In 1837 EPS Sturt was appointed Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Murray District, a vast tract of territory that extended from the left bank of the Murrumbidgee River in what is now New South Wales, to the right bank of the Ovens River in Victoria. He was just 21 and became known as ‘the boy Commissioner’. (1)
He was born in Dorsetshire England in 1816 and named Evelyn Pitfield Shirley Sturt. Evelyn was a family name used for boys, Pitfield, his grandmother’s maiden name and Shirley was the surname of one of his godparents. (1)
He was the youngest of 13 children and educated at Sandhurst Military College and described as tall handsome and athletic. (1)
His brother, explorer Charles Sturt, sailed home to England in 1836 and convinced EPS, 20 years his junior to join him in Australia. (1)
EPS Sturt arrived in the colony late in 1836 and just a few months later in February 1837, no doubt through the good offices of his brother Charles, he was appointed as the Commissioner for Crown Lands. (1)
EPS Sturt was excited about his appointment seeing it as an opportunity for adventure. He wrote, ‘I looked forward to my expeditions with feelings of pleasure and excitement.’ (2)
In ‘Letters of Victorian Pioneers’, EPS Sturt spoke of the items he took when travelling, ‘a good tent and camp equipage, a small supply of books and writing materials, a trusty Westly Richards (firearm) with an ample supply of ammunition, a capital nag, and some fine kangaroo dogs. My means of transport was a light cart with two draught horses, which, with a large tarpaulin, afforded an ample shelter for the men.’ (2)
The duties of Commissioners of Crown Lands included the prevention of unauthorised occupation of crown land; regulation of the boundaries of pastoral runs; prevention of encroachment and settlement of disputes; prohibition of cattle stealing and the impounding of stray beasts; collection of fees payable for government licences and collection of the stock assessment tax. The Commissioners dealt with applications for depasturing licences and provided each settler with a stock assessment notice. Commissioners also prepared returns for the Colonial Secretary regarding licensed runs and their occupants, the employment and conduct of the Border Police under their command and a monthly itinerary of their own activities. The Commissioners were also responsible for preventing clashes between the settlers and the Aborigines and as part of their duties as honorary protectors of Aborigines, they were required to visit reserves, report on the condition of the Aborigines and supply them with food and clothing in cases of extreme emergency. (3)
EPS Sturt loved the wilderness and described it as, ‘untrodden by stock, and, indeed, unseen by Europeans. Every creek abounded with wildfowl, and the quail sprung from the long kangaroo grass which waved to the very flaps of the saddle.’ (2)
Painting of the Australian bush by Henry James Johnstone
Sturt was camped 64km (40 miles) north of the Ovens when the Faithful shepherds were killed. He gives this location in Letters of Victorian Pioneers. He wrote, ‘I happened to meet one of the poor wretches who escaped, thanks to his speed of foot and endurance, as he was pursued many miles by the merciless savages, and, though severely wounded, he ran forty miles, and at last dropped at my tent overcome by fatigue and terror’. (2)
This would place CCL Sturt approx 16km or 10 miles from Col Henry White’s camp on the Ovens River.
Sturt was the highest form of law and order in the area and being military-trained we can suppose he made straight for Col Henry White’s camp to deliver the surviving shepherd. However, there is no record yet found that places Sturt at the Ovens River after the Faithful massacre.
Col Henry White appointed Peter Snodgrass to lead a reprisal raid of fifty well-armed men that saw a large group, perhaps one hundred indigenous people near the King River about 10 days after the massacre. (4)
Where was CCL Sturt during this time?
Perhaps Sturt was on his way to Yass to report the incident. Word would already have reached Col White’s camp that James Crossley, the overseer of the massacred shepherds had gone to Melbourne to alert officials. (4)
Either way, Sturt would have been aware that the men at Col White’s camp were lusting for vengeance and he being the highest form of law and order should have prevented the reprisal killing that followed. (4)
Sturt’s role in the aftermath of the massacre of Faithful’s shepherds and the reprisal killings that followed needs to be discovered.
Shortly after the Faithful massacre, Major Nunn and Captain Christie were sent to search for the Blacks involved in the killings. Forty-Four men in all were sent out to search but not a sign of anyone, including Merriman or his companions, was found. (5)
A newspaper report of the day wrote that while the fires of the Blacks could be seen among the hills but Major Nunn and Captain Christie could not get close to them by day.
Sturt resigned his commission in 1839, the year after the Faithful massacre to overland sheep and cattle from Bathurst to Adelaide. (1)
He later wrote, ‘It has often been a source of regret to me that all the charms attending the traversing of a new country must give way to the march of civilization; the camp on the grassy sward is now superseded by the noisy road-side inn; the quart-pot of tea by the bottle of ale. All the quiet serenity of an Australian bush, as we have known it, has yielded to the demands of population, and this, though a necessary change, is not the less to be regretted. I look back to those days as to some joyous scene of school-boy holidays’. (2)
After occupying country at Willunga in the Mount Lofty Ranges, he took up Compton station in the Mount Gambier district in 1844. (1)
He married Miss Grylls in 1852, they had no children. (1)
He encountered many difficulties and, although he did not dispose of his run until 1853, he accepted appointment as police magistrate in Melbourne in 1849. (1)
In 1850 he became superintendent of the Melbourne Police but had to contend with ‘the great inefficiency of the District (Melbourne and County of Bourke) Police Force arising from their scattered and isolated stations’ and insufficient constables. His troubles were greatly intensified by the gold rushes; in December 1851 he reported that forty of his staff of fifty had resigned. When (Sir) William Mitchell took charge of the police early in 1853, Sturt was reappointed as magistrate for Melbourne and for the next twenty-five years presided over the city bench. (1) (6)
In 1854 Sturt was appointed to the commission of inquiry into the Bentley hotel affair at Ballarat. While the report by no means satisfied most of the diggers, it recommended dismissal of some corrupt government officers and compensation to some who had suffered losses. (1) (6)
Sturt was a member of the royal commissions on the Burke and Wills expedition in 1861 and on charitable institutions in 1871. (1) (6)
In March 1869 he took leave of absence and with his wife visited England and was present at the death of his brother Charles. (1) (6)
In 1875 he was one of the three executors of the Victorian estate of La Trobe. Dismissed in the Black Wednesday retrenchments of January. (1) (6)
In 1878, Sturt accepted a pension and in December left with his wife for England. On their return to Victoria in April 1881 they lived at Brighton. (1) (6)
Returning on board ship after another trip to England Sturt suffered severe bronchitis and died aged 69, on 10 February 1885. (1) (6)
Sturt Street in Ballarat is named after him.
THE REFERENCES;
(1) The Forgotten Sturt – http://www.charlessturtmuseum.com.au/resources/articles/evelyn%20pitfield%20sturt.pdf
(2) Letters of Victorian Pioneers – EPS Sturt
(3) Duties of the Commissioners, https://researchdata.edu.au/commissioner-crown-lands-murray-district/491611
(4) Bourkes letters held at Royal Historical Society Melbourne.
(5) The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842) Sat 30 Jun 1838 Page 2 The Route to Port Phillip.
(6) Australian Dictionary of Biography – EPS Sturt
