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Fenerty was there when the bodies of both men were brought back to Melbourne. It sprung a large public spectacle. Burke and Wills were Australia's first hero's. They were also the first to have a monument erected. The monument was placed in downtown Melbourne in 1865, the year Charles Fenerty left for Canada. Charles Fenerty writes,

"The remains of Burke and Wills, the Australian explorers, who died of exhaustion in the far interior were brought to Melbourne and buried – suitable monuments being erected to their memory by the Victoria government – while the remains of Gray, their servant who perished with them, were left uncared for."

 
A portrait of Robert Burke; expedition leader    
     
 
He wrote that at the time the monument was being set up. The poem was probably written in 1865 when the Australian Government began the monument's erection. This would have upset Fenerty knowing that Gray's name wasn't on the monument. Fenerty probably wrote it for a local newspaper in an effort to give attention to the remains of Charles Gray. This is a classical Fenerty tactic. He did the same for Sir Provo Wallis in 1892.