Stuart, John McDouall, 1815–66, Scottish explorer in Australia. He emigrated (1838) to S Australia; there, as a draftsman, he joined Charles Sturt's expedition (1844–45) to central Australia. Between 1858 and 1862 he led six expeditions from Adelaide and proved that there was much habitable country in areas about which discouraging reports had come from Sturt and other explorers. He was the first (1860) to reach the center of Australia; he climbed and named Mt. Sturt (later renamed Stuart). From 1860 he tried to cross the continent, and eventually he achieved his objective by reaching Van Diemen Gulf in 1862.
See biographies by M. S. Webster (1959) and I. Mudie (1968).
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