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| Lost Treasure—Changes
to Australian Copyright Law A Treasure Trove— Dictionary of Australian Biography Pioneer Sawbones—John White, Surgeon to the First Fleet Old Gold—Watkin Tench Buried Treasure—James Tucker, Convict Novelist An Impressive Lode—Sleeping Giants—Books to be rediscovered A Glittering Prize—Australian Explorers Rich Harvest—Dr Widger's Library—Classic Stories Looking for Hidden Treasure—Finding Flinders |
Pieces of Silver—Most
Popular eBooks Priceless Booty—eBook Reader Software for PCs A Real Gem—Sue Asscher, Project Gutenberg Volunteer Relative Fortunes—Thinkers—Einstein and Tagore Diamonds are Forever—Un-birthday Presents Alluvial Gold—Kanga Creek X Marks the Spot—The History of Sumatra El Dorado—The Sources of History Finding Flinders—Finding Books to put Online Postscripts—From our now defunct newsletter |
First published in 1949,
this prodigious work by Percival Serle includes biographies of
approximately one thousand prominent Australians or persons closely
connected with Australia, all of whom died before 1950.
Politicians, explorers, artists and pioneers in many areas are
covered.
The Dictionary took more than twenty years to complete. Serle
notes in the Preface that "I have endeavoured to make the book
worthy of its subject. It would have been better could I have spent
another five years on it, but at seventy-five years of age one
realizes there is a time to make an end."
To access the dictionary and a detailed biography of Serle
himself, go to the Serle entry.
The digital version of this book includes hyperlinks to othere
people referred in the biographies who also have entries, and
images of many of the subjects.
The entries generally avoid controversy and do not always
mention the personal life of the subjects, particularly
unflattering incidents. And, being a creature of his time, Serle
rarely mentions the wives of the male subjects who are covered.
Still, he generally provides good information regarding the facts
of the lives of the subjects.
For the modern reader perhaps there are too many politicians in
whom we are not now interested, but the entries provide a good
background reference. Not enough women are represented, but again,
Serle was a creature of his time. Nellie Melba, Caroline Chisholm,
Mary Gaunt and Catherine Spence are among those covered.
Can one imagine Serle sitting out (or writing out) more than one
thousand biographies. After scanning and proofing this book myself,
I still can't comprehend the Herculean task which he undertook. As
he said, "at seventy-five years of age one realizes there is a
time to make an end." What an understatement.
The first authenticated
discovery of Australia was by William Jansz in 1606. Further
contact was made by seafarers including Hartog, Houtman, Carstensz,
Tasman, Dampier, and Cook but it was not until 1788, when the ships
of the First Fleet landed at Sydney Cove with their "cargo" of
convicts and began the first white settlement on the continent,
that the "European" phase of Australian history really began.
The convicts were put on board the ships of the First Fleet in
March 1787 and arrived at Sydney Cove on 26 January, 1788—the
day now commemorated as "Australia Day". There have been a number
of first hand accounts of the voyage by men who were on board the
ships, including the very readable "A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany
Bay" and "A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port
Jackson" by Watkin Tench, one of the marines (see review,
below).
Another account, "Journal of a
Voyage to New South Wales", by John Wright,
Surgeon-General to the Settlement, was first published in 1790.
This publication included 65 magnificent colour plates of "non
descript animals, birds, serpents, curious cones of trees and other
natural productions".
Of the colour plates, an "advertisement" at the beginning of the
publication has this to say:—
"It becomes the duty of the Editor, as much as it is his
inclination, to return his public and grateful acknowledgments to
the Gentlemen through whose abilities and liberal communications,
in the province of Natural History, he has been enabled to surmount
those difficulties that necessarily attended the description of so
great a variety of animals, presented for the first time to the
observation of the Naturalist, and consequently in the class of
Non-descripts.
"Among those Gentlemen he has the honour, particularly, to
reckon the names of Dr. Shaw; Dr. Smith, the possessor of the
celebrated Linnaean Collection; and John Hunter, Esq., who, to a
sublime and inventive genius, happily unites a disinterested and
generous zeal for the promotion of natural science. The Public may
rely, with the most perfect confidence, on the care and accuracy
with which the drawings have been copied from nature, by Miss
Stone, Mr. Catton, Mr. Nodder, and other artists; and the Editor
flatters himself the Engravings are all executed with equal
correctness, by, or under the immediate inspection of Mr. Milton.
The Birds, etc. from which the drawings were taken are deposited in
the Leverian Museum."
Quite a recommendation!
Here is White's account of the landing at Sydney Cove on
Australia Day, 1788:—
"We again descried the French ships standing in for the bay,
with a leading wind; upon which Captain Hunter sent his first
lieutenant on board the commanding officer's ship, which was
distinguished by a broad pendant, to assist them in coming in. Soon
after the lieutenants were returned to the Sirius, Captain
Clonnard, the French Commodore's captain (who during the late war
commanded the Artois, taken by the Bienfaisant, Captain
Macbride), waited on Captain Hunter, and informed him that the
ships were the Astrolabe and the Boussale, which
sailed from France in the year 1786, under the command of Messieurs
de la Perouse and De Langle. He further acquainted him that, having
touched at Navigator's Isles, they had had the misfortune to lose
Captain De Langle, the second in command, with ten other officers
and two boats crews, all of whom were cut off by the natives of
those islands, who appeared to be numerous and warlike. This
accident induced them to put into this port in order to build some
boats, which they had in frames. It also had afforded room for the
promotion of Monsieur Clonnard, who, on their leaving France, was
only the commodore's first lieutenant.
"At ten o'clock the Sirius, with all the ships, weighed,
and in the evening anchored in Port Jackson, with a few trifling
damages done to some of them, who had run foul of each other in
working out of Botany Bay. Port Jackson I believe to be, without
exception, the finest and most extensive harbour in the universe,
and at the same time the most secure, being safe from all the winds
that blow. It is divided into a great number of coves, to which his
excellency has given different names. That on which the town is to
be built, is called Sydney Cove. It is one of the smallest in the
harbour, but the most convenient, as ships of the greatest burden
can with ease go into it, and heave out close to the shore.
Trincomalé, acknowledged to be one of the best harbours in
the world, is by no means to be compared to it. In a word, Port
Jackson would afford sufficient and safe anchorage for all the
navies of Europe. The Supply had arrived the day before, and
the governor, with every person that could be spared from the ship,
were on shore, clearing the ground for the encampment. In the
evening, when all the ships had anchored, the English colours were
displayed; and at the foot of the flag-staff his Majesty's health,
and success to the settlement, was drank by the governor, many of
the principal officers, and private men who were present upon the
occasion."
The publication of his journal with so many colur plates
indicates that White took more than a passing interest in the flora
and fauna of the new colony. However, it seems that, after the
publication of his journal, he became pessimistic about the future
of the settlement and, having obtained leave of absence, sailed for
England on 17 December, 1794. William Balmain, his assistant, took
over White's duties, and was later appointed principal surgeon.
History has shown, of course, that White's judgment regarding the
future of the colony was incorrect; but his observation about
Sydney Harbour, that it was the "finest and most extensive harbour
in the universe", has stood the test of time.
The etext of White's journal is now available at the Australiana page. The HTML version of the
eBook includes all 66 colour plates, including the original title
page.
Watkin Tench—"A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany
Bay" and "A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port
Jackson".
The first fleet of ships which arrived in Botany Bay (Sydney)
from England, in January 1788, heralded the beginning of white
settlement in Australia. Watkin Tench (1759-1833), Captain of the
Marines, was one of the four captains who made the voyage. In his
autobiographical "A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay"
Tench states that "our number was . . . twelve sail: His Majesty's
ships Sirius, Hyena, and Supply, three
Victuallers with two years stores and provisions on board for the
Settlement, and six Transports, with troops and convicts. In the
transports were embarked four captains, twelve subalterns,
twenty-four serjeants and corporals, eight drummers, and one
hundred and sixty private marines, making the whole of the military
force, including the Major Commandant and Staff on board the
Sirius, to consist of two hundred and twelve persons, of
whom two hundred and ten were volunteers. The number of convicts
was five hundred and sixty-five men, one hundred and ninety-two
women, and eighteen children; the major part of the prisoners were
mechanics and husbandmen, selected on purpose by order of
Government."
In "A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay" and his
subsequent work "A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port
Jackson", Tench provides a first hand account of the voyage and
then goes on to describe the subsequent settlement in Sydney, New
South Wales. He details the natural environment of Port Jackson and
its environs; the efforts to establish food production; the
exploratory trips into the hinterland; and, most interestingly, the
first interaction between Europeans and the Australian Aborigines.
This is a remarkable eye-witness account by a thoughtful, humane
man who was also a talented writer. Tench was interested in
everyone and everything around him. These two works may be
considered the first works of Australian literature.
James Tucker (1803-1866) and the story behing the
publication of "Ralph
Rashleigh".
Geoffrey Dutton, in The Australian
Collection—Australia's Greatest Books, remarks that "The
definition of "classic" should be relevant to both time and place.
There are many books in each country's literature that are
cherished as classics in their homeland but little known
elsewhere." Hence the inclusion of Ralph Rashleighin
Dutton's list of Australia's Greatest Books. The book is a
"classic" for a number of reasons: its literary merit; its
depiction of the life of a convict; the circumstances of its
composition; and the occasion of the discovery of the manuscript
and subsequent publication.
The novel relates the story of a well-educated Londoner who
drifts into petty crimes, for one of which he is tried, imprisoned,
and sentenced to death. He escapes from prison, only to be
recaptured. However his sentence is commuted and he is transported
to New South Wales. (The image shows the entrance to Port Jackson
(Sydney Harbour) in 2005. It has not changed much in over 200
years.)
During his life in the colony he is flogged, placed in solitary
confinement and forced to endure both heat and cold without the
benefit of shoes. Still, this is not a story of hopelessness and
the convicts manage to get up a theatre and Rashleigh is later
assigned as a labourer to a settler. The adventures continue
unabated, to such an extent that Dutton remarks,﹃Interest in the
breathless series of adventures that make up Ralph Rashleigh
might flag if most of them were not so clearly authentic.﹄As it
was, the author of this work was himself a convict.
Colin Roderick, academic and writer on Australian literature,
noted in a foreword to the 1952 edition of the book, that "Ralph
Rashleigh is the﹃only novel of abiding stature to have been
written by a man who during all his Australian life was never
anything but a convict.﹄Like Rashleigh, Tucker himself was
sentenced to be transported to New South Wales for the term of his
natural life, for the crime of sending a letter threatening to
(falsely) accuse his cousin, James Stanyford Tucker, with
indecently assaulting him, James Rosenberg Tucker (our author).
Tucker spent much of his time in the colony as a messenger and
clerk. On several occasions he was granted a ticket of leave only
to have it revoked each time, save the last. He died in Liverpool
(N.S.W.) asylum in 1866.
In fact, we are not absolutely certain that James Tucker
is the author of Ralph Rashleigh, as the following story
will admit. In 1920, at an exhibition of rare books and manuscripts
held by the Royal Australian Historical Society, an elderly man
"turned up" with a manuscript titled Ralph Rashleigh or The Life
of an Exile, by Giacomo di Rosenberg and handed it to the
president of the Society, Mr C. H. Bertie. The elderly man, Robert
Baxter, could only say that some 50 years earlier it had been left
to his wife by her father, who had it of the author 30 years before
that. Three other manuscripts were also presented at the same time.
The date written by the author, on the verso of the first page of
Ralph Rashleigh, was 31st December, 1845. The paper on which
the manuscript was written was watermarked 1840. Other paper in the
bundle was ascertained to have come from the register of assignment
of convicts at Port Macquarie (N.S.W.), the latest dates on those
sheets being 1838.
These facts, together with other evidence, suggested that the
manuscripts were genuine work from the 1840s. On the assumption
that Ralph Rashleigh was a disguised book of memoirs, in
1929 a re-written version of the manuscript was published in
London. The reasons for the re-writing were outlined in the
publishers' note at the beginning of the publication: "We
recognized its value and interest, but the archaic literary style
of the writer made us doubt whether the book would be acceptable to
modern readers. So the manuscript was rewritten, but with absolute
fidelity to the original story."
The identity of the author of Ralph Rashleigh remained a
mystery. Then, in 1949, Mr Bertie "put me in possession", as Colin
Roderick put it in the foreword to the 1952 edition of Ralph
Rashleigh,﹃of all he knew about the manuscript. Intrigued by
its obvious authenticity and moved by the obscure fate of its
author, I was persuaded not to let the pursuit of that worthy (sic)
stop until I had established his identity.﹄Unfortunately, for
copyright reasons, we cannot include in the ebook of Ralph
Rashleigh the complete foreword, by Colin Roderick, to the 1952
edition. However, Roderick goes on to detail how he was able to
ascertain that James Tucker was almost certainly the author. After
two years, building upon the knowledge that the paper upon which
the manuscript was written came from the penal settlement at Port
Macquarie, Roderick recounts: "On the evening of 26 July 1951 I was
looking through the 1846 inward correspondence of William Nairn
Gray to the Colonial Secretary. A file of letters dealt with
several complaints against Gray, one of which was that he had
misappropriated convict labour to build a race-course and to
enlarge his own garden for profit. To refute the charges he
enclosed a plan of the trifling alterations to his garden, and
another of the mighty public works he had performed. "These plans
really gave the solution to the problem. Not only were they in the
same calligraphy as the title pages of the Rashleigh manuscripts,
but they were signed with the amateur architect's name, James
Tucker. Several pages attached to them were in the same handwriting
as the manuscript of Ralph Rashleigh."
Roderick provides other evidence to corroborate his contention
that Tucker was the author of Ralph Rashleigh. For example
Tucker, in a postscript to his threatening letter to his cousin,
mentioned earlier, directed the cousin to﹃address to me Mr
Rosenberg, the Bell, Exeter Street, Strand.﹄Further, Tucker's
criminal charge was directed to "James Rosenberg Tucker", and at
Port Jackson, Tucker's name was entered as﹃James Tucker, or
Rosenberg.﹄Rosenberg was, as mentioned earlier, the name entered
on the Ralph Rashleigh manuscript.Some commentators,
however, have argued that Tucker merely copied the manuscript.
In an exchange in the Bulletin December 1952 to February
1953, M. H. Ellis argued that Tucker was a copyist whose known
writing, for example a letter written in 1826, does not reveal the
qualities required of the author of Ralph Rashleigh.
Roderick, though, seems to have the weight of evidence. In the
foreword to the 1952 edition of Ralph Rashleigh, Colin
Roderick goes on further to note the﹃unfortunate introduction [to
the 1929 edition] by the late Earl of Birkenhead. Like the editor
of that text, Birkenhead was misled into believing the book was a
memoir entirely and the text was mangled and falsified to fit this
preconceived theory.﹄Birkenhead set forth a diatribe in favour of
maintaining the death penalty, using as evidence to support his
claim, the "memoir" of Rashleigh, a person who﹃had the advantage
of a decent upbringing, but, out of weakness of character, adopted
what seemed the easier life of crime at an early age.﹄It was
fortunate for Birkenhead that, by 1952 when the verbatim edition of
what turned out to be a novel was published, he was "late" as it
may have saved him from acute embarrassment.
At Project Gutenberg Australia will be found both the﹃first
authentic popular edition﹄created from the original manuscript,
first published in 1952, together with the heavily edited 1929
edition (including the publishers' note and introduction by
Birkenhead). The 1929 edition is now, of course, just a curiosity.
I trust that you will agree that this is a "classic" story about a
classic work of Australian literature—Ralph Rashleigh, The
Life of an Exile by James Tucker.
The First Fleet of ships
from England arrived in Sydney in 1788. This represented the first
European settlement of the continent, although aborigines had
already been living in Australia for tens of thousand of years. For
the first twenty-five years the new inhabitants were confined to
the coastal strip around Sydney as no way could be found across the
Blue Mountains, part of the Great Dividing Range which runs
parallel to the east coast of Australia for almost the coast's
entire length. When, in 1813, a way across the Blue Mountains was
found, a wave of inland exploration was unleashed which continued
for the next fifty years. New areas were opened up for settlement
and several expeditions were commissioned by the government and by
private backers to ascertain whether an inland sea existed. This
remarkable period in Australian history was documented by many of
the explorers themselves, who kept journals of their expeditions.
These journals were usually published soon after the conclusion of
each expedition, and particularly appealed to people in England who
took quite an interest in the "opening up" of the "new" continent.
Moreover, many of those journals have been reprinted in facsimile
editions, which mean that they are accessible to the modern reader,
though they are by no means readily available at all public
libraries. A number of Project Gutenberg volunteers in Australia
have been transcribing these journals and most are now available at
Project Gutenberg, including a a number of HTML versions, with
illustrations and maps from the original publications. Others works
are in progress at the present time, as part of an ongoing project.
These eBooks provide a wonderful resource for students, researchers
anfd general readers. Links to these eBooks, together with
reproductions of maps showing the extent of the journeys
undertaken, and other information relating to Australian land and
sea exploration, are provided at the Explorers
page.
Have you read the work of Jean de La Fontaine or Harry
Lorrequer (Charles James Lever)? I hadn't until recently. However,
in a wonderful example of bringing Project Gutenberg literature to
life, David Widger, a long-time PG volunteer, has established
Dr. Widger's Library, a literary web site par
excellence. David has produced for Project Gutenberg eBooks
covering more than 30 authors, including de La Fontaine and
Lorrequer, and his site—still under development—boasts
some beautiful images, and beautiful words. Take this
example...
"We talked of pipe-clay—regulation
caps—
Long twenty-fours—short culverins and mortars—
Condemn'd the 'Horse Guards' for a set of raps,
And cursed our fate at being in such quarters.
Some smoked, some sighed, and some were heard to snore;
Some wished themselves five fathoms 'neat the Solway;
And some did pray—who never prayed before—
That they might get the 'route' for CorkorGalway."
(From "The Confessions of Harry
Lorrequer")
So don't wait, take a visit to Dr. Widger's
Library. Browse the virtual shelves, sample the literary gems
and download from Project Gutenberg some of the treasure which Dr.
David Widger has unearthed for us. And, as an extra treat, David
has prepared several volumes of his favourite quotations, from the
books he has transcribed. Ah, reading! one of the most "delectable
modes of getting over the ground through life", as Lorrequer
declaims.
Kanga Creek
by Havelock Ellis is one of those hidden treasures that we at
Project Gutenberg Australia are so good at unearthing. "Wasn't
Ellis a sexologist?" you might ask. Well, yes, he was.
However, he spent a year in Australia when only 20 years old, where
he penned this charming "bush idyll". Percival Serle in
his biography of Ellis in The Dictionary of
Australian Biography states that Kanga Creek belongs to
Australian literature, and has been called "the most
delightful of bush idylls".
The storyline is simple enough: a young man spends a year in a
bush school in New South Wales, Australia. The descriptions of the
bush, the sense of isolation but not loneliness, the feeling of the
joy of life, the gentle romance with an acquaintance, are all quite
magic. And, at the beginning of the book, Ellis provides some
background to the book's creation and publishing history.
The book arrived at Project Gutenberg Australia thanks to a
volunteer, but I did not read it immediately. Then, when working on
Serle's Dictionary of Australian Biography I recalled that we had
the book and decided to take a look. I had just bought an ebook
reader and Kanga Creek seemed the perfect candidate for a
trial of the reader. However, one doesn't need an ebook reader.
Just open the file and discover for yourself the
delightfulKanga Creek: An
Australian Idyll.