of the Murray …. was formidably hard, exploring no ‘ordinary country’, as Townsend put it. It was amongst the great feats of colonial surveying and had taken the first step towards fixing the position of the border between the two colonies, later the states of Victoria and New South Wales. The surveys of the Snowy River and its tributaries that followed were scarcely any easier, requiring constant exposure to the elements [p258].
Peter’s painstaking trawl through the archives has produced a work of meticulous detail that would do justice to an historian, even though he is a medical doctor with no prior books to his name. He has brought Townsend’s name back to public attention. Townsend was a top-class surveyor, who was well regarded by his employers, but deserves to be recognised as an important figure in Australian history.
Peter Crowley is a medical doctor, a fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia and an historical researcher. He attended school in Gippsland and lived for several years in the Strzelecki Ranges, a place of steep hills, eerie mists and occasional snow falls.
(September 2024)
by Peter Crowley
National Library of Australia Publishing
ISBN: 978 192250 769 3
$36.99 (Paperback); 352pp