John Graham was an Irish man sentenced in 1825 for theft. His punishment was seven years in an Australian penal colony. He quickly escaped and lived for several years with Aboriginal people in Duungidjawu country near what is now the city of Brisbane. In 1836, he assisted with a rescue party to K'gari (also known as Gari, or Great Sandy Island) where the survivors of a wrecked Scottish brig, the Stirling Castle, had been taken ashore by indigenous islanders. Eliza Fraser was one of the survivors and her later sensationalised interviews were so widely published that the island has been most commonly known as Fraser Island ever since. Her telling of the story became ever more exaggerated and lurid upon her return to the UK, full of cannibalism and reports of 'horrible barbarity' which fuelled the making of print interpretations such as this. She was later discredited entirely by other eyewitnesses who reported that the Butchulla people of K'gari had saved the lives of the shipwrecked people and ensured their health and safety for several weeks until they could be transported home.