Francis Edwin Birtles was born on 7 November 1881 at Fitzroy, Victoria, son of David Birtles, a bootmaker from Macclesfield, England. He was educated at South Wandin State School.
On 26 December 1905 left to cycle to
Melbourne from
Fremantle,WA, an achievement which attracted widespread attention. After brief employment as a lithographic artist, in 1907-08 he cycled to
Sydney and then, via
Brisbane,
Normanton,
Darwin,
Alice Springs and
Adelaide back to
Sydney, where he was thereafter based. In 1909 he published the story of his feat, "Lonely Lands", which he illustrated with his own photographs. That year he set a new cycling record for the
Fremantle to
Sydney continental crossing, then in 1910-11 rode around Australia. In 1911 he was accompanied from
Sydney to
Darwin by R. Primmer, cameraman for the Gaumont Co. and "Across Australia" was released the next year. He had continued on to
Broome and
Perth, then lowered his record by riding from
Fremantle to
Sydney in thirty-one days. By 1912 he had cycled around Australia twice and had crossed the continent seven times.
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Francis next turned to the motor car and in 1912 completed the first west-to-east crossing of the continent with Syd Ferguson and a terrier, Rex, in a single-cylinder Brush car. In 1914 with Frank Hurley as cameraman he made "Into Australia's Unknown" The next year he retraced their route and was responsible for the film "Across Australia in the Track of Burke and Wills" in 1919 he made "Through Australian Wilds" following by car the track of Sir
Ross Smith. On his many other trips, with companions such as his brother Clive, he shot much film footage.
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The vehicle exploded in flames South of
Katherine in the Northern Territory, 24 May 1921, he and his companion Roy Fry had been extensively injured when his car caught fire near Elsey station while he was employed by the Prime Minister's Department on a survey mission for the proposed north-south railway to
Alice Springs, he later finished the survey by air. In 1926 he set motoring records from
Melbourne to
Darwin and
Darwin to
Sydney (seven days) in a Bean car named 'The Sundowner'. By mid-1927 he had completed more than seventy transcontinental crossings. Impecunious, he depended on manufacturers to sponsor his expeditions and wrote about many of his journeys for newspapers and periodicals.
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In July 1928 he became the first person to drive from London to
Melbourne, a nine-month part-solo journey completed in 'The Sundowner' which he donated in 1929 to a proposed national museum in
Canberra. With M. H. Ellis he undertook an unsuccessful search for L. H. B. Lasseter. In the Depression he spent several years gold-prospecting in arid areas and discovered a payable gold-
mine in 1934. On 11 February 1935 at St Mary's Cathedral,
Sydney, he married Nea McCutcheon. That year he published Battle Fronts of Outback (
Sydney).
Survived by his second wife, Francis Birtles died at
Croydon of coronary vascular disease on 1 July 1941 and was buried in the Anglican section of Waverley
cemetery.
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