Herbert Basedow, anthropologist, geologist, explorer and medical practitioner, was born on 27 October 1881 at Kent Town, Adelaide. In 1903 he joined the South Australian Government North-West Prospecting Expedition, led by L. A. Well. From 1905 Basedow assisted H. Y. L. Brown, the government geologist, a position that allowed him to further his study of Aborigines. His 1907 account of the western coastal tribes of the Northern Territory is especially valuable for its data on the Larakiya of the Darwin area. In 1906 he had begun a study of Aboriginal art and rock carvings in the Adnjamatana tribal area (Flinders Range), and in May 1911 he accepted the newly created position of chief protector and chief medical inspector of Aboriginals at Darwin. Basedow led the First Mackay Exploration Expedition on a geographical and scientific investigation of the south-west of the Northern Territory in 1926. He died in 1933.