Illustrated Sydney News November 29 1879, p4 via Trove

It's Halloween, so in keeping with the season, today we're sharing a very Sydney ghost story. Join Dictionary of Sydney special guest Dr Rachel Franks and host Jess Klajman around the 2SER breakfast camp fire and settle in...   Listen to the audio of Jess and Rachel's conversation on 2SER here  George Worrall was a shoemaker in London when he was sentenced to transportation for life. He arrived in New South Wales in 1815. Frederick  Fisher, like Worrall, was a Londoner. He was arrested for being in possession of forged bank notes in 1815 and sentenced to fourteen years transportation, arriving in New South Wales the following year.[1] The two men were in their mid-30s when granted tickets-of-leave and began making new lives for themselves in Campbelltown. They became neighbours, friends and even housemates while Fisher was having a house built on his property.[2] In 1825, Fisher got into a fight with a carpenter named William Brooker who'd come to his house chasing a debt. Fisher had pulled out a knife and stabbed Brooker 'in several places [which] caused him to be confined to his bed for some weeks' and Fisher, still on a ticket-of-leave, realised he was at risk of returning to prison, or possibly even hanging. He turned to Worrall for help and arranged for Worrall to have 'power of attorney over his possessions and to manage his affairs while he was in prison'.[3] Fortunately for Fisher, the court was lenient and the convict-turned-successful-landholder was given a sentence of only six months behind bars and a fine of £50.[4] Fisher would soon be back in control of his valuable properties. The ambitious Worrall had other ideas. Fisher had been released from prison about March or April 1826, but on 17 June 1826 he disappeared from the colony. Worrall, with control of all Fisher’s assets, advised their friends and acquaintances that Fisher had returned to England.[5] Fisher’s absence was so suspicious however that on 23 September 1826, the Sydney Gazette published a notice for the Colonial Secretary’s Office:

Sydney Gazette, 23 September 1826, p 1 via Trove

This notice was published several times [6] before a breakthrough in the mystery came in October 1826. Three young boys who had been out fishing took a shortcut home from Bow Bowring Creek across Fisher’s horse paddock. Climbing a fence separating the Fisher and Worrall properties, they saw blood on the fence rail and told police. Aboriginal men working with the police as trackers were instrumental in locating Fisher’s body. At the creek behind Fisher’s house, one of the trackers  '[o]bserved some scum on the water. He took up a leaf and skimmed with it a little of the water, which he smelled at, and then proceeded further on. He stopped at a particular spot, and shoved an iron rod he held in his hand into the ground. On drawing the iron out he smelled at it also, and then exclaimed, that the body of a dead man, or of something else, was buried underneath.[7] Digging commenced and the body of Fisher was quickly revealed in its shallow grave.'The face was completely flattened, the head fractured, and the body in a state of decay.'[8] Worrall was arrested for murder and, despite his loud protests of innocence, was tried on 2 February 1827. Many witnesses gave evidence that Worrall had tried to sell them Fisher’s property or had acted suspiciously in some way.[9] Worrall was found guilty and was hanged in early 1827.[10] Although he continued to protest his innocence, at the final hour Worrall offered a confession, albeit a completely unbelievable one: '[T]hey were going together with a bottle to get some rum, and in passing the paddock, discovered there was a horse there. Worrall said […] he seized part of the paling, and made a blow which he intended for the horse, and that he did not know of the deed he had committed [… until] he saw Fisher lying weltering in his blood.'[11] So where does the ghost story come in? The first mention of a ghost in print is 'The Sprite of the Creek', an anonymous poem published in 1832 in the short-lived weekly sporting newspaper Hill's Life in New South Wales and republished and revised in 1846 in another newspaper, Bell's Life in Sydney[12]. In the poem it was claimed the mystery of the Fisher's disappearance was in fact solved when one night after the murder, local farmer John Farley saw, sitting upon a fence rail, the ghost of Fisher, pointing to where his own corpse lay buried. After recovering from the fright, Farley approached authorities and told them what he had seen. Australian barrister and author John Lang introduced the story to an international audience when he wrote another version of the story called 'Fisher's Ghost' that was published in Charles Dickens' magazine Household Words in 1853.[13] Lang wrote several stories about Fisher’s Ghost and its possible that he wrote the original  poem published in 1832 as well when he was just a teenager.[14] The story of Fisher's Ghost certainly captured the public imagination, and continues to do so more than 190 years after the original events with poems, stories, plays, films and even pop songs (You can listen to Johnny Ashcroft's 1961 spooky song here). In 1956, on the 130th anniversary of Fisher’s murder, a crowd of over 400 people gathered at Campbelltown to see if Fisher’s Ghost would make an appearance. One cranky copper complained about all the fuss and said if the ghost did turn up he was going to 'charge him with offensive behaviour.'[15] By 1960 Campbelltown City Council had embraced the story, both fact and fiction, and began to formally celebrate the area’s 'most infamous resident' every year with the Festival of Fisher's Ghost. The festival includes an art prize, fun run and street fair.[16] In the early days, there was even a beauty pageant, with the winner named 'Miss Spirit'. The Festival of Fisher's Ghost starts this coming Friday, and you can find out more about it on the Campbelltown City Council website here: https://www.campbelltown.nsw.gov.au/FishersGhost/ProgramOfEvents

THE SPRITE OF THE CREEK.

AN AUSTRALIAN TALE—FOUNDED ON FACTS.

BY FELIX.

"———— They say, blood will have blood :

Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;

Augurs, and understood relations,, have,

By maggot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought

Forth the secret'st man of blood."   —MACBETH.

"—Murder, though it have no tongue, will speak

With most miraculous organ."   —HAMLET.

DRAINED flagons proclaim that 'tis time to give o'er,

The hour for departure is come,

The hostess complacently pockets the score,

The stirrup-glass presses the lip, at the door,

And the rider spurs forward for home.

Doors, windows, and gateways, securely made fast,

Tired inmates prepare for repose ;

The day's toil and bustle are over and past,

An air of calm silence succeeds the rude blast,

That from jovial carousal arose.*

But ere his soft pillow, the weary host prest,

The fleet, clatt'ring steps of a steed

His threshold approaches ;—he starts—half undrest

—A fearful forboding just enters his breast ;

For ill news mostly travels with speed.

"Ope the door!" cried a voice, in wild tones of affright,

"And grant me admittance, I pray !

O, grant me admittance, till morning's blest light

Shall hence chase the phantoms that wander to-night,

In death's most appalling array!"

Through the half-opened portal, with frenzied like air

Falconis† now furiously springs ;

From his brow rolls the cold drop, erect is his hair,

Exhausted and trembling he sinks on a chair,

Whilst around fearful glances he flings.

Dismay blanched his cheek, for each tributary vein

Sent its stream to the citadel heart ;

That fortress alarmed, to support it they drain

Their channels; nor back call those currents again,

Till by safety allowed to depart.

All that kindness with cheering assurance could do,

From the panic-struck group, standing by,

Was lost on Falconis, till calmer he grew ;

Yet, a glance of mute horror at intervals flew

From his staring, or wild rolling, eye.

Now, stout was the heart of Falconis, and bold ;

Nor weak superstition dwelt there ;

And hideous that object must be to behold,

That could daunt his fierce spirit, his blood curdle cold,

Or stamp on his cheek palid fear.

And, hideous, in sooth, was the object that scared

And turned him from homeward that night;

In shuddering amazement his hearers all stared,

Whilst, with half-lessened terror, Falconis declared

He had met with a murder'd man's Sprite.

'Twas on the rude structure that spans the deep creek,

The horrible figure appeared;

On its pale, ghastly visage, was seen the red streak,

And sunken its eye-balls, and hollow its cheek,

And crimsoned with blood was its beard.

Through the wide gaping wound, the assassin had made,

Issued brains, mixed with streams of dark gore ;

Deep gashes more hideous still rendered the shade,

And well might Falconis's heart feel dismayed,

Though fear it ne'er cherished before.

'Twas the spectre of Fredro,* who long had been lost

To his friends, his dependents, and home;

False rumour gave forth that the seas he had cross'd,

Resolved on beholding once more that lov'd coast,

Whence fortune had doom'd him to roam.

His absence did many with wonder regard,

Through leaving behind him his wealth ;

For, with him had industry met its reward,

Snug dwellings and acres acknowledged him lord,

And these blessings were gilded by health.

But, the man of all others, he trusted and loved,

For whom his regard knew no end,

In a dark guilty moment by Satan was moved

(Vile lucre his object, as afterwards proved,)

To spill the life's blood of his friend.

'Twas over the wine-cup, as cheerful they sate,

The hell-inspired thought filled his mind ;

The day's toil was over, the hour drawing late—

O, hour of destruction ! by all-ruling fate

To murder's fell purpose consigned !

Night's murkiest mantle the pale moon o'erspread,

When Fredro, unconscious of harm,

Stept forth from his threshold; a blow on the head

His defenceless scull shatters—the victim falls dead,

'Neath false, treacherous Warlof's fierce arm !

From the red reeking spot then the body he bore,

(Unhallowed and lone was the grave)

On the creek's reedy margin he covered it o'er;

No track marked the spot, though odd blotches of gore,

Slight traces of violence† gave.

But means beyond human were wisely decreed

To bring the foul act to the light;

Falconis's words to a search quickly lead ;

The Agents of Justice with promptness proceed,

To the spot where appeared the dread Sprite.

Here one join'd the band, as though sent from on high,

To follow the blood shedder's trail;

An instance most strange of those chances, whereby

The foul crime of murder gets bared to the eye,

And height'ning with interest the tale.

'Mid the wild sable sons of Australia, but few

With Gilbert ‡ (a Chief) could compete ;

Unerring his aim, when his barbed spear flew,

Nor less so, when air-cleaving boom'rang he threw,

To lay the wing'd prize at his feet.

The footstep of bandit o'er forest or plain,

Through brushwood and deepest ravine,

Or devious, or straight, he ne'er followed in vain;

Which shewed as if instinct itself held the rein,

And guided, where track was unseen.

With strange power of vision and keenness of scent,

Few objects could hide from his view;

Thus gifted, his aid to the searchers he lent,

And seemed as a being by Providence sent,

To take up the spectre seen clew.

(Man's natural gifts are designed to provide

For the wants his bare frame should create:

Hence, by just distribution, is freely supplied

To the untutored savage, what's wisely denied

To man, in his civilized state.)

Each darksome recess 'twixt the timbers that prop

The bridge is examined with care;

The creek's stagnant waters they traverse—they stop!

The eagle-eyed Chief sees a scum on the top—

And all for dread tidings prepare.

A thrilling forebodement around quickly flies

As the Chief smells to part of that scum—

Which something near hidden had caus'd to arise;

'"Tis whitefellow's fat!"—such the phrase he applies—

His hearers with wonder are dumb.

Quite close to that spot was the mangled corse found;

A spectacle ghastly to see ;

On the victim's bared scull gaped the wide-mouthed wound,

Through which the seared life a quick passage had found

To a mansion more peaceful to flee.

False statements and dealings exposed, loudly plead,

And fix upon Warlof deep guilt;*

Stern Justice awards him the homicide's meed;

For "He, who man's blood spills," (as Heaven has decreed)

"By man shall his own blood be spilt."

Condemned and in fetters the culprit behold!

(Even pity recoils from his doom)

By agonised conscience upbraided and told

That the friend of his bosom he slaughtered for gold;

Whilst fiends point his way to the tomb.

From the scaffold the murderer's spirit has fled,

The Fountain of Mercy to seek :

To appease Fredro's ghost was his guilty blood shed ;

And ne'er, from that time (as by neighbors 'tis said)

Has been seen the dread SPRITE OF THE CREEK.

Bell's Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer 27 June 1846, p1 

  Dr Rachel Franks is the Coordinator, Education & Scholarship at the State Library of New South Wales and a Conjoint Fellow at the University of Newcastle. She holds a PhD in Australian crime fiction and her research on crime fiction, true crime, popular culture and information science has been presented at numerous conferences. An award-winning writer, her work can be found in a wide variety of books, journals and magazines as well as on social media. She's appearing for the Dictionary today in a voluntary capacity. Thank you Rachel!  Listen to the podcast with Rachel & Jess here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Tess Connery on 107.3 every Wednesday morning to hear more stories from the Dictionary of Sydney. Further reading: Andrew Finegan, National Library of Australia blog: FINDING FREDERICK FISHER AUSTRALIA'S MOST FAMOUS FORGOTTEN GHOST STORY https://www.nla.gov.au/blogs/behind-the-scenes/2017/10/30/finding-frederick-fisher Campbelltown City Library Local Information Blog: Locations from the Fisher's Ghost Legend  http://campbelltown-library.blogspot.com/2012/10/locations-from-fishers-ghost-legend.html Carol Liston, Fisher, Frederick, Campbelltown City Council website: https://www.campbelltown.nsw.gov.au/AboutCampbelltown/History/ProminentPeopleFromOurPast/FisherFrederick

Fisher, Frederick

Notes [1] Frederick Fisher and the Legend of Fisher’s Ghost: Your Guide to Campbelltown’s Most Infamous Resident. (Campbelltown: Campbelltown City Council, 2014), pp3,7 https://www.campbelltown.nsw.gov.au/files/assets/public/document-resources/festivaloffishersghost/frederickfisherandthelegendoffishersghost-emailversion2014.pdf [3] Supreme Criminal Court, The Australian, 3 February 1827, p5 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/37073157 [3] Verlie Fowler, Colonial Days in Campbelltown: The Legend of Fisher’s Ghost, (Campbelltown: Campbelltown & Airds Historical Society, 1981/1991), p4 [5] Criminal Court (Monday), The Australian, 15 September 1825, p4 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/37073241/4248606 [5] Frederick Fisher and the Legend of Fisher’s Ghost: Your Guide to Campbelltown’s Most Infamous Resident, (Campbelltown: Campbelltown City Council, 2014), p8 https://www.campbelltown.nsw.gov.au/files/assets/public/document-resources/festivaloffishersghost/frederickfisherandthelegendoffishersghost-emailversion2014.pdf [6] Supposed Murder, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 23 September 1826, p1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2186570 ;  The notice Supposed Murder was dated 22 September 1826 for publication the following day in The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser. The Colonial Secretary offered the reward again on: 27 September; 30 September; 4 October; and 7 October 1826 [7] A Coroner’s Inquest, The Australian, 1 November 1826, p3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/37071549/4248969 [8] Domestic Intelligence, The Monitor, 3 November 1826, p2 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/31757965 [9] Supreme Court (Yesterday), The Australian 3 February 1827, p3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/37073157 [10] Supreme Criminal Court, Tuesday, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser 3 February 1827, p3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2187586 [11] Execution, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 6 February 1827, p2 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2187613 [12] FELIX, The Sprite of the Creek,  Bell's Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer 27 June 1846, p1  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59764633 [13] John Lang, Fisher's Ghost, Household Words,  5 March 1853, Vol VII, No. 154 , p6-9, Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/householdwordsa06dickgoog/page/n16 [14] Cecil Hadgraft and Elizabeth Webby, 'More Substance to Fisher’s Ghost?', Australian Literary Studies 3.3 (1968), p198 and Victor Crittenden, 'The Five Ghosts of John Lang', Margin 71 (2007), pp4-14 [15] Ghost Disappoints a Midnight Crowd, The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 June 1956, p1 [16] Frederick Fisher and the Legend of Fisher’s Ghost: Your Guide to Campbelltown’s Most Infamous Resident, (Campbelltown: Campbelltown City Council, 2014), https://www.campbelltown.nsw.gov.au/files/assets/public/document-resources/festivaloffishersghost/frederickfisherandthelegendoffishersghost-emailversion2014.pdf  

Ruth L Lee,  Woman War Doctor: The Life of Mary De Garis 

Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2014, x + 197pp, ISBN: 9781925003420 (p/b), RRP: AUS$39.95

Pioneering Australian woman doctor Mary de Garis comes to life in this stimulating biography by Australian author and academic Dr Ruth Lee, who captures Mary De Garis’s fearless determination, along with the time and place that gave rise to her remarkable medical career. The book is based on research conducted by Lee for her PhD thesis in the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University in 2011. De Garis was the thirty-first woman to enrol in medicine at the University of Melbourne and graduated in 1905. Unlike many early Australian woman doctors, De Garis was a prolific writer, and Lee has taken excellent advantage of the relatively substantial medical and personal treasure trove left behind. She draws from the doctor’s 48 journal articles, five books (including three on economics), three incomplete autobiographical memoirs, as well as other articles, letters, and charts, to paint a portrait of a tireless and dedicated obstetrician and citizen, passionate about her work and ideals. Lee was also fortunate to access oral history interviews with De Garis family members, colleagues and friends, and benefited particularly from the doctor’s two great nieces, who each held six containers of research material in Sydney and Canberra. The result is an absorbing and balanced biography. Mary Clementina De Garis, or 'Clemmie', as she was known, was a twin and the eldest of six children, and Lee shows us the strength of character that was apparent early in her childhood in Mildura. De Garis’s thinking and intellect was consistently nurtured by unconventional Methodist parents, whose beliefs about women, education and nation building were well ahead of their time. We watch De Garis’s self-confidence bloom as she is crowned dux of the progressive Methodist Ladies College, then through committed hard work, achieve outstanding results in medicine at Melbourne University. At the close of chapter four, Lee presents a memorable image of De Garis walking the streets of Melbourne with her stethoscope draped around her neck, and we can imagine how conspicuous the young self-confident lady doctor must have appeared to the ordinary Australian in 1905. Thought-provoking chapters recount De Garis’s developing feminist ideas as she attempts to enter the medical profession in Melbourne and gain employment in an Australian hospital in the first decades of the twentieth century. Like other women doctors of her generation, this was a gargantuan task. Her trek to country towns to serve as the sole surgeon in Muttaburra in outback Queensland and in the desert town of Tibooburra in western New South Wales also reflect the experiences of early Australian medical women, who were welcomed by remote and regional communities desperate to attract doctors. Lee effectively portrays the frequent loneliness white, single, middle-class women doctors endured in these circumstances. In De Garis’s own words: ‘being constantly on duty, even when ill … and of making an unfortunate marriage … for the intellectual isolation is very great … .’ (p 45). She would meet the love of her life in Tibooburra by her thirtieth birthday. By far the most fascinating are the six chapters exploring De Garis’s contribution to World War I. We feel her rejection by the Australian Army Medical Corps and applaud her subsequent independent journey to London (with a packed revolver), to contribute to the war effort and be near her fiancée at the Western Front. Like other women doctors she was told she could not enlist in the British Army and should: ‘go home and sit still.’ Eventually she joined the feminist Scottish Women’s Hospitals and was appointed surgeon and chief medical officer to the 200-bed tent hospital in Ostrovo, Macedonia, in 1917-18. It is compelling reading. Most arresting are the depictions of women surgeons wearing fur coats whilst performing critical operations in relentlessly demanding weather. Lee reveals the incredible challenges of daily life at the medical unit, with De Garis dealing capably with snow, hurricanes, wasps, malaria, typhoid, dysentery, pneumonia, and frozen surgical fluids, whilst undertaking amputations and treating gas gangrene, bullet and bomb wounds of allied servicemen. De Garis undertook these duties dangerously close to the Balkan Front, whilst carrying the immense grief of her fiancée having been killed in action. The material is deeply moving. Despite being awarded medals by the Serbian and British governments, De Garis’s war service has never been formally recognised by Australia. As Geelong’s first female medical practitioner after the end of World War I, Lee presents De Garis’s notable contributions to obstetrics in the community, her protracted lobbying for a maternity ward at Geelong Hospital, and her ground-breaking interventions for pregnant women that later became accepted practice. During the 1930s, when infant and maternal death rates were high, De Garis held an exceptional record for safe childbirth, particularly considering blood transfusions and antibiotics were not yet available. Although inspired by her numerous pioneering achievements, Lee is not afraid to present an honest appraisal of De Garis’s personality, and portrays career and life incidents that attest to her outspokenness, and at times, iron-willed intractability. This is shown through her lifelong personal and professional relationships, and is evident in both her writing and speaking. Lee shows she was also a perceptive and well-loved practitioner to many generations of Geelong women, enjoying the respect of grateful patients there and in Melbourne. The long and purposeful life of De Garis was also marked by ongoing personal tragedy, and Lee depicts the singular lives of her politicised and at times notorious siblings in intriguing parallel stories. The doctor and her one surviving brother’s interesting forays into economic and social reform, and their longstanding publicly espoused ideas for a new money and social system in Australia, reveal their idealism, intellect, patriotism, and energetic leadership even at an advanced age. Highly recommended.   Reviewed by Dr Vanessa Witton, October 2018 Visit the publisher’s website here: http://scholarly.info/book/woman-war-doctor-the-life-of-mary-de-garis/

Philippa Sandall, Seafurrers: the Ships' Cats Who Lapped and Mapped the World

Affirm Press, 2017, 244pp., ISBN: 9781925712155, h/bk, AUS $24.99

Matthew Flinders was onto something when he wrote his little treatise about his faithful cat Trim. He could not have foreseen that cats would one day take over the internet, or that they would inspire everything from merchandise to musicals. Like Flinders, Australian author Philippa Sandall is indulging her love of cats with this original book. Her other books have focussed on nutrition, particularly sugar and the ‘glucose revolution’. Feline witticisms abound from the title (a play on ‘seafarers’) to the ‘whiskipedia’ sub-sections. There is a cute double-meaning in the sub-title – the ships’ cats who lapped and mapped the world – both sitting on laps and circumnavigating the globe, as Trim did. The book began as a blog – seafurrers.com – which helps to explain why the stories are succinctly arranged as historical ‘incidents’, which are drawn from a quote from an original source, such as a sailor’s journal or diary (references in the back of the book), and then commented on by Bart, a fictional cat named after the 15th century Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias Novais. This ruse of providing a ‘cat’s-eye view of maritime history’ gives agency to the animal at the centre of the book. The 38 maritime ‘incidents’ Sandall, sorry, Bart, describes, come from around the world and across six centuries of sailing. Readers will hail ‘Simon’, the hero of HMS Amethyst who was awarded the Dickin Medal (the animal’s Victoria Cross) in 1949 for keeping the rat population down despite having been injured by an exploding shell. They will chuckle at the lengths Henry Fielding’s captain went to in 1755 to rescue a kitten that fell overboard and the melancholy that descended on the ship’s crew when it appeared that the sodden moggie would not revive. Bart’s writing style is engaging and humorous – like a cat who got the cream. The short chapters and informal writing style make the book accessible to literate children as well as adults. My 12 year old nephew enjoyed the chapter on the ghost ship (where the only survivors were three cats) but felt it read more like fiction than fact. The book would have been strengthened by more historical context – the stories are whimsical and informative, but might have been made even more interesting if they were grounded in a chapter about the history of cats on ships. I also felt the book was slightly unbalanced in terms of its choice of stories – I know cats are irresistibly cute and will do their best to make you adore them, but surely there are some accounts of ships where the cat’s presence was not welcomed or cats were unceremoniously discarded when they were no longer needed. Sandall’s book will lead you to believe that life on board ship was heaven for cats. The illustrations in this quirky, feline, maritime miscellany add to its charm. Ad Long, a self-confessed landlubber, has cat-ified images in the public domain and certainly has a sense of humour. They are affectionate examples of cats as mascots and mates. He also illustrates the Seafurrers blog and writes for The Guardian and crime fiction when he’s feline-fine. The other illustrations are maps and historic photographs, all of which are referenced in the back of the book. While there is no shortage of delightful books for feline-lovers, Seafurrers should find its way into many a Christmas stocking. Reviewed by Alison Wishart, October 2018. Visit the publisher's website here:http://affirmpress.com.au/publishing/seafurrers/ and the Seafurrers blog here: http://seafurrers.com/

"We are not going to try to have this announcement placed on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, feeling that even a 'CAPSTAN' advertsiement would be somewhat out of harmony with the dignity and impressiveness of this mangnificent structure", Brisbane Courier 23 February, 1932 p3

Australia has certainly had its share of memorable advertising, with this week's use of the Sydney Opera House as a ‘billboard’ without a doubt one of the most controversial. This week we thought we'd have a very quick look at history of outdoor advertising in Sydney. 

  Listen to Lisa and Tess on 2SER here 

There's a great entry on the Dictionary by Professor Robert Crawford that looks at the general history of advertising in Sydney here. During the 19th century, street frontages were used to advertise theatrical productions, and retailers adorned their shop frontages with signage.  In 1854, Isaac & Joseph Roff became the city’s first dedicated producer of posters for commercial purposes, followed quickly by the establishment of other outdoor advertising businesses. Bill posters were soon appearing stuck to any flat surface, whether buildings, pillars and hoarding and became so prominent that cartoons of the time satirised Sydney’s vulgar looking streets. By the late 1870s, another company, Hollander & Govett, was, in addition to printing posters, also erecting its own hoardings in prominent places and placing its clients' posters on them. These giant hoardings featured a cacophony of posters of varying sizes, colours, and appeals. The ‘ghost signs’, as they are often called, that reappear around on the city during construction works, were painted on city buildings during the 1920s and 1930s, and were another popular form of outdoor advertising that has left its mark on Sydney. One of these is the sign for Peapes menswear store which was uncovered last year at Wynyard, as discussed on the blog by Lisa Murray last year. It is interesting to note that one cigarette company in the 1930s recognised the importance of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, declaring in one newspaper in 1932: 'We are not going to try to have this announcement placed on the bridge, feeling that even a “CAPSTAN” advertisement would be somewhat out of harmony with the dignity and impressiveness of this magnificent structure'. Our most famous actual billboard, the Coca-Cola sign at the intersection of William Street and Darlinghurst Road, was built in 1974 as the largest billboard advertisement in Sydney, and is a physical landmark and heritage item in itself. Many Australian artists and writers have worked in advertising. Artists like Margaret Preston, Thea Proctor, Hera Roberts and Max Dupain all produced illustrations and photographs for advertisers in the 1930s and 1940s, with Brett Whiteley, Ken Done and Bryce Courtenay all employed in advertising agencies later in the 20th century. While art has been incorporated into advertising in the past, this most recent example of putting advertising on the Opera House attempts to do the opposite - to turn the building, which is an artwork in itself as well as one of the most iconic and culturally significant building in the world, into a billboard. Read more: Robert Crawford, Advertising, 2008 https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/advertising Nicole Cama is a professional historian, writer and curator. She appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Thanks Nicole! Listen to the podcast with Nicole & Tess here,, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Tess Connery on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15 to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.

It's a VERY exciting week to be an historian in Sydney this week with the opening of the new galleries and a learning centre in the historic Mitchell Library wing of the State Library of New South Wales, so today I thought we'd take a look back at the history of the Mitchell Library and celebrate one of the great cultural institutions of Sydney (and the world!).

Listen to Lisa and Tess on 2SER here 

If you have any interest in Sydney's history, then at some point you will probably make a pilgrimage to the beautiful Mitchell Library, part of the State Library of New South Wales on Macquarie Street in the city. The Mitchell Library, housed in the older building facing the Botanic Gardens, is one of the great repositories of treasures and memories of Australian history. In 2014, journalist, biographer and broadcaster David Marr wrote what I think of as a love-song to the Mitchell Library for the Dictionary of Sydney - a wistful reminder of what we admire and long for in any good library. It is all but impossible, according to Marr, to write or read about the history of Australia, the Pacific and the Antarctic without being in debt to the great collector and eccentric recluse David Scott Mitchell. (You can read the essay here.) As its name hints, the Mitchell Library collection is based on the bequest of a man named David Scott Mitchell, a book collector who had used his wealth and position to amass an unequalled collection of Australiana. He bequeathed this amazing collection to the Public Library of New South Wales, and as part of that bequest, he required that a separate library be purpose built to house it for the people of New South Wales. The Public Library, that had been in existence since 1826, was primarily a reference library with a small lending library. It did have a diverse collection of its own, but as interest in the late 19th century in the documentation of modern Australia's history had grown, this couldn't compare to the private collections of men like Mitchell, or another later Library benefactor Sir William Dixson. The Mitchell Library was officially opened on 9 March 1910, three years after the death of its acclaimed benefactor on 24 July 1907. Approximately 40,000 volumes were given to the new library along with a large collection of manuscript journals, diaries and letters, thousands of prints, maps and charts, pictures and portraits, miniatures, bookplates, coins and medals. One hundred and eighteen years later, Mitchell's bequest to Sydney, to New South Wales and to Australia, remains remarkable. The Mitchell Library has been Sydney's memory and, as David Marr describes it, is a storehouse of treasures, and a club of eccentric scholars. I am one of those professional historians who can be found using the library's collections, alongside students, history buffs, archivists, genealogists and Sydneysiders who just want to access a safe, quiet space or free wi-fi in the heart of the city. The Mitchell Library is our place and with the launch of the new galleries this week they are making even more of their collections available to the general public. Generous new Library benefactors have come along in recent years to fund the opening of new galleries in the old building, making possible permanent and changing exhibitions of treasures from the collections. You won't need the excuse of a research question to head to the Library any more, you'll want to go in just to see what's on display and to explore what they tell can us about the history of this place. The six new exhibitions will stretch across the entire first floor of the Mitchell Building in the new Michael Crouch Family Galleries and refurbished Dixson Galleries. The opening exhibitions will include: • more than 300 works from the Library’s collection of landscape and portrait oil paintings • six UNESCO Memory of the World collections, displayed together for the first time, including First Fleet journals, personal diaries of Australian soldiers on the Western Front and the world’s largest glass-plate negatives of Sydney Harbour taken in 1875 • a collaboration with Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi artist Jonathan Jones and four Sydney elders that tells personal stories of Aboriginal Sydney and how the elders have continued the legacy of their ancestors • extraordinary images of Sydney captured by the Macpherson family of enthusiastic amateur photographers at the turn of the 20th century The Collectors Gallery on the ground floor is a new permanent display that features thousands of objects previously held in the Library's underground ‘stacks’, including sculpture busts, miniature portraits, ceramics, coins, medals, cutlery, teacups, typewriters, even convict bricks. I can't decide what I'm more excited to see: Henry Lawson’s death mask or Dame Nellie Melba’s Cartier hairpin box. Also on the ground floor, there's also the amazing John B Fairfax Learning Centre, which you enter through a hidden door and down a magical tunnel, that has been designed specifically for children and young people. This is a momentous week for Sydney's history lovers and I urge you to explore for yourself the extraordinary and unrivalled collections held at the State Library of New South Wales. The Dictionary of Sydney is built upon and illustrated by these amazing collections (you can see the thousands of items from the Library's collections already on the Dictionary here) and we love sharing its treasures with you. Access to the Library is always free, but this coming Saturday, they're celebrating the opening of the galleries and the learning centre with an open day. There'll be free talks from curators, tours, workshops, kids activities and more.  Head there this Saturday and be blown away by our history. Visit the State Library of New South Wales website for more information about Saturday's events and all of the great exhibitions coming our way: https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/galleries See you on Saturday! Dr Lisa Murray is the Historian of the City of Sydney and the former chair of the Dictionary of Sydney Trust. She is the author of several books, including Sydney Cemeteries: a field guide. She appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Thank you Lisa! Listen to the podcast with Lisa & Tess here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast  on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15-8:20 am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.  You can find out more about the State Library Foundation and discover how to become a benefactor yourself here!    

Albion Printing press, c1860 at the Museum of Printing, photo by Alison Wishart

The Penrith Museum of Printing

Sydney is lucky to have one of the few operational printing museums in the world. Yes, all the old printing presses in this museum actually work! The presses have been lovingly restored and cared for by a group of dedicated volunteers.  Some, such as the Jobber treadle platen, are powered by a foot peddle, and the operator pumps the peddle in a steady rhythm while feeding the paper in and out of the press – a skill which makes being able to rub your tummy and pat your head at the same time look easy. You can watch the printing presses in action in this short video, but, as always, seeing it in person would be best! The oldest printing press on display is the Albion, which dates from 1860s. This is a metal version of the wooden one which Johannes Gutenberg would have used in 1450. At the Museum of Printing, you will learn that a euro-centric view of history causes people to think that Gutenberg and some of his Dutch colleagues invented the printing press, but he was following the initiative of the Chinese. Six hundred years earlier, monks in China (and Korea and Japan) were applying ink to carved wooden blocks to print ancient sacred texts. They also experimented with breaking the written script down into its component parts so that the characters were moveable. However, the nature of Asian scripts with their many intricate characters meant this was still time consuming.  The German alphabet was much better suited to moveable type, and Gutenberg improved on this invention by experimenting with different inks and mechanizing the transfer of ink from metal type to paper. Printing boomed in Europe and by 1500 there were about 2000 operational printeries.

Trays for the upper and lower case letters at the Museum of Printing, photo by Alison Wishart.

The volunteer guides at the Museum of Printing are fonts (pun intended) of fascinating printing trivia. For example: ‘italics’ comes from ‘Italy’, as French engraver Nicholas Jenson happened to be working in Venice in 1470 when he designed his Roman typeface. And uppercase letters were, literally, kept in a case which was above, or up from the case that contained lower case letters for type-setting. Designers will appreciate that when it comes to printing, the space around the type is as important as the type itself. At the Museum of Printing, you can learn about type-faces, imposition and hand-setting at one of their monthly letterpress courses. The museum is on a mission to ensure these skills do not die out. When I visited the museum the presses were silent, to allow Juliana O’Dean to talk about her artist book, ‘Twelve Poems’. The book is a selection of 12 poems by Les Murray and 12 etchings by O’Dean, which respond to the poems and which she printed in her own studio. After completing one of the museum’s letterpress courses, O’Dean was able to type-set the poems using the Ludlow Typograph machine. The pages were printed as double impositions on the museum’s 1880s Wharfedale stop cylinder press, which was manufactured in Yorkshire.

Artist Juliana O’Dean showing her hand-printed book, ‘Twelve Poems’ at the Museum of Printing, photo by Alison Wishart.

Only about one quarter of the printing machines in the museum collection are on display. They have been gathered from printeries which closed down or when newspapers turned to laser printing. There are two presses which were used to print the Nepean Times and a linotype machine, made with the precision of a watchmaker, which was used by Fairfax.  The imprint of ink on paper is one of the tactile pleasures missing from today’s digital printing processes. The volunteers explain that some boutique, bespoke printeries have started, for people who appreciate the handcrafted aesthetic of pressed printing. The Museum of Printing encourages tour groups and is open from 10am-2pm on Saturdays (except long weekends) – check the website for details or call 0415 625 573. However, as one of the knowledgeable volunteers quipped, they, like the printing presses, just keep getting older, so don’t delay!  Their premises are paid for by the Penrith Paceway, who operate a bistro nearby. It’s a good place to patronise for a coffee or a meal after your visit to the museum. Reviewed by Alison Wishart, September 2018. The Penrith Museum of Printing Penrith Paceway Complex, corner of Mulgoa Road and Ransley Street, Penrith. Free parking on site https://www.printingmuseum.org.au/    

Alan Frost, Mutiny, Mayhem, Mythology: Bounty’s Enigmatic Voyage

Sydney University Press, 2018,  336pp.,  ISBN: 9781743325872, p/bk, AUS $40.00

With more than 3,000 published books and articles about the Bounty’s voyages and its various aftermaths, do we need another one? Professor Frost believes we do because many earlier accounts have been seriously flawed. Their authors have often failed to read documentary sources with sufficient care and have taken statements at face value, and they have often simply repeated the flawed accounts and conclusions of others. Few have understood the context of the conditions and expectations of British naval service in the late 18th century. Many previous writers have been storytellers not historians and have been led into errors or even the creation of new myths by misinterpretation, misunderstanding or over-simplification. Frost has re-examined the primary sources, not accepting them at face value but questioning and comparing them to find a new consensus about what happened and why. In particular Bligh’s various accounts of the mutiny were carefully constructed with distortions and omissions designed to minimise his culpability and project an image of a naval hero triumphing over treachery. Frost believes that there has been “a far too easy acceptance of the accuracy of what Bligh wrote”. Also, the reminiscences of surviving mutineers on Pitcairn Island have over time been similarly sanitised and confused. The two protagonists, Bligh and his mutinous deputy Christian, are cast as villain and hero, but which is which? Frost contrasts two opposing pairs of binary images: the competent commander and his treacherous deputy, and the tyrannical commander and the good-hearted deputy who broke under intolerable pressure. Bligh carefully promoted the former image, and modern re-tellings of the story tend to take this line, but he believes that the latter is more accurate. The book goes beyond a revisionist analysis of the Bounty mutiny narratives. Frost also looks at the rise of British scientific exploration in the 17th and 18th centuries; the development of the exploration narrative as a literary genre based on explorers’ official logs and reports; and how history has been transmuted into mythic story in the cases of Cook, Bligh and Fletcher Christian. By returning to the original sources and subjecting them to detailed and careful forensic analysis Frost sets a standard in research which future writers in this field should follow. It is unfortunate that the index to this otherwise exemplary book is quite inadequate to lead the reader to particular aspects of the voyage and its aftermaths, and through the many complex arguments the author makes about them. Neil Radford September 2018 Visit the publisher's website here:  http://purl.library.usyd.edu.au/sup/9781743325872    

New South Wales Government Gazette, September 21, 1866. p 2194 via Trove

This week on 2SER Breakfast, the Dictionary's special guest Dr Catie Gilchrist talked to Tess about one of the stories she's come across during her work as a Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales into colonial coroner's inquests. The Sussex Street mystery was a sensation in colonial Sydney, and considered for many years to be Australia's most gruesome murder. There were months of avid newspaper coverage, pamphlets and booklets were published, and a waxwork dummy of the murderer, like those in Madame Tussauds, even went on display at Sohier’s Waxwork Exhibition on Pitt Street.

Listen to Catie and Tess on 2SER here 

On Saturday 15 September 1866, eleven-year-old James Kirkpatrick took his playful Newfoundland pup out for a morning walk. He opened the wooden back yard door of his home in Sussex Street, crossed the vacant land, which lay immediately behind his parent’s house and headed down towards the busy working harbour. In the 1860s the area at the rear of Sussex Street, between Bathurst and Liverpool streets, was a mishmash of factories, mills, wharves, and wasteland. The wasteland was used as a thoroughfare by the mill and factory workers and as a smouldering tip for industrial scraps and nearby household refuse. As James approached the rubbish heap, his dog began to bark and scratch at it ‘in a very excited sort of manner. Thinking he had found a rat, young James crouched down to take a closer look. To his horror, the puppy had not found a rat but the severed head of a dark-haired woman whose tongue was protruding outwards. Terrified, James quickly ran home to tell his father, who reported the find to the Central Police Station on George Street. The police were soon on the scene. A few yards from the severed head they discovered the partial, charred and decomposing remains of an armless torso. With no limbs found and no additional evidence of note, the remains were sent to the Dead House at the Benevolent Asylum, on the corner of Pitt and Devonshire Streets. Here, the medical officer of the Asylum, Dr Arthur Renwick, examined them and estimated that the deceased had been dead for two to three weeks. The sensational news of the ‘foul deed’ and ‘fiendish act’ quickly spread across the city. But who was the woman and where was the rest of her body? And what would the coroner’s inquest reveal? The inquest was held, as inquests were at the time, in a pub, and it was rather gruesome. For an inquest to be legally valid at the time, a body had to be present, so Dr Renwick showed the jury the skull and lower jaw. He said the remains belonged to a middle-aged woman of large bones and build, with a long nose and dark hair, that the injuries to the head would have caused immediate death and that they had been inflicted during life. The body had been deprived of its limbs and this had ‘unquestionably been performed by a person or persons having some acquaintance with the anatomy of the body and exhibited a certain amount of skill, especially in the mode in which the neck had been severed.’ Given that this was all before the development of forensic and medical science as we know it today, his deductions were remarkable. The jury found, unsurprisingly, that a murder had taken place, by person or persons unknown and the colonial government offered a reward for further information.

William Henry Scott, from 'History of the Sussex St. murder', Sydney 1867, State Library of NSW (PAM 86/565)

In the third week of October,  young shoemaker David Fitzpatrick went to the police with an unusual story. Late one night, a few weeks before, in the Sussex Street region, he'd been asked to help a strange man carry a very heavy iron box, that stank to high heaven, to the backyard of the Walter Scott Inn, at the corner of Sussex and Bathurst Streets. The police went to the pub and found, in the water closet (the outdoor toilet), two decomposing legs, two arms, and other human body parts. In all ‘some nineteen or twenty pieces’ of human remains were found. Dr Renwick was called to examine them and again noted the expertise with which the limbs had been dissected. The head and torso found earlier were exhumed from the Devonshire Street cemetery where they’d been buried and on examination were found to be part of the same body. The deceased was eventually identified as Annie Scott. The shape of her nose, a mole on her right arm, the dark remains of her hair and her estimated height and age were all vital cluesl so too the clothes and possessions left behind. Aged in her 30s and originally from Yorkshire, she and her husband had married four years earlier in Brisbane. They had been living in a rented house on Sussex Street, near the corner of Little Hay Street, when she disappeared. Annie’s husband William Scott was taken into police custody for questioning. He claimed they’d quarrelled one evening early in September and she’d left. He had no idea where she was or why she hadn’t taken any of her belongings. Scott, who worked as a butcher, was duly charged with her murder. Evidence presented throughout Scott’s subsequent trial made a compelling case against him. As well as having the necessary professional expertise and tools to dissect Annie’s body, he was identified as having asked, not just one, but two men, to help him carry the heavy, smelly iron box late one night on the streets of Sydney. The box was subsequently found at his lodgings and blood stains were identified by Dr Renwick at the Sussex Street house where the couple had been living. Scott had also taken several things covered in blood to be laundered by different women around the city, and although his work as a butcher would naturally entail some gore, his former employer said the tasks Scott undertook in his work would never have resulted in the level of blood described. Scott protested his innocence throughout. When it was revealed that Scott was also a bigamist, a motive seemed to have been found. Scott’s second wife Emma lived in Melbourne, and had written to him only days before Annie’s death. Scott’s defence lawyer William Bede Dalley argued that the evidence was all circumstantial and that the many witnesses’ accounts were tainted by the media’s relish of the case that had prejudiced the trial, but Scott was found guilty by the jury and he was sentenced to hang. William Scott was executed at Darlinghurst Gaol on 18 March 1867 for the wilful murder of his wife Annie Scott.   Dr Catie Gilchrist is a Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales, a regular contributor to the Dictionary of Sydney and a Research Affiliate in the History department at the University of Sydney. Her book Murder, Misadventure and Miserable Ends: Tales from a Colonial Coroner's Court will be published by HarperCollins Publishers Australia in 2019. She appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Thanks Catie! Listen to the podcast with Catie & Tess here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15 am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney. 

Sarah Luke, Callan Park Hospital for the Insane

Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2018, 253 pp., ISBN: 9781925588965, p/bk, AUS $39.95

The nineteenth century lunatic asylum, in both the literary and the historical imagination, is often a lurid and depressingly dark place. The story goes that mad houses were sadistic, secretive institutions where inmates were abused and mistreated, starved and beaten, perhaps chained in solitary and left howling in lofty turrets. These ‘abodes of misery’ were convenient places to incarcerate and forget about the mad cousin or potty aunt, the clinically insane spouse or the deviant sibling. Victorian madness itself has long been associated with batty old ladies dwelling in attics, religious maniacs, abject alcoholics, chronic masturbators, deranged defectives, and raving imbeciles. To be sure, and having read many colonial asylum records myself, there is certainly some truth to this frightful depiction. And yet there is another story, perhaps co-existing rather than entirely refuting it, that sits side by side in the wards and dormitories of the insane hospitals of the nineteenth century. In Callan Park Hospital for the Insane, Sarah Luke suggests a rather more measured, perhaps even benevolent, view of life in the asylum. From the start of her book she sets out to answer the question, ‘was this horrific treatment of the mentally unwell actually the case at Callan Park?’[i] Or did the hospital in Rozelle instead strive to achieve its carefully conceived and original purpose, which was to care, protect, shelter, restore and ultimately try and make broken minds better? The book is based on the first twenty years of the asylum and is split into two parts. Part One considers the hospital itself, from its inception in 1876 as an offshoot of Gladesville Hospital for the Insane, and the original forty-four patients that occupied its first building Garryowen House. Today this building is home to the New South Wales Writers’ Centre where this book was first conceived. Before the close of the century, Callan Park had become Australia’s premier mental hospital. With the completion of the magnificent sandstone Kirkbride Complex, designed by James Barnett, there was room for more than 750 patients. Luke deftly explains the admission process, the routines of daily life, and, importantly, explores the myriad reasons why there were indeed so many people in need of asylum admission and treatment in this period. Along the way, we meet some of the hospital’s patients whose lives were shaped by the remarkable career of the colony’s leading alienist and Inspector General of the Insane, Dr Frederic Norton Manning. Under his governance, new therapeutic practises and legal safeguards to regulate and govern the lives of the insane were introduced into New South Wales. Manning’s philosophy was very much based on ideas of ‘moral therapy’, with the hospital to be a place of asylum and care, work and usefulness, rest and recovery, sympathy, gentleness and kindness. By the 1890s, several more institutions in the colony had been ‘opened under Manning’s watch.’[ii] These ideals of moral therapy were also spatial and architectural. Asylums were often located amidst stunningly scenic, peaceful, serene landscapes. This reflected the contemporary belief that the environment influenced behaviour and temperament, and so a calm setting would lead to tranquil minds. Callan Park Hospital was no exception to this, set in magnificent grounds rolling down towards Iron Cove Bay. The Elysian setting was further enhanced by pleasant precincts, gardens, farms, vegetable plots and orchards which were carefully planned to help in the therapeutic and restorative regime that underpinned much Victorian psychiatry in the second half of the nineteenth century. Part Two examines the patients themselves. They were a colourful, motley crew from various backgrounds and cultures, and cut across a spectrum of ages, occupations and states of mind. Their stories are remarkably varied; some extraordinary, others mundane, a few inspiring, too many just simply tragic. A number of patients at Callan Park were well educated, well to do and from seemingly respectable backgrounds, victims perhaps to lost fortunes or the product of a ‘strong hereditary lunacy’.[iii] Some patients were local and colonial born, but many were overseas sojourners, far from friends and family. It is easy to forget that in the days before immigration restrictions, the Australian colonies were composed of migrants and wanderers from across the globe. And in the late nineteenth century, many migrants suffered from a temporary, sometimes permanent bout of insanity, brought on by a sense of diaspora, displacement and perhaps their own despairing loneliness. The Callan Park Hospital housed Italians, Africans, Americans, Chinese, Irish, French, German, South Sea Islanders and others besides. They were perhaps the fortunate ones, for too many ‘foreigners’ committed suicide in colonial New South Wales. The faint traces of their sad lives were recorded by a coronial inquest, rather than left in the medical case books of a mental asylum. Like today, mental illness in the colonial era did not discriminate and insanity was not class, race nor gender specific. This is perhaps one of the themes and central historical messages of the book. Later fascinating chapters on escapees, voluntary admissions, and the successes of the recovered and the tragedies of the chronically insane round out the very complex nature of mental illness, unstable lives and the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’ in nineteenth century Australia. Luke’s central thesis is that Callan Park’s beginnings were ‘honourable’ and ‘importantly helpful to the hundreds of patients who walked its corridors’ and … found contentment in its farm …’.[iv] Certainly, the intentions of moral treatment and therapy were benevolent and humane and this is indeed persuasively argued in the book. Less convincing however is the idea that Dr Manning’s reforms and regulations successfully brought in a regime of complete transparency to the workings of the state’s insane hospitals that the author at times suggests. The appointment of official visitors to Callan Park as ‘outside’ inspectors would not necessarily serve as a precautionary or preventive panacea either, because such visits would be carefully planned and managed. Complaints made by the patients were probably not mostly ‘false’, ‘exaggerated’ or the product of delusions’.[v] Asylums regulated and ‘inquired’ into their own internal affairs, and so such ‘officially’ recorded conclusions are perhaps not altogether surprising. The late nineteenth century saw a whole sweep of Royal Commissions and Inquiries into the state of a variety of government run institutions, with most recommending at least some changes be implemented. Others were utterly damning and condemnatory. The Government Asylums Inquiry Board, convened to inquire into ‘numerous complaints’ at the Newington, Liverpool and Parramatta Asylums for the Infirm and Destitute was one such inquiry. In 1887, it reported that the mostly elderly, blind and crippled inmates who gave appalling evidence of terrible neglect and abuse were to be believed over the word of the matron, the doctors and the medical staff. It was not a pretty picture at all. And so, it begs the question, if gross neglect and sadistic treatment was occurring here, and at this time, what were the chances of it not being perpetrated in colonial asylums elsewhere?[vi] Today, Callan Park in Rozelle is still a remarkably beautiful and picturesque waterside landscape. The hospital buildings remain, mostly broken and empty, hiding many secrets and untold stories, at least until now. And so, my sceptical concerns aside, this book is an important one because it has opened up these stories with an original take on an old subject and an alternative way of thinking about the origins of the asylum. It has also clearly been researched with great passion and aplomb. From the records that remain from Callan Park, the patients’ case books have been minutely examined, alongside the hospitals’ medical journals, correspondence files and annual reports, as have records from other colonial asylums, contemporary newspapers and the lunacy laws. The author is also to be applauded for the detailed explanation of the sources used in the book and the lament to those that have been sadly lost to history. This, very usefully, appears at the start of the book. Callan Park Hospital for the Insane is beautifully written and will attract readers interested in nineteenth century Sydney and those attentive to the history of mental illness and its treatments. It will also appeal to readers fascinated by everyday folk whose lives have been faintly yet perceptibly left behind in the paper trails of dusty record books from the colonial era. Because all too often, it is precisely in the ordinary life, wherein lies much great interest. Reviewed by Dr Catie Gilchrist,  September 2018 Visit the publisher's website here: http://scholarly.info/book/callan-park-hospital-for-the-insane/ [i] Sarah Luke, Callan Park Hospital for the Insane, Australian Scholarly, North Melbourne, 2018, p xii [ii] Ibid, p 67 [iii] Ibid, p 196 [iv] Ibid, p xiii [v] Ibid, p 80 [vi] Report of the Government Asylums Inquiry Board and Minutes of Evidence and Appendices, Charles Potter, Government Printer, Sydney, 1887