Tributes paid in Fife to a “forgotten” Scottish explorer who became the first man to walk from the south to the north across Australia have been capturing the imagination of historians and the public Down Under.
The Courier has been contacted by several Australians who were fascinated to read our recent coverage online and have been keen to find out more about what has been happening in Fife.
Dysart man John McDouall Stuart, born in 1815, is a hero in Australia after leading the first successful expedition to carry out the feat and map the internal lands of the country while doing so in 1862.
Closer to home, Fife Historic Buildings Trust launched a search in February for relatives of the explorer, who is not particularly well known here.
The trust has been working on transforming his birthplace a house on the corner of Fitzroy Place and Rectory Lane, Dysart into a modern holiday home and were keen for his relatives to attend its opening.
Last month the holiday apartment was officially opened by Kaye Bachelard who is the great-great-great-grand-niece of Stuart.
The building formerly housed the McDouall Stuart Museum, which was closed by Fife Council in 2009 due to low visitor numbers. Work on the £50,000 restoration project by Fife Historic Buildings Trust started last year.
Paul Curnow, a lecturer at the Adelaide Planetarium in South Australia, got in touch to thank The Courier for a “great article” and revealed that Adelaide is holding a John McDouall Stuart exhibition at its Migration Museum until October 26.
The title of the exhibition is Crossing Country: John McDouall Stuart. Exhibits include the rifle used by Stuart.
Mr Curnow said: “I couldn’t speak on behalf of the Australian people because I guess he would hold different significance for different people.
“However, as an individual I can say that he represents that tough pioneering spirit of the early explorers in Australia.
“He traversed the continent from south to north, and then made it back again where others had failed. Australia has over 45,000 years of history and he met Aboriginal Australians who had never seen a white man in their lives.
“What a shock it must have been for them to see a white man and a horse for the first time. Furthermore, what an experience it must have been for him and his men meeting what would almost seem like an alien culture to their own.”