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George Evans ExpeditionPrint Page

George Evans : 30-September-2013

Photographs supplied by Glen Yeomans / Sandra Brown

The figurative group contains the statue of Evans and commemorates the discovery of the Bathurst Plains by him in 1813 and perpetuates his memory. The standing bronze monument of Evans flanked by a kneeling aboriginal shading his eyes, both gazing to the horizon. There is an enclosed frieze of Evans, Blaxland, Lawson, and Wentworth.

The foundation stone for the memorial was laid on the 19th November 1913 during Bathurst's centenary celebrations and the memorial was unveiled by the Governor Sir Walter Davidson on 29th November 1920. The memorial was floodlit by Woolworths to commemorate Bathurst's 150th anniversary in 1963.

Gregory Blaxland, William Wentworth and William Lawson became the first Europeans to find a way across the Blue Mountains in May 1813 which resulted in settlement beyond the Cumberland Plains. However, it was surveyor George Evans who crossed the main range later that year.

During the trek he camped on the future townsite of Bathurst and made a favourable report of the country he saw. Evans named the Macquarie River after Governor Lachlan Macquarie and the Bathurst Plains after Lord Bathurst, the British secretary of state for the colonies.

The discovery of the western plains a hundred years ago by Surveyor Evans is to be perpetuated by the erection in the centre of the city of a statue which is now nearing completion. A life-size bronze figure of the explorer, standing erect and gazing west, with a native kneeling and scanning the scene in the same direction, stands between 30 and 40 foot high; the figures being of bronze, and the base of the monument district granite, with marble fittings and bronze plates. On one side is the miniature figure of a male binding a sheaf of wheat, and on the other a female figure on a terrestrial globe, representing respectively agriculture and geographical science. The foundation stone of the memorial was laid in 1913 by the then Governor, Sir Gerald Strickland.
Lithgow Mercury (NSW), 9 September 1918.

It was on December 1, 1813, that Deputy-Surveyor George William Evans discovered Bathurst. On Monday last, 107 years later, almost to the day, the first permanent monument to the memory of that intrepid explorer was officially unveiled by the State Governor, Sir Walter Davidson in the presence of many thousands of people. Having unveiled the memorial, his Excellency in the course of an address said that Bathurst was one of the most beautiful and best cared for cities he had ever seen.
The Wyalong Advocate and Mining, Agricultural and Pastoral Gazette (NSW), 3 December 1920.