Person

Chewings, Charles (1859 - 1937)

Born
16 April 1859
Woorkomgoru Station, South Australia, Australia
Died
9 June 1937
Glen Osmond, South Australia, Australia
Occupation
Geologist and Anthropologist

Summary

Charles Chewings made several explorations into Central Australia and in the 1890s became a mining consultant and camel-carrier. He studied geology in London and Heidelberg and wrote on both Australian geology and Aboriginal culture and languages.

Details

Born Woorkongoree station, near Burra, South Australia, 16 April 1859. Died Glen Osmond, South Australia, 9 June 1937. Educated University College, London and University of Heidelberg (PhD 1894). Explored the western MacDonnell Ranges 1881; toured England, Europe and America 1992; travelled from Murat Bay to the Warburton Range 1883 to assess the area's pastoral possibilities; sailed to India and shipped nearly 300 camels to Port Augusta 1884; opened camel transport service based on Hergott Springs (Marree) 1885-91(?) and stocked his cattle-run, Tempe Downs; stock and station agent, sharebroker and commission agent, Adelaide 1888-91; study in England and Europe 1891-94; mining consultant, Coolgardie 1894-1902; mining consultant and camel-carrier of supplies from the railhead, Oodnadatta, to Northern Territory stations and mines 1902-21(?); surveyed a stock route from Barrow Creek to Victoria River , proving the availability of water throughout at shallow depth 1909; mined wolfram in the Northern Territory and transported it by camel to Oodnadatta. Published material on his inland trips, central Australian geology, Aboriginal culture and the language of the Aranda people.

Archival resources

South Australian Museum Archives

  • Charles Chewings - Records, 1935 - 1937, AA59; South Australian Museum Archives. Details

Published resources

Book Sections

Resources

See also

  • Serle, Percival, Dictionary of Australian biography (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1949). Details

McCarthy, G.J.

EOAS ID: biogs/P000926b.htm

Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
What do we mean by this?

Published by the Centre for Transformative Innovation, Swinburne University of Technology.
This Edition: 2024 February (Kooyang - Gariwerd calendar)
Reference: http://www.bom.gov.au/iwk/calendars/gariwerd.shtml#kooyang
For earlier editions see the Internet Archive at: https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.eoas.info

The Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation uses the Online Heritage Resource Manager (OHRM), a relational data curation and web publication system developed by the eScholarship Research Centre and its predecessors at the University of Melbourne 1999-2020. The OHRM has been maintained by Gavan McCarthy since 2020.

Cite this page: https://www.eoas.info/biogs/P000926b.htm

"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260