How cocky explorer Sir Thomas Mitchell made a date for a duel with a politician

Sir Thomas Mitchell mapped vast parts of the nation across four epic explorations — but this was perhaps his most daring act.

The Shire of Mitchell, the Mitchell River, the Victorian village of Mitchellstown and the Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo.

All are named for a headstrong explorer, Sir Thomas Mitchell, who mapped vast parts of the state and the country across four epic treks of exploration.

Aside from being the most famous Australian explorer of his age, Mitchell was notoriously belligerent.

He clashed with members of his exploration party, fought violently with Aboriginal tribesmen and detested taking instructions from authorities.

But perhaps his most daring act came in 1851 when Mitchell participated in a pistol duel — the last of its kind in Australia — to square an argument with a politician.

A map showing Thomas Mitchell’s 1836 trek through Victoria. Picture: State Library of Victoria

THE COCKY EXPLORER

Born in Scotland in 1792, Thomas Mitchell was a military man who served in Portugal before arriving in Australia in the 1820s.

A gifted surveyor and artist, Mitchell made maps and fine sketches of the land and its people as he covered hundreds of kilometres during his famous expeditions.

His third mission to survey the interior of Australia led him from the town of Boree in New South Wales, southwest to the Murray River, then down to the Grampians and as far south as Portland.

The expedition then swept northeast through central Victoria on its way back to Sydney.

But the mammoth journey was not without its trouble, and controversy.

Mitchell and his party encountered a large group of Aboriginal people at the Murray River, southeast of what is now Mildura.

Stuart Donaldson, who faced Thomas Mitchell in a duel in 1851, and a newspaper article about the episode. Picture: Trove

After setting up a camp, they noticed the Indigenous men were also gathering near the spot.

Tensions built between the two groups when an Aboriginal man accompanying Mitchell’s party was told that Indigenous fighters were planning to kill Mitchell and his men.

What ensued was a short battle in which, so reports indicate, seven Aboriginal people were shot dead and others injured.

The site was named Mt Dispersion and when Mitchell returned from his expedition word had spread about the incident, which some have since described as a massacre.

He faced a parliamentary inquiry and was given an official rebuke.

It was not the first nor the last time Mitchell rubbed the establishment the wrong way.

New South Wales Governor Sir Charles FitzRoy once noted: “It is notorious that Sir Thomas Mitchell’s unfortunate impracticability of temper and spirit of opposition of those in authority over him misled him into frequent collision with my predecessors.”

But Mitchell’s thorny temperament did not just irritate his superiors, it nearly got him killed.

The French pistols used in the duel between Sir Thomas Mitchell and Stuart Donaldson. Picture: National Museum Australia

AUSTRALIA’S LAST DUEL

Sir Thomas Mitchell’s most bombastic escapade came in 1851 when he was Surveyor General of New South Wales, and embarked on a feud with local politician Stuart Donaldson.

During an election campaign, Donaldson had publicly attacked Mitchell’s Survey Department, claiming it ran at a whopping cost of 40,000 pounds per year, suggesting Mitchell was a rampant over-spender.

Mitchell denied the claim and a spat ensued, much of which played out publicly on the newspaper letters page.

Neither man would back down and so it was decided a pair of French flintlock pistols would be used to settle the matter.

The men made a date for a duel, which was the talk of the colony when breathlessly reported by the papers.

“Both parties met at half-past four on Saturday afternoon, at a secluded spot near the Water Reserve — Sir Thomas attended by Lieutenant Burrowes, and Mr Donaldson by Mr Donnie,” said one report.

A portrait of Sir Thomas Mitchell in later life, and one of his many sketches made during his expeditions.

“They each exchanged three shots, and in the last fire a ball passed through Mr Donaldson’s hat, and another was within an inch of Sir Thomas’s throat.”

At this point, according to the report, the combatants’ mates interfered and pulled them from the field.

It was dumb luck nobody was killed and the duel was declared a draw.

The French pistols used in the duel are now kept by the National Museum of Australia.

Five years after the duel, Stuart Donaldson was elected premier of New South Wales.

But Sir Thomas Mitchell fared far worse.

In 1855, as he was facing a long-anticipated royal commission into the Survey Department, Mitchell was surveying a road in southern New South Wales when he developed a fever.

He died of severe bronchitis a few days later.

The Mitchell River, the town of Mitchell in Queensland, the suburb of Mitchell in Canberra and the Mitchell Highway are all named in his honour.

So is the famous cocky who, just like the explorer, likes to puff itself up.

Originally published as How cocky explorer Sir Thomas Mitchell made a date for a duel with a politician