Scates, Bruce & Rebecca Wheatley: search for The Water Diviner

Scates, Bruce & Rebecca Wheatley

‘The search for “The Water Diviner”‘, Monash University, 23 April 2015

Short documentary tracing the story of Thomas Murray of Gippsland, Victoria, who travelled to Gallipoli after the Great War in search of his son, also Thomas, who was believed to have died at The Nek. Professor Scates, in conversation with Rebecca Wheatley, offers evidence that Thomas senior was the man who arrived at Gallipoli in 1919 and was turned away by Colonel Cyril Hughes, who was in charge of burying the dead after the war. This was the incident, reported by CEW Bean, on which the film The Water Diviner was based.

Scates and Wheatley also discuss the film. There are more resources on the film here, including a link to Peter Stanley’s review which, at the time of writing this note, had been viewed more than 16 000 times by visitors to our website from around the world.