ANTHONY TROLLOPE 1815 – 1882
This piece began as a review of the 1869 Anthony Trollope novel He Knew He Was Right. I so appreciated the humour throughout this great, door-stop of a book. Some may find the snail’s pace of its 900 small print pages a bit daunting, but not me. I have even been reading some pages over again to savour them.
The chapter on elderly Aunt Jemima Stanbury from Exeter is a hilarious satire on the English class system and how certain ‘town’ people could pass as ‘county’.
Aunt Jemima Stanbury (Illustration by Marcus Stone)
Miss Stanbury’s view on new fangled ways of posting a letter is simply wonderful;
Of course the delicious irony is that Trollope himself was responsible for the introduction of pillar boxes to the United Kingdom when he was employed at the Post Office.
The devil’s post box.
I was still enjoying the novel when I read about Trollope’s 1871/2 visit to Australia and New Zealand, ostensibly to visit his son Frederic, who was sheep farming in NSW. Down the rabbit hole I went….
TROLLOPE’S TASMANIAN TRAVELS
The Library of NSW holds a slim volume covering the writer’s time in Victoria and my home state of Tasmania.
The Tasmanian section centres on the island state’s natural beauty and its economic difficulties. With the cessation of transportation, the flow of financial support from the old country ended. Meanwhile, a complicated tariff arrangement with the mainland had left the colony in a precarious situation. There was little incentive to establish a manufacturing industry and Victoria had placed heavy duties on Tasmania’s agricultural produce.
One answer Anthony Trollope broached was amalgamation with a ‘continental colony’,
Let her implore Victoria to take her, and then she will be able to sell her wheat and her oats, her fruit and her jam, her hops and her horses at Melbourne. ‘You had better do it, the Victorian says to the Tasmanian. ‘It will come at last.’ Men in Tasmania are beginning to feel that perhaps they had better do it, though the idea is odious to them.
There would have to be a great swallowing of pride. Also, Trollope did not feel that Tasmania could ever achieve an equitable political or economic position in such a union.
The colony’s name had changed from Van Diemen’s Land to avoid the stain of the convict era, but Tasmanians, especially in rural areas, now ruefully complained of ruin. They referred to the island as ‘Sleepy Hollow’ Trollope wrote;
‘When the stranger asks the reason of this ruin, he is told that all the public money has gone with the convicts, and that – the rabbits have eaten up all the grass. The rabbits, like the sheep, have been imported from Europe, and the rabbits have got ahead of the sheep. If it was not that this is Sleepy Hollow,’ they say, we should stir ourselves and get rid if the rabbits. But it is Sleepy Hollow, and so we don’t. ‘
My sheep farming ancestors at Deloraine certainly did wage war against rabbits. They also ate them in huge quantities, right up to and including the years of the Great Depression.
Looking ahead to federation of all the states, Trollope feared that a united pride in Australia might be impossible;
‘The inhabitant of Melbourne thinks himself to be very much higher than the inhabitant of Sydney, and looks down from a great eminence upon the Tasmanian……Queensland, the young daughter of New South Wales, has but little respect for her parent. South Australia thinks herself better than her neighbours because she has never received a convict.’
That rivalry observed by Trollope did not prevent federation, but as we know, parochialism exists to this day. It was never so strong as during the Covid epidemic. I would not have been surprised if Western Australia or Queensland had made a bid to secede. 😎
Anyway, back to He Thought He Was Right. I borrowed it from my local library and at the rate I’m going I’ll need a few extensions. I highly recommend this 19th century novel of social manners and human foibles.
The eccentric Miss Stanbury banned her guests from reading in bed;
‘Had she ever heard that any guest in her house was reading in bed, she would have made an instant personal attack upon that guest, whether male or female….’
A confession…. I have been unwell and yes, reading in bed. 😨 Oh well, what the old lady will never know won’t hurt her.
In conclusion, here is a link to The Anthony Trollope Society.
