Bradshaw Biography
Frederick Maxwell Bradshaw and Joseph Bradshaw
Joseph and Frederick Bradshaw came to northern Australia at the end of the nineteenth century. Together with their kinsman, Aeneas Gunn, who was to become famous as the ‘Maluka’ of Jeannie Gunn’s We of the Never Never, they established pastoral holdings in northern Kimberley and Victoria River regions. It was Joseph who gave his name to a beautiful and distinctive Aboriginal rock-art he observed, the Bradshaw style.
Frederick was older by two years. Like Joseph he became interested in exploration and charting of land and waterways. He named a vessel the Bolwarrah after one of his parents’ properties in Victoria. With the exception of a visit to Melbourne in 1901, after taking up land near Victoria River in 1895 Frederick remained in the Territory.
On Christmas Day 1905, Mounted Constable Kelly from Darwin found Frederick’s body, along with three other Europeans also dead, near Cape Scott. Frederick apparently died of spear wounds to the body. Reconstructing events, it appears that Frederick and the others landed ashore in the Bolwarrah to find fresh water when an Aboriginal party attacked them. Joseph oversaw the ‘burial’ of his brother high on a bluff overlooking the Victoria River. Some years later, photographer ‘Ryko’ would photograph himself next to the coffin weighed down by stones with the caption: At rest on the ‘tomb’ Victoria River – Fred Bradshaw.
The letters held by the Library represent some of the last ever communications made by Frederick to his family. They form a detailed and vivid reconstruction of life on Bradshaw’s Run at the turn of the century highlighting many of the challenges faced by early pioneers; isolation, disease, climate, separation from loved ones and the co-operative spirit.
Researched and written by Dr Mickey Dewar.