The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Eyre, Edward John

EYRE, Edward John, English explorer and colonial governor: b. Yorkshire, 5 Aug. 1815; d. Tavistock, Devonshire, 30 Nov. 1901. He went to Australia in 1833; in 1839 discovered Lake Torrens, and in 1840 explored its eastern shores and the adjacent Flinders Range. He then commenced his perilous journey along the shores of the Great Australian Bight, and reached King George's Sound, in western Australia, a distance of 1,200 miles, accompanied by a single native boy, having left Adelaide more than a year before. In 1845 he published ‘Expeditions into Central Australia.’ After filling several governorships he was appointed governor of Jamaica in 1862. In 1865 he was confronted with a negro rebellion which he crushed with some severity, and was recalled. On his return to England John Stuart Mill and others took measures to have him indicted for murder, but failed. In regard to this question Carlyle was one of his most strenuous defenders.