TO CHICAGO – A MEDICAL MISSION On September 3 1906, a wealthy young dentist from Brisbane boarded the passenger ship Aorangi. He disembarked in Vancouver, then entered the United States and made his way to Chicago by train. His name was Victor Richard Ratten. Soon after he arrived
Read more →THE ASYLUM As the name suggests, Yarra Bend was established in a curve of the river outside Melbourne. Completed in1848. It was Victoria’s first, purpose built mental asylum. There was an initial intake of ten patients; THE CEMETERY Burials at the asylum in the 1870s
Read more →LOST MATES HAUNT AN ANZAC My great-uncle, Anzac veteran Arthur Singleton, was admitted to a Tasmanian mental asylum in 1926. He constantly spoke of being tormented by the voices of his dead mates on Gallipolli. Arthur had gone on to fight at Lone Pine and in France,
Read more →
Private Arthur Singleton (Service No. 301) was one of the first young Australians to volunteer in WWI. He was a farmer’s son, from South Road, Ulverstone. Aged 20, he joined the Tasmanian 12th Battalion, sailing off to Egypt aboard the troopship Geelong on October 20 1914. Arthur
Read more →
A CONTINUATION OF THE STORY, THE STRANGE LIFE OF EDWARD RIDLEY – PART ONE. In May 1933, police were called to a crime scene at a damp hovel below what had once been Ridley and Sons Department Store complex, on the Lower East Side of New York. The Ridley family had disposed
Read more →
Edward Ridley Snr emigrated to New York City from Nottinghamshire in the early 1840’s. From humble beginnings as a hawker of ribbons and other small items he eventually built a vast emporium at Grand and Allen Streets, on the Lower East Side. It was one of the city’s
Read more →
For many months in 1908 the Tasmanian coastal towns of Penguin and Ulverstone were in a state of alarm over repeated sightings of the carnivorous marsupial, the Tasmanian tiger. This was an unusual situation. Tigers had already been hunted to near extinction, with a bounty on their heads. It
Read more →
A CONTINUATION OF; THE SLOPER AND THE STEEPLECHASE NEW OWNER FOR THE SLOPER By 1911, three years on from his near win at Flemington’s Grand National Steeplechase, the Tasmanian jumper Ally Sloper
Read more →THE MARSDEN SISTERS MOVE SOUTH This is an extension of The Water Doctor’s Daughters’ original literary walk around the town of Great Malvern, Worcestershire. In 1876 Dr James Marsden separated from his second wife Mary to pursue an affair with Sabina Welch, a servant girl from Malvern. Emily, the
Read more →
FROM A STUMP JUMPER TO THE STEEPLECHASE Ally Sloper was a big boned chestnut gelding with three white fetlocks. He had been named after a British cartoon character; a likeable but lazy schemer who sloped down alleys to avoid the debt collector. Although his name and his
Read more →