Was the Northern Territory still ‘unexplored’ when the Anzacs landed at Gallipoli?

On this week’s Afternoon Light Georgina Downer speaks with Mark Smith to tell the story of Australia’s Forgotten Explorer William Wilkinson. A man who embarked on a remarkable journey across Northern Australia, and inadvertently helped to inspire and fund St Francis House – one of the earliest and most successful efforts to provide remote Indigenous children with the opportunity to get an education and become advocates for their communities.

Want to learn more about Australian explorers and our Indigenous pioneers? Listen to these episodes of Afternoon Light:

Grantlee Kieza on Matthew Flinders & the Naming of Australia: “The vast majority of Australians wouldn’t know that”

Emma McEwin on Sir Douglas Mawson | “Always curious, always inquiring”

Bain Attwood, ‘A sense of kin’ The Life of William Cooper

Mark Smith is the Chair of the St Francis House Project. He studied politics and international relations at the University of Adelaide and graduated in 2006 with a first-class honours’ degree in history. His thesis compared the environmental impact of first European contact with Indigenous people in the Flinders Ranges with the South East of South Australia. Mark’s grandfather Percy Smith MBE was the first Anglican Archdeacon of the Northern Territory and founder of St Francis House, a South Australian hostel for inland children whose alumni range from Charles Perkins to the designer of the Indigenous flag. In 1947 Percy published The Strenuous Saint, now republished by Mark as William Wilkinson: Australia’s Forgotten Explorer.