From 1913 to 1915 William Wilkinson travelled 12 000 kilometres on horseback from Queensland through the Gulf of Carpentaria, Katherine, Tennant Creek the Tanami Desert, as far south as Charlotte Waters and Albert Namatjira’s home of Hermannsburg to meet anthropologist and missionary Carl Strehlow, and arrived in Alice Springs just as the First World War was breaking out in 1914.

Wilkinson was on the road for 847 days. He set out with 16 horses and two Indigenous guides and went to historic places such as Chambers Pillar, Attack Creek, Central Mount Stuart and the Devil’s Marbles.  For nearly a year he followed John McDouall Stuart’s tracks along the Overland Telegraph Line, south and north.

Wilkinson was an Anglican priest in his late fifties and deaf without the aid of an old brass ear horn.

He carried a gun. A camera. And a bible. He was a bushman and blacksmith. He shoed his own horses. He was a medicine man who treated injured miners, stockmen and telegraph linesmen. He saved lives and lifted spirits.  

At times almost bare-footed, he brought hope to lonely people living on homesteads, stations, farms, little townships, drover’s camps and mining settlements. He also did practical tasks, helped write letters and wills, delivered mail and parcels, and brought news to isolated places not serviced by the Overland Telegraph Line.

He endured extreme desert heat. Fever. Malaria. Innumerable flies. Thirst. Sleeping on the ground. Malnutrition. Exhaustion. Crocodiles. Horses lost and killed by snakes and disease. Trapped in quicksand. Almost drowned in fast river currents. Abandoned by his guides. Clash of cultures. Opium. Murder. Theft. A public execution. Injured by his own horse.

Why did a deaf man travel from far north west Queensland, to endure all of this?

Percy Smith MBE established the Anglican Church in Alice Springs. In 1947 he wrote a book titled The Strenuous Saint, describing this epic expedition.

Percy’s grandson Mark has written a foreword for this special reprinting 80 years later, and reflects on forgotten explorer William Wilkinson, “who looked for no praise, sought no reward and received no recognition.”