Charles Frederick Wells & George Lindsay JonesPrint Page

The monument over the grave commemorates explorers Charles Frederick Wells and George Lindsay Jones who perished in the Great Sandy Desert while members of the Calvert Expedition of 1896. 

Charles Wells and George Jones were members of the ill-fated Calvert Expedition which set out in 1896 to explore the still largely unknown inland area of Western Australia, mainly in the Great Sandy Desert. They perished after becoming lost when separating from the main party in search of water after they encountered shortages.

Charles Frederick Wells was the cousin of the expedition leader Lawrence Allen Wells, and second in command of the party. He was born in the Lake Colac district of Victoria in 1851. He entered the Survey Department of South Australia in 1866, and had been a member of several expeditions surveying the Coorong and the land around Lakes Albert and Alexandrina. In 1869 he joined a survey expedition into the Northern Territory. After a failed attempt at a private surveying business, he was appointed to the Lands Titles Office. It was at this point that he was asked to join the Calvert Expedition. 

George Lindsay Jones joined the expedition as a mineralogist and photographer. He was only 18 years of age, and had studied minerology and assaying at the School of Mines. He was keen cricketer and oarsman. On the expedition he acted as a photographer and collector, but unfortunately the whole of his photographs were ransacked by aboriginals. He had a promising future as a mineralogist. Shortly before his death he wrote a poignant farewell letter to his parents which was found with his body. 

There were many unsuccessful and repeated attempts to rescue the lost explorers, their bodies eventually being located six months later in June 1897. Their remains were transported to Adelaide, and they are buried together in Plot 2284, Path 8 North.
http://www.anglicancemeteries.com/explorers

A meeting of the general committee of the Charles Wells memorial fund was held in Adelaide on Nov. 9. The report stated that the total amount received to date was £1,000/0/5, of which only £75 had been sent from West Australia. The finance committee recommended, in accordance with the wish of Mrs. Weils, that a house be provided for her in North Adelaide. They proposed that at least £900 be devoted to that object, and that a granite monument, to cost £66, be placed over the grave of the late explorers, Wells and Jones, in the North-road Cemetery. The report was adopted. The chairman said that colonists in England had been particularly shabby in their contributions, as only £6/1/, less expenses, had been subscribed there.
Australasian (Melbourne), 13 November 1897.

Location

Details

Dedication