VISION FOR A NATION By 1815 Governor Lachlan Macquarie’s extensive building programme and his efforts to raise the moral standards of the colony of New South Wales were bearing fruit. Sydney, which had been little more than a squalid penal camp when he arrived, was becoming a
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THOUGHTS ON THE BUNNY RABBIT Rabbits had begun to breed in plague proportions in Tasmania as early as 1827. The Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser reported: ‘…the common rabbit is becoming so numerous throughout the colony, that they are running about on some large estates by the
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TALL TALES, EMPTY TANKS – AN AUSTRALIAN ODYSSEY On late night radio an elderly man talked about catching giant Murray cod on chicken eggs; ‘I thread a fish hook through the shell of a raw egg then I hard boil it,’ he assured the dubious host. His
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My interest in John Mortlock was aroused when I discovered that his journey as a convict paralleled that of my own relatives, the Shadbolts. WHERE THERE’S A WILL…… John Frederick Mortlock was born in Cambridge on August 8, 1809. His father, Frederick Cheetham Mortlock, had been a
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Hello from me, Editor Des. Well do you know what? We went to the city of Goulburn on a special pilgrimage. My guardian Rob Conolly’s ancestor William Conolly used to live there when it was just a little
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GOODBYE HOBART TOWN On October 20 1914, the 12th Battalion AIF embarked from Hobart on the troopship Geelong. They were accompanied by two Australian army nurses; Sister Alice Gordon King ( left in the picture below) and Sister Janet Ella Radcliff (right). Alice was twenty eight years
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The Mystery of the S.S. Waratah On July 27 1909 the S.S. Waratah was sighted by a passing ship off the east coast of South Africa, enroute to London from Sydney. She was carrying 211 passengers and crew, many of them Australian. The ship was never
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The SS Kyarra was built in Dumbarton, Scotland, for the Australasian United Steam Navigation Company. She was launched in 1903 as a luxurious passenger liner. Following the outbreak of WWI in 1914 the ship was requisitioned for use as a hospital ship.
Read more →A WEDDING On November 3 1807, Elizabeth Henrietta Campbell married Lieutenant Colonel Lachlan Macquarie at Holsworthy in Devon. The ceremony was conducted by the Reverend Owen Lewis Meyrick. Elizabeth had been caring for the minister’s grand-daughters, while impatiently waiting for Macquarie to return from army service in
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WILLIAM WIMMERA, CHILD OF THE WOTJOBALUK The ruins of Ebenezer Aboriginal Mission are located near the tiny, West Wimmera settlement of Antwerp, 22 kilometres north of Dimboola, in western Victoria. Strangely enough, the history of the mission is entwined with that of a young Aboriginal boy, who
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