Roebuck Expedition

James Harding, William Goldwyer and Frederick Panter were part of a northwest expedition instigated by Francis Thomas Gregory in 1861. The men were part of a group who wanted to begin pastoral activity in Roebuck Bay. They formed the roebuck bay Pastoral and agricultural association.

Harding, Goldwyer and Panter made a journey southwards to La Grange Bay, planning to be away for two weeks. When they did not return after 60 days, Burgess, who was a member of the Roebuck Bay expedition, set out to find them. News of the lost men did not reach Perth until January 1865.

In February of 1865, a man named Maitland Brown returned to Albany after a voyage to India and offered to lead the search party, as Panter and Harding were close friends and fellow explores. Brown had a rough time searching, as all aboriginal men he spoke to had different accounts of what had happened, were it happened and who was to blame. All of them, however, agreed that the three men had been murdered.

Finally the men were found at Boola Boola. They were still in their beds where they had died. The bodies were wrapped up to be carried back to the ship at Roebuck Bay. On the return journey trouble broke out between Brown’s party and the local aboriginals, which resulted in several aboriginal being shot, due to the fact that Brown’s party were armed with rifles, which took superiority over the spears of the aboriginals.

Brown returned to Perth in May 1865 with the bodies, which were buried at East Perth Cemetery on the 17th of May. Their funeral was a public event and their monument was made by prisoners in the Fremantle gaol in 1865. When Maitland brown died in 1911 his body was originally buried at Karrakatta, but it was then exhumed and buried along with his friends in East Perth.