1:50 Scale. DRAKE Mack Bicentennial Superliner. ERNEST GILES

1:50 Scale. DRAKE Mack Bicentennial Superliner. ERNEST GILES

William Ernest Powell Giles (20 July 1835 – 13 November 1897) best known as Ernest Giles, was an Australian explorer. He led five major expeditions to parts of South Australia and Western Australia.

Giles worked as a land classifier in the Western District of Victoria from 1877 to 1879.

In 1880 he published The Journal of a Forgotten Expedition, an account of his second and third expeditions, then, in 1889, appeared Australia Twice Traversed: The Romance of Exploration. He made a number of other minor journeys, including an expedition to the Everard Ranges in 1882 where again he shot at a group of Aboriginal people killing at least one person.

Despite his explorations, the various Australian governments at the time turned their respective backs on his achievements once they had been completed, and refused to patronise any further exploits or give him much in the way of financial reward. Governor Sir William Jervois claimed on 11 October 1881, “I am informed that he gambles and that his habits are not always strictly sober”.

After a short illness Giles died of pneumonia at his nephew’s house in Coolgardie on 13 November 1897 and was buried at the Coolgardie Cemetery. He was unmarried. It was reported at the time:

He has left behind a name that will be long remembered and held in honor as one who had devoted the best years of his life to one of the noblest causes that man can engage’

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