Portrait of John King

Robert O’Hara Burke, William John Wills, John King, and Charles Gray were the first Europeans to cross Australia from the south to the north. They left Melbourne in 1860 and reached the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Australia in February 1861, but Burke, Wills, and Gray died as they tried to return south. King survived with the help of the Yandruwandha people, who accepted him into their community. On 15 September 1861 a Victorian relief party led by Alfred Howitt and Edwin Welch found King living with the Yandruwandha.