Ludwig Leichhardt nameplate

The disappearance of Ludwig Leichhardt’s third expedition in 1848 has been one of the great mysteries of Australian exploration. This small brass nameplate marked ‘Ludwig Leichhardt 1848’ was discovered in a boab tree near Sturt Creek, in Western Australia. Like a number of trees that have been identified elsewhere, and accepted as having been marked by Leichhardt on his fatal attempt to cross the continent in 1848, the boab was inscribed with an ‘L’. The nameplate was discovered around 1900 by an Aboriginal man, who was working for an outback drover and prospector named Charles Harding. The disappearance of Leichhardt’s third expedition in 1848 and the failure to find any definite artefacts of the expedition has been one of the great mysteries of Australian exploration. The Leichhardt nameplate is the first relic with a corroborated provenance from the 1848 journey. The plate proves that he made it at least two-thirds of the way across the continent during the expedition.