Edmund Kennedy's background and experience

Answer 1

Australian explorer Edmund Kennedy was born on 5 September 1818, on the Island of Guernsey, in the Channel Islands. He arrived in Australia in 1840, and took up the position of Assistant-Surveyor of New South Wales. As a surveyor, he arrived in Sydney in 1840 where he joined the Surveyor-General's Department as assistant to Sir Thomas Mitchell. In 1845, he accompanied Mitchell on an expedition into the interior of Queensland (then still part of New South Wales), and two years later led another expedition through central Queensland, tracing the course of the Victoria River, later renamed the Barcoo.

During these expeditions, Kennedy gained much experience in exploration and, as a result, was chosen in 1848 to lead his last major expedition to explore overland to Cape York Peninsula, mapping the eastern coast of north Queensland - the one that ultimately ended in his death.