Table of contents for Autumn 2017 in Traces

It was a passion of mine to start a magazine that focused on Australian history, to offer a platform to people like yourselves who research and discover inspiring stories about our heritage, and share it with an audience who are just as passionate about our history. As a sole trader for the past seven years it’s been difficult to break even. And while we have built up a loyal following, I have always had to prop up the business financially; I cannot continue to do this. To our readers, all 60,000 of you across our print, digital and social platforms, thank you for reading and supporting the magazine, for sharing your stories and engaging with each and every issue. Many of you have already contacted us to express your sadness,…

SEEKING SYDNEYSIDERS FOR ORAL HISTORIES The Sydney Harbour Federation Trust runs an oral history program and is seeking to interview those who have lived or worked at any of the following sites: • Cockatoo Island; • Snapper Island; • The School of Artillery or North Fort at North Head; • Woolwich Dock, Georges Heights, Chowder Bay and HMAS Platypus (namely military personnel); or • Macquarie Lightstation in Vaucluse (any lighthouse keepers and family). We would love to hear from you so we can capture the memories and stories, both official and unofficial, of these unique sites. If you’d like to discuss being interviewed by one of our volunteer interviewers, please email me at catherine. enright@harbourtrust.gov.au or call 02 8969 2112. — Catherine Enright, Volunteer Manager, Sydney Harbour Federation Trust BOUND…

COLLECTING MATERIAL for a history of the Roman Empire, the historian Tacitus sent a letter to Pliny the Younger asking for an account of the death of his famous uncle, the polymath Pliny the Elder, who had died some 25 years earlier in 79 AD. Pliny’s gripping reply is the only eyewitness account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which devastated Campania, burying the towns of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae. It is also the only account of Pliny the Elder’s attempted rescue of civilians from the disaster using the ships of the Roman navy – an effort that cost him his life. An unlikely hero, Pliny was 55, overweight, asthmatic and a bookworm with a long list of published works to his name. His most famous work, his Natural History,…

Kingston and Arthurs Vale Historic Area, Norfolk Island Of all the convict sites, Norfolk Island’s collection of Georgian buildings and ruins in the Kingston and Arthurs Vale Historic Area (KAVHA) is the most breathtaking on first approach. Uniquely, its use as a convict settlement bookended the period of transportation to the Australian colonies from 1788 to 1855. Norfolk Island was settled by a small party of convicts led by Philip King just six weeks after the First Fleet arrived in Sydney. This settlement later grew to thousands, but was abandoned in 1814 and its buildings destroyed. In 1825, however, convict settlement was re-established, this time as a place of secondary punishment for re-offenders. Norfolk gained infamy as allegedly the cruelest of penal settlements. Much of the intact structures and picturesque…

ANCESTRY • Australia, Newspaper Vital Notices, 1841–2001 (updates) • Dorset, England, Bastardy Records, 1725–1853 • England and Wales, Christening Index, 1530– 1980 (updates) • England and Wales, Death Index, 2007–2015 (updates) • England and Wales, Marriages, 1538–1988 (updates) • England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538–1975 • Gloucestershire, England, Prison Records, 1728–1914 • Ireland, City and Regional Directories, 1850–1946 • Jersey, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1540–1812 • Jersey, Church of England Marriages, 1754–1940 • London, England, Freedom of the City Admission Papers, 1681–1930 • London, England, Gamekeepers’ Licences, 1727–1839 • London, England, London Transport Staff Registers, 1863–1931 • London, England, Metropolitan Police Pension Registers, 1852–1932 • London, England, Stock Exchange Membership Applications, 1802–1924 • London, England, TS Exmouth Training Ship Records, 1876–1918 • Moray, Scotland, Local Heritage Index,…

IN SUMMER, the Victorian High Country hosts a seasonal explosion of visitors. The lucky few are privy to a secret little swimming hole on the Delatite River close to Goughs Bay. It’s beautiful there, the sun glinting off the water, the little rapids proving a delight for children on tyre-tubes. Sharp blackberry canes and majestic stringybark soldiers guard a bigger secret on the high eastern bank. The majority of bathers splashing about are oblivious to the 150-year-old murder scene hidden behind this tangled screen of wild scrub. In the 1860s this river was once known as Devil’s River. One of the local legends describes early settlers, finding the country bordering on the river so rough, wild looking and difficult of access, christened it the ‘Devil’s own place’. Whatever its origins,…

MARCH 2017 marked the 40th anniversary of when I first started researching my own family history. Having watched the television series Roots, I was totally hooked on the idea of tracing my own family stories and learning more about my ancestors. It even led to a career change and I was able to work in a number of major archives and libraries within Australia where I had the opportunity to research my ancestors firsthand. Compared to what we have today, back then — the 1970s — was like the Dark Ages. There were no computers, few indexes, no internet, no email and Queensland did not even have a genealogy or family history society. I still have the first genealogy book I ever purchased, Roots and Branches: Ancestry for Australians by…

LINKED TO GENEALOGY The links to the genealogy courses (‘Back to the books’, issue 37) were fantastic — including some free podcasts and webinars that I’m busy watching already! Thanks! — Leslie Grey McCawley, via Facebook NOTES FROM A NURSE I’ve done my usual trick and flipped through the whole magazine (issue 37) and read the headings and looked at the pictures to see what jumped out at me first. As a retired nurse my focus was immediately drawn to the history of Crown Street Women’s Hospital (‘Sanctuary in the city’). Although I never worked in the hospital I recognised equipment in the pictures and had similar experiences, too. Our hospital relied solely on members of staff to interpret what our Italian patients were saying. It was much easier and…

French expeditions Down Under Did you know that Napoleon Bonaparte himself funded an expedition of French explorers, scientists and artists that travelled around Australia from 1800 to 1804? On show at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in Hobart until 9 July 2017, The Art of Science: Baudin’s Voyagers 1800–1804 showcases original paintings and drawings by early 19th-century artists Charles-Alexandre Lesueur and Nicolas-Martin Petit, created aboard the Géographe and Naturaliste. Many form early impressions of Australian fauna and flora. MORE tmag.tas.gov.au Indigenous Australians at war Learn more about the contributions that Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders have made over more than a century of military service in Australia at the award-winning exhibition Indigenous Australians at War from the Boer War to the Present. It’s on display at the National Archives…

PETER HANSLOW and Joseph Wilkes were convicted together at the Warwick Assizes, England, on 2 August 1817 for their part in the theft of a large quantity of wick yarn, and sentenced to seven years’ transportation. After their trial, they were sent to the hulk Laurel, moored at Portsmouth, to await transport to New South Wales. A year later, Hanslow was put aboard Globe, which departed England on 26 August 1818, and reached Port Jackson on 8 January 1819. Wilkes spent two years on Laurel, eventually leaving England on Dromedary bound for Hobart Town in Van Diemen’s Land on 11 September 1819. He was disembarked there in January 1820. On the surface, the men appear to have had much in common. They were both from Birmingham and of similar age…

The career of the Kelly gang and their decline and fall, is a memorable episode in Australian history, but the chronicler of Australian bushranging may find almost equally excellent material in the exploits of Francis Henry Thomas. On May 23 this man effected a dramatic escape from the Geraldton Gaol, where he was awaiting trial on charges of theft. As soon as he was clear of Geraldton Thomas, who is a brilliant horseman, executed a number of raids on camps pitched at various points between the Wongan Hills and Midland railway lines, stealing valuable horses and considerable quantities of stores. On Friday last he was recaptured by the police at Perenjori, and was being escorted to Geraldton when he again escaped custody, near the township of Buntine. Chief Inspector McKenna…