John McDouall Stuart - Early Life

Early Life

Born in Dysart, Fife, Scotland, Stuart was the youngest of nine children. His father was a retired army captain serving as a customs officer. Stuart's parents died when he was in his early teens and he came under the care of relatives. He graduated from the Scottish Naval and Military Academy as a civil engineer before emigrating to Australia in 1838 at the age of 23. Stuart was a slight, delicately built young man, standing about 5' 6" tall (168 cm) and weighing less than 9 stone (about 55 kg).

In 1839 he arrived in the three-year-old frontier colony of South Australia, at that time little more than a single crowded outpost of tents and dirt floored wooden huts. Stuart soon found employment as a public surveyor, working in the semi-arid scrub of the newly settled districts marking out blocks for settlers and miners. In 1842 the committee he was working for reduced the number of employees and Stuart lost his job. Stuart became a private surveyor and kept working in the remote areas he loved. Life in the surveying camps was harsh but Stuart rapidly earned a reputation for extraordinary accuracy. He was a Freemason.