Lawrence Wells

Who was Lawrence Wells?

Lawrence Allen Wells was an Australian explorer.

Wells grew up in the Mount Gambier, South Australia district, and after a short stint in a merchants office, joined the South Australian Survey Department in October 1878. In 1883 the surveyor General, G.W. Goyder, offered him the Assistant Surveyor position to the Northern Territory and Queensland Border Survey Expedition, under Augustus Poeppel. This task took almost three years to complete, and Wells spent the next couple of years working in the far north of S.A. and the N.T., surveying pastoral boundaries.

In 1891 he was appointed surveyor to the Elder Scientific Exploration Expedition, under David Lindsay. Lindsay's instructions were to investigate the remaining "blanks on the map" of Australia,. After a good start, the expedition suffered hardship and psychological problems, which saw Lindsay returning to Adelaide to explain the situation, leaving Wells in charge of the remants of the expedition. It was disbanded in March 1892, after Wells had discovered evidence of gold at what became Wiluna. Only Wells and the cook, Warren, came away with a "clean slate".