John McDouall Stuart (1815 – 1866), a Scottish explorer and one of the most accomplished and famous of all Australia's inland explorers. At the end of 1860 the South Australian government voted £2500 to equip a large expedition to be led by Stuart. On 8 January 1862 he left Chambers Creek with ten men and reached Newcastle Waters in early April. Finally, on 24 July 1862 the expedition reached the beach on Van Diemen Gulf, east of today's Darwin. He and his companions returned to Adlaide having crossed the continent from south to north and back.
The monument is in the form of an inuksuk, a manmade stone landmark built for use by the peoples of the Arctic region of North America. The inuksuk may historically have been used for navigation, as a point of reference, a marker for travel routes, fishing places, camps, hunting grounds, places of veneration, or to mark a food cache.