Lhotskiya

Polish explorer Dr J. Lhotsky played a significant role in collecting and preserving a language of the Monaro people. Wa¿n± rolê w zachowaniu jêzyka Aborygenów regionu Monaro odegra³ nasz rodak dr Jan Lotski.

Lhotsky, whose first name is also given as Joannes Lhotsky, Johann Lhotsky and Jan Lhotsky, was born in Lemberg, Galicia, Austrian Empire (now Lviv, Ukraine), the son of Joseph Lhotsky. He moved to Vienna in 1812 and was awarded his doctorate from the University of Jena. He became a member of the Bavarian Botanical Society during this period. In 1819 he published a botanical work Flora Conchica, and other papers for scientific journals, however, his political writing led to a prison sentence of six years. He was released in 1828.

Travel to Australia
Lhotsky was commissioned, by Ludwig I of Bavaria, to explore and describe the 'new world', spending eighteen months in Brazil before travelling to Australia. He landed at Sydney on 18 May 1832, moved to Hobart in 1836, and sailed to London 1838. (...) He produced numerous articles for newspapers and scientific journals, describing his investigations of the natural history of Australia.

His first work on this topic is supposed to have been 'Australian sketches, no l', anonymously published in the Sydney Gazette.[3] The account of his expedition, A Journey from Sydney to the Australian Alps, was important for the description of the Monaro region and Snowy River. One article, Song of the Women of the Menero Tribe, gives the earliest specimen of Australian music.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lhotsky

Cover sheet of the Song of the Women of the Menero Tribe

His 'Song of the Women of the Menero Tribe' was 'the first specimen of Australian Music', and he also compiled an unpublished vocabulary of Tasmanian Aboriginals in 1836 and 1837 (Mitchell Library). A volatile figure, he thought his years in Sydney came close to martyrdom, but much of the fault was his own.

He was careless with money and too outspoken in criticism of those in high places. Rebuffs by officials drove him to despair and made him noisily hostile. Yet for all his tactlessness he was humane and imaginative towards helpless convicts and Aboriginals, reserving his medical knowledge for only the distressed poor. In London Murchison called him a mad Pole(...)

FIRST MAN FROM THE SNOWY RIVER
SMH article, March 1954

Two Polish geologists visited Australia in the thirties of last century-men of the same social class in their own country, both great travellers, both interested in exploring new lands and studying what they found there; both poor. EACH made excursions into the Southern Alps of N.S.W. One discovered and named a river, the other a mountain. Each discovered gold. But there the likeness ends.

One has fame, reputation, memorial tablets, British citizen- ship, the gold medal from the Royal Geographical Society, membership of the Royal Society and the CB. The other, when he is mention- ed at all, is usually remembered as the "impostor" or "the turbu- lent Dr. Lhotsky." Yet there is little doubt, for anyone who studies the lives of the two men, who was the more likable character.

Lhotsky's chief "faults" were honesty (except on his debts), sin- cerity, a warm heart, a lively sympathy, a true feeling for de- mocracy, and the tactlessness to make clear that he had to earn his living.

Strzelecki, the other Pole, was seldom guilty of any of them, but wore a mask most of his life. Seldom, if ever, in English at least, did he let slip an indiscreet word. And, above all, he never offended any- one in high places. Strzelecki mastered the diffi- cult art of "How to live well on nothing a year."

Lhotsky never even tried to study it. He comes into Austra- lian history and goes out of it poor, shabby, likeable. I have no doubt which of the two I would rather meet, and travel with. Lhotsky had a sense of humour, Strzelecki absolutely none. [zamiast przypisu - znaki zapytania. ??? Strzelecki s³yn±³ z poczucia humoru i talentu do opowiadania dowcipów. ESK]

Sydney Morning Herald, March 1954

DR. Johann Lhotsky (probably originally Jan Lodzki) came originally from Lwow (Lemburg) in the east of Poland, but went early to Germany. Some authori- ties claim him as Czech. But, since he always described himself as Polish, it seems more reason- able to accept it. His medical degree was prob- ably a German one, and he was a member of the Bavarian Botani- cal Society. He travelled in many, of the places where Strzelecki after- wards followed in South Ameri- ca and New Zealand.

He came to N.S.W. about 1833-34, and got to know the scientific men of Sydney. He gave successful lectures, and be- gan to collect plant and animal specimens as well as rocks and fossils. At first, things went well with him. Then trouble started.

There was a vacancy at the museum. Lhotsky's name was favourably considered, but he did not get the post. Nobody was appointed. F. Deas Thompson, the Colonial Secretary, drew a small salary for nominal super- vision. Lhotsky's attacks on Thomp- son's "mechanical attendance" made Lhotsky the first of a large crop of Thompson's enemies. Lhotsky threw himself into the fight with enthusiasm, and from then on he took every opportu- nity to attack what he believed to be the evils existing in the colony.

He was often right, often un- answerable, a gadfly stinging the smug flanks of officials, includ- ing the Governor. His home truths were pungent and un- palatable. He even committed the cardinal sin of laughing at the English.

He deplored the growth of a landholding aristocracy, while Strzelecki made his closest friends in this class. He pointed out the inhumanity of the treatment of convicts, especially on the remote stations, their exploitation by their masters, the indifference of the Government. Strzelecki was too tactful to mention the convicts except as his servants.

A shrub named after Lhotsky "Lhotskiya"

Lhotsky went further. He was kind to those he could teach, his servants taught the younger ones useful arts by which later they could live, made them write home, and when they showed him the letters, scolded them for be- ing too enthusiastic. He made one add a postscript that 50 per- sons were executed every year in Sydney, while 2,000 were worked in irons on the roads. He was humane enough to notice the exhaustion of the male and female prisoners he met, and he was horrified and vocal about the neglect of syphilis among them.

Although he advocated execu- tion by beheading as more merci- ful, considering the agony of death by suffocation he may have been right. In 1834, in a dray, with a cheerful band of assigned servants and meager equipment (his credit was already very bad and destin ed to become worse) Lhotsky set off for the interior to collect specimens.

He deplored the size of the estates like Camden (where Strzelecki was a happy visitor a few years later) and praised the few humane and progressive landowners he met. He reached and named the Snowy River. Then, supplies exhausted, he brought his spoils back to Sydney. Gold was among them. None of the later literature has given him credit for it, but it was a fact. He was five years ahead of Strzelecki, seven years earlier than Clarke. Yet his name occurs nowhere. He had no influential friends. Even his discovery of the Snowy is admitted grudgingly, with a sort of sniff by his fellow foreigner, Von Mueller, the botanist.

Honest But Tactless
Of gold, ex cept by himself there is no men- tion. Once obscure French sneer (everything went wrong with poor Lhotsky) was that the gold he "discovered" he had previously stolen, being foolish enough to leave the label from a museum in Austria on it. He then crossed to Tasmania where he received a small Gov- ernment position and generous help from Sir John Franklin, but no friendship. There, too, he anticipated much of Strezclecki's work but got no credit. He left Hobart in April, 1838 for London. He was still poor, obscure, and unabashed, but still lively and full of fight. -H.H. I

Source nla.gov.au

A recommended link. Very interesting stories about Lotski.

I na deser jeszcze jeden link: s³uchowisko australijskiej pisarki polskiego pochodzenia Noelle Janaczewskiej w Radiu ABC, marzec 2015. Warto pos³uchac dopóki jest na internecie!

Radio ABC introduction to Noelle's radio drama

Noelle Janaczewska, 50 min radio drama, "The Other Polish Explorer" from ABC archives, 2015.