Charles George Alexander Winnecke (18 November 1857 – 10 September 1902)[1] was an Australian explorer and botanist best known for leading theHorn Expedition to Central Australia in 1894.
Members of the Horn Scientific Expedition (Winnecke seated third from right)Members of the Horn Expedition in Alice Springs in 1894 (Winnecke standing, fourth from right)
Winnecke was born inNorwood inSouth Australia on 18 November 1856. He was educated at St. Peter's College.
Winnecke entered the Government Survey Office inAdelaide in 1873 under Surveyor-GeneralGeorge Goyder. He first accompanied theNorth Eastern Exploring Expedition to survey the border between South Australia and Queensland in 1877.[2]
Winnecke travelled through northern South Australia in September 1884.[3][4] A decade later, he led the Horn Expedition to Central Australia from May to August 1894, a scientific exploration of the region's geology, zoology, botany and Indigenous people. They followed theFinke River as far as the James Range towards the nowTempe Downs Station andKings Creek Station.[5] It includedBaldwin Spencer,Edward Charles Stirling,Ralph Tate and J. A. Watt and drew on the expertise ofAfghan cameleers and Aboriginal guides. It resulted in the publication of theReport on the work of the Horn Scientific Expedition to Central Australia in four volumes from 1896 to 1897.[6]
During this expedition, Winnecke was responsible for the theft of a major repository of Aboriginal sacred objects in Central Australia, helped by an Aboriginal guide who was later killed by local elders for his crime in leading Winnecke to their hiding place. The objects were subsequently interpreted with the assistance of another guide, the sometime police tracker and Aboriginal resistance identityArrarbi. When removing the objects he left 'a number of tomahawks, large knives and other things in their place, sufficient commercially to make the transaction an equitable exchange'.[5]
^There are discrepancies regarding Winnecke's date of death. TheNorthern Territory Dictionary of Biography lists it as 17 September 1902, but the obituaries are published prior to that date.
^Petrick, Jose; Petrick, Jose. Street names tell history of Alice Springs (2005),The history of Alice Springs through landmarks and street names ([4th ed. updated to November 2005] ed.), J. Petrick,ISBN978-0-646-30256-0
^Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011).The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp.ISBN978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Winnecke", p. 288).
^Mueller, F.J.H. von (1884). "Mr. Winnecke's explorations during 1883: Plants Collected in Central Australia".South Australian Parliamentary Papers.39.
^Winnecke, C. (Charles), 1857-1902; Royal Geographical Society of Australasia. South Australian Branch (1887),Physical features of Central Australia, Spiller, retrieved25 November 2017{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
