Born August 22,1847, Bunbury, Western Australia
Died September 3, 1918, at sea, off the coast of Sierra Leone, Africa

John Forrest was born in the port city of Bunbury, Western Australia, on August 22, 1847. His parents were Scottish immigrants who had come to Australia as servants and had saved enough money to buy a farm. Forrest went to school in Bunbury until he was thirteen, when he attended a private school in the capital city of Perth. In 1863 he began an apprenticeship as a surveyor. Three years later he joined Western Australia’s Survey Department.

Leads first expedition into interior

In 1869 Forrest was put in charge of an expedition into the interior of Western Australia, in search of the remains of German explorer Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt, who had disappeared with his party some twenty years earlier while trying to cross the continent. Forrest was to examine the skeletal...