Joy McCann, Wild Sea: A History of the Southern Ocean.

NewSouth Books (2018),  256pp., ISBN 9781742235738, p/bk, RRP: $32.99

  The Southern Ocean, the world’s least known and least visited ocean, is the only ocean which flows completely around the earth, unimpeded by any significant landmass. It stretches north from Antarctica to the southern coastlines of Australia, New Zealand, South America and South Africa. Australian environmental and social historian Joy McCann’s history of this spectacular and often mysterious and threatening feature of our planet is both informative and impressive. McCann’s wide-ranging research is presented in clear and often vivid prose which conveys her love and respect for her subject. This is more than a history of the Ocean, drawn from scientific investigations and explorers’ accounts. It is a fascinating celebration of what the Ocean means to the earth and a call for careful attention to the threats faced by those who depend upon it, especially its inhabitants from tiny krill to the majestic whale and albatross. Having sailed through the Southern Ocean and stepped ashore on some of its most forbidding coasts, Joy McCann is no armchair traveller. She brings a personal knowledge and commitment to her task of describing, interpreting and stirring up enthusiasm for this vast and wondrous ocean. The book is well indexed and is also illustrated by a good selection of drawings and photographs. There are also four very useful maps which readers will often need to consult as they journey with the author, though it is unfortunate that the locations of these maps were not given on the Contents page. Dr Neil Radford, June 2018   Visit the NewSouth Books website: https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/wild-sea/

The Canberra Times, 10 May 1963, p3 via Trove

This week on 2SER Breakfast, the Dictionary's special guest historian Minna Muhlen-Schulte talked to breakfast host Tess Connery about a suburban mystery that has intrigued Sydneysiders since 1963. Listen to Minna and Tess on 2SER here.  On the morning of New Year's Day in 1963, two young boys were walking through the bushy scrub along the Lane Cove River in the quiet, respectable suburb of Chatswood looking for golf balls, when they stumbled upon a man lying face down on the ground. At first they thought he was just sleeping off his New Year's Eve celebrations from the night before and wandered on. After an hour or so they came back that way and realised that, not only was he still there, but he didn't look altogether well. When the police arrived, they quickly confirmed that he was dead, and that, strangely, he was covered by a carpet and naked from the waist down, with his suit pants laid on top of him. About 12 metres away, they found the half naked body of a woman, covered by sheets of cardboard. The couple were soon identified as Dr Gilbert Bogle, a brilliant physicist working at the CSIRO, who was meant to be leaving the country in a few days with his wife and children to work in quantum electronics in the United States, and Margaret Chandler, the wife of a scientific photographer at the CSIRO, Geoffrey Chandler. They had been having an affair and would have been at the river for a lovers' liaison. The autopsies showed no signs of violence apart from some purple coloured patches on their skin and the conclusion was that both had died from a fast-acting poison that was never identified. Eventually a local greyhound trainer confessed to having found the couple early that morning and covering them up, but was cleared of any other involvement in the deaths. The obvious suspect was Margaret's husband Geoffrey, but it transpired that the couple had an open relationship and not only had he encouraged the relationship between Bogle and his wife, but he had a watertight alibi as he was with his own mistress Pam at a party in Balmain. In the deeply conservative society of Sydney at the time, the relationships between the Bogles, the Chandlers and others in their social milieu scandalised the public, and ever wilder theories began to be considered. Given that the Cuban missile crisis had only been three months before, the police started to investigate the possibility that the brilliant Bogle was a spy, or a target of espionage-related nerve gas. International police forces like Scotland Yard were also called in. The police looked at Chandler's other former lovers, still looking for a motive, investigating a CSIRO librarian with the idea that she could have come across an identifiable poison. The possibility of an LSD overdose was also looked at, as were other toxic substances over the years. In 2006, film maker and author Peter Butt released a film that recreated the events and presented a new theory that could explain the mysterious deaths that had been tantalising Sydneysiders for 40 years.  High levels of industrial waste and sewerage in the water of the Lane Cove River over many years had resulted in toxic gases being released, and the cooler weather over the evening of the night in question would have kept these at ground level. If enough concentrated nitrogen sulfide had bubbled up it would have been enough to suffocate them. This theory would also explain the coloured patches on their skin. With such a long gap between their deaths and this possible explanation, it seems unlikely however that there will ever be conclusive proof that this was the cause of their deaths.   Further reading:

• Cameron Hazlehurst, Bogle, Gilbert Stanley (1924–1963) Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1993, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bogle-gilbert-stanley-9534 
• Geoffrey Chandler, So You Think I Did It, Sydney: Sun Books, 1969
• Who Killed Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler?, Film Australia in association with Blackwattle Films, 2006
• DR. BOGLE AND MRS CHANDLER - DID HYDROGEN SULPHIDE REALLY KILL THEM? ABC Catalyst Story Archive, 23 November 2006, http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1795448.htm
• Peter Butt, Who Killed Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler?, Sydney: New Holland, 2012
• Who Killed Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler? (2006), Australian Screen Online https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/who-killed-dr-bogle/
• Tracey Bowden,Two women may hold answer to how Dr Gilbert Bogle and Margaret Chandler died in 1963, ABC News, 2 September 2016: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-02/two-women-may-hold-answer-to-bogle-chandler-case/7808820

Minna Muhlen-Schulte is a professional historian and Senior Heritage Consultant at GML Heritage. She was the recipient of the Berry Family Fellowship at the State Library of Victoria and has worked on a range of history projects for community organisations, local and state government including the Third Quarantine Cemetery, Victorian War Heritage Inventory,  Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka (M.A.D.E) and Mallee Aboriginal District Services. In 2014, Minna developed a program on the life and work of Clarice Beckett for ABC Radio National’s Hindsight Program and in 2017 produced Crossing Enemy Lines for ABC Radio National's Earshot Program. She's appearing for the Dictionary today in a voluntary capacity. Thanks Minna! Listen to the podcast with  Minna & Tess here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Tess Connery on 107.3 every Wednesday morning to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.     

The Dictionary of Sydney has no ongoing funding and needs your help. Make a donation to the Dictionary of Sydney and claim a tax deduction!

Remembering the Myall Creek Massacre, edited by Jane Lydon and Lyndall Ryan

NewSouth Books, 215 pp., ISBN: 9781742235752, p/bk, RRP AUS$34.99

On 10 June 1838 twelve men, “in an unprovoked act of violent terror” (p. xi), committed an atrocity known today as the Myall Creek Massacre. The massacre — which saw the brutal and senseless murder of Aboriginal men, women and children in northern New South Wales — has left deep scars upon many communities. To mark the 180^th anniversary of this crime, scholars Jane Lydon and Lyndall Ryan have brought together Remembering The Myall Creek Massacre. The foreword by Sue Blacklock and John Brown notes a hope that “this ongoing focus on the massacre, and the trial that followed, may drag us towards a more honest understanding of our history, and the possibility of more just and open acknowledgement of our tangled journey in Australian over the past two centuries” (p xiii). Some of the essays in the book consider individuals connected with the crime. Lyndall Ryan looks critically at Henry Dangar, a wealthy landowner with holdings that included the Myall Creek area, and his actions during the aftermath, which included attempts to discredit a key witness and providing financial support to secure counsel for the defence. Patsy Withycombe takes on the difficult task of investigating John Henry Fleming, the ringleader of the Myall Creek massacre (p 38). Other contributors have looked at some of the responses to the massacre in the media at the time. Jane Lydon explores depictions of the events at Myall Creek and how “a handful of visual images gave form to debates around violence on the colonial frontier, arousing emotions and directing viewers how to see this distant tragedy” (p 52) while Anna Johnston elegantly unpacks Eliza Hamilton Dunlop’s poignant response to the massacre in the poem “The Aboriginal Mother” which was published in the Australian on 13 December 1838, “only days before the public execution” of the men found guilty of murder (p 68). Lyndall Ryan works to contextualise the massacre by looking at some of the many other examples of frontier violence in the nineteenth century. Iain Davidson, Heather Burke, Lynley A. Wallis, Bryce Barker, Elizabeth Hatte and Noelene Cole, in a collaborative effort, connect the massacre at Myall Creek and the people of Wonomo, suggesting it was likely that other Aboriginal communities “were forewarned by oral testimony of the impending struggle and met it with active and passive resistance” (p 110). John Maynard offers a powerful personal reflection and memoir of his “own journey to Myall Creek in 2015” (p 111). Jessica Neath and Brook Andrew talk about how in “Australia, we walk on bones” reminding us that “the Myall Creek massacre was only one of the countless massacres of the Frontier Wars right across Australia” (p 131). Their work, presented through conversations, highlights the importance of memorials and argues for the “greater visibility” of the Frontier Wars and their ongoing legacy in Australia. An afterword comes from the always elegant pen of Mark Tedeschi. The text includes maps, examples of visual culture, a bibliography, extensive endnotes and an index. This volume is a work about trauma and the deep pain that continues to be felt by so many today. Remembering The Myall Creek Massacre is difficult but essential reading. It offers accounts of a crime that has become one of the symbols of so many crimes that have been committed against Aboriginal Australians. For non-Indigenous Australians this work offers an important opportunity for reflection and, by extension, a level of understanding that can assist in facilitating a more reconciled future. Reviewed by Dr Rachel Franks, June 2018 Visit the NewSouth Books website https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/remembering-myall-creek-massacre/ 

Governor Bourke's statue, Domain 1871, by Charles Pickering, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (SPF/1056)

The State Library of NSW recently announced work is  underway to conserve and restore Australia's first public sculpture, the Sir Richard Bourke statue that is located outside the Mitchell  Library building. This week on 2SER Breakfast Nicole Cama and Tess Connery looked at the history behind the statue.   Listen to Nicole and Tess on 2SER here.  Richard Bourke was the eighth governor of New South Wales. A retired Irish soldier, he was appointed governor of New South Wales in 1831. During his six-year-tenure in Sydney, Bourke made several decisions that have had long reaching consequences in Australia, including some popular reforms that were progressive for the time (and caused controversy among some of the more conservative members of society). One of his first actions was to propose the extension of trial by jury and to replace the military juries with civil juries in criminal cases, relating to principal of rule of law. He allowed greater opportunities for emancipists and formed legislation which restricted punishments meted out by magistrates against convicts and his Church Act ensured equal government assistance for of religious denominations. He also approved the reintroduction of theatrical performances and attempted, unsuccessfully, to establish government schools and elective government. Upon his departure from Sydney in December 1837, a large crowd of well wishers gathered and ran along the shores, cheering him farewell. The Sydney Monitor newspaper concluded: ‘Whatever might have been the political opinions of those in attendance, the general feeling was, that the Colony had lost a friend and benefactor.’1 A commemorative statue of Bourke 'as a lasting memorial of the estimation in which his public services and private virtues are cherished by the Colonists of New South Wales; and that a public subscription be forthwith entered into to carry that object into force' 2 was proposed even before he had left Sydney, and a huge number of colonists supported and contributed to the plan. As the colony did not have the resources available for casting a bronze sculpture, Bourke's son in London represented the subscription committee in Sydney and commissioned sculptor Edward Hodges Baily in 1838 to create the work. The first public sculpture in Australia was unveiled in Sydney by Governor Gipps in front of huge crowds on Monday 11 April 1842, which had been made a public holiday for the occasion,  with 'Groups gaily dressed in their holiday attire...strolling about the town, whilst other groups of sturdy sires and portly matrons in carts and on foot came pouring in from the suburbs to hail the festive day'.3

The Sun, 19 March 1925, p12 via Trove

The statue of Bourke originally looked out from its huge plinth over the Domain and the Gardens, located 'on the rising ground at the entrance of the Government Domain from Bent Street', but was moved in 1925 to its current location in front of the Mitchell Library.4 Notes 1. Sir Richard Bourke's Departure. (1837, December 6). The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 - 1838), p. 2 (EVENING).   http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32158259 2. PUBLIC MEETING (1837, December 5). The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 - 1848), p. 4.  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article36856179 3. Sir Richard Bourke's Statue. (1842, April 12). The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 - 1842), p. 2. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2556221 4. SIR RICHARD IS HIMSELF AGAIN (1925, June 5). The Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 - 1954), p. 1 (FINAL EXTRA).  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article224040940 Further Reading: State Library of New South Wales blog: http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/blogs/statue-governor-bourke Michael Hill, How a statue can shape a city: Sydney's first monument, Governor Sir Richard Bourke (1842), "Quotation, Quotation": Papers of the 34th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians of Australia and New Zealand, ed. G. Hartoonian and J. Ting, University of Canberra: Canberra, 2017 https://www.canberra.edu.au/about-uc/faculties/arts-design/newsandevents/upcoming-fad-conferences/sahanz-2017/papers/documents/Hill-M-How-a-Statue-Can-Shape-a-City.pdf     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. The Dictionary of Sydney has no ongoing operational funding and needs your help. Make a tax-deductible donation to the Dictionary of Sydney today!

Hazel Baron and Janet Fife-Yeomans, My Mother, A Serial Killer

HarperCollins Australia Publishers, 239 pp., ISBN: 9781460754528, p/bk, AUS$32.99

Hazel Baron, the daughter of convicted murderer Dulcie Bodsworth, collaborated with journalist Janet Fife-Yeomans to tell her story in My Mother, A Serial Killer (2018). There were two sides to Dulcie Bodsworth. There was the caring and kind woman everyone enjoyed spending time with, and there was the cold, manipulative woman who was determined to have her own way, even if that meant committing murder. Dulcie’s daughter, Hazel, knew the awful truth. Hazel first suspected her mother was a murderer when she was only nine years old. After three murders, including the murder of Hazel’s father, Ted Baron, in Mildura in 1950 and two men in Wilcannia in 1956 and 1958, Dulcie and her husband Henry Bodsworth, were finally charged in December 1964. “The truth wasn’t always nice but it was always the truth. The truth was that it was Hazel who had dobbed her mother in. The truth was that she knew her mother would have kept on killing if she had not been caught” (p. 11). It is easy to dismiss difficult family relationships with observations that “all families are complicated in their own way”. Hazel’s story makes it clear that some are far more complicated than others. This is a story of three victims, of a daughter tipping off the police, of the co-accused, of traumatic days in a courtroom, of sentencing and (for Dulcie) of thirteen and a half years behind prison bars were she would inspire the creation of the “mischievous lovable old lag, Lizzie Birdsworth” (p. 218) in the popular television series Prisoner (1979-1986). Dulcie would even sit with one of the writers from Grundy, advising on prison life and prison slang, giving “herself the grand-sounding title of ‘consultant’ to the production” (p. 222). The impact that a parent can have on their children, and that “even though [Hazel and her brother Allan] were adults, Dulcie could still both rule and ruin their lives” (p. 179), is clear throughout the text. Indeed, years after Dulcie’s death in Sydney in 2008 her influence is still keenly felt by those who were close to her. There is within this book a story of strained forgiveness. When Fife Yeomans asks Hazel how “she could have had anything to do with her mother after Dulcie had murdered Hazel’s father, Hazel had an answer that summed up, as only she could, her relationship with Dulcie: I don’t hate her; I don’t even dislike her. She was like a neighbour and I did the right thing by her” (p. 237). My Mother, A Serial Killer is a fascinating story, neatly told.   Reviewed by Dr Rachel Franks, May 2018 For a preview of the book or to purchase online, visit the HarperCollins Australia website: https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781460754528/my-mother-a-serial-killer/

Sydney Morning Herald, 3 February 1894, p9

This morning on 2SER Breakfast, Dr Rachel Franks talked to Tess Connery about the 'murderous' Bridge Street Affray in 1894. 

Listen to Rachel and Tess on 2SER here. 

In the very early morning of Friday 2 February 1894, three men were trying to break into a safe at the Union Steamship Company offices in Bridge Street in the city. They were probably disturbed by the night watchman doing his rounds who had noticed something amiss and was consulting with a policeman on his beat, and they rather rapidly left the building before completing the job. Three other policemen in the area noticed them leaving and thinking it looked suspicious, gave chase. The robbers used their jemmies, or crowbars, to attack the officers, knocking two unconscious and threatening the third, Senior Constable Ball, with a gun. The thieves ran. One, who was never charged, sensibly ran towards the Domain. The other two, Charles Montgomery and Thomas Williams, had only recently arrived in Sydney (they'd been in Pentridge Prison in Melbourne before that), and they ran down Phillip Street towards what we now think of as the Police and Justice Museum, but which was then the Water Police Station and Court. Senior Constable Ball was, meanwhile, shouting for reinforcements, who, of course, poured out of the Water Police Station which the two escaping thieves were running towards. There was another fight as the police tried to arrest them and three more police officers were seriously injured before Montgomery and Williams were finally incarcerated.

wp-image-15153https://home.dictionaryofsydney.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/SRNSW-2138_a006_a00603_6056000174r.jpgCharles Montgomery (alias Thomas Millidge, Charles Buck and Charles Millige) Darlinghurst Gaol 9 March 1894, courtesy State Archives & Records New South Wales (NRS2138 [3/6056] Darlinghurst Gaol Photographic Description Book, Photo No 5889, Page 174)330494/> Charles Montgomery (alias Thomas Millidge, Charles Buck and Charles Millige) Darlinghurst Gaol 9 March 1894, courtesy State Archives & Records New South Wales (NRS2138 [3/6056] Darlinghurst Gaol Photographic Description Book, Photo No 5889, Page 174)

As a result of the affray and the injuries to the officers, police on night duty the next day were issued with revolvers, and the Premier, Sir George Dibbs, quickly agreed to the arming of police officers in general, a policy which remains in place today. The trial of Montgomery and Williams at Darlinghurst was held on 3 April 1894 and the jury found the two men guilty of various charges including breaking into premises and malicious wounding with intent to murder. The judge Justice Alfred Stephen, decided they were 'desperate character' and sentenced them to death. New South Wales and Tasmania were the only states at the time where attempted murder remained a capital crime. There were huge public appeals for clemency, with demonstrations in the Domain and the Sydney Town Hall, and a petition signed by more than 25,000 people, including at least six members of the jury who'd found them guilty and two of the injured police officers and one of their wives, but these appeals all failed, and the two men were executed on 31 May at Darlinghurst. Unfortunately the execution was bungled.  Somehow the ropes allocated to each of the men were confused and while Montgomery, who was taller and heavier, died quickly, the rope around Wiliams' neck wasn't long enough to drop properly. He fainted and his arm became tangled in the rope, to the point where the assistant hangman had to shake the rope to try to untangle it and allow the body to hang in an upright position. Williams eventually died from suffocation. This Thursday (31 May) is the anniversary of the executions. Head to the Dictionary of Sydney to read Rachel's entry on the Bridge Street Affray for more information: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/the_bridge_street_affray   Dr Rachel Franks is the Coordinator, Education & Scholarship at the State Library of New South Wales, 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! You can also hear Rachel talking about crime writing with Meg Kenneally and Dave Warner next Monday in the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts Mystery & Crime Festival. See the SMSA website for further details:  https://smsa.org.au/events/event/deadly-words-crime-writing-essentials-panel/ Listen to the podcast with Rachel & Tess here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Tess Connery on 107.3 every Wednesday morning to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney. The Dictionary of Sydney has no ongoing funding and needs your help. Make a donation to the Dictionary of Sydney and claim a tax deduction!

Shaftesbury, Vaucluse c1925 by EG Shaw, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (a7806 Online, 2)

This week on 2SER Breakfast, Nicole Cama talked to Tess Connery about the Shaftesbury Reformatory on New South Head Road in Vaucluse that replaced the infamous Biloela Reformatory and Industrial School for Females on Cockatoo Island.

Listen to Nicole and Tess on 2SER here. 

After several reports were made in the 1870s on the inadequacy of Biloela, the girls’ reformatory on Cockatoo Island, the New South Wales government needed to find an alternative location that wouldn’t have Biloela’s ‘dry, stony prison aspect’. The site at Vaucluse was selected because it occupied ‘a position which, for a charming outlook on either hand and for healthfulness, could not be surpassed‘ . The Shaftesbury Reformatory opened in 1880 in an old hotel building that had been converted for the purpose. The Reformatory functioned as an alternative to prison for girls aged under 16 who were convicted of criminal offences, and eventually comprised a series of cottages and three solitary cells surrounded by high fences. It usually housed up to 20 girls for one to five years. On its opening in 1880, the Sydney Morning Herald said: ..every part of the building have been designed in the most approved manner; and while throughout there is the unmistakable aspect of a place where the inmates are forcibly detained, there are many things about the style of construction and the fittings of the different compartments which give a more than ordinarily cheerful appearance to everything, and doubtless will have a very beneficial effect in the reformation of the girls. Girls were sent to the Shaftesbury Reformatory for a range of offences and for varying lengths of time: 14 year old Emily Miller was sentenced to 14 days in 1882 for stealing a diamond ring from her master; Alice Bambilliski was sentenced to two years in 1890 for stealing 25 pounds from the Kogarah Post Office; and Annie Andrews, aged 15, was sentenced to two years and four months in 1897 for being an ‘idle and disorderly person’.

Detail of 1890s map of Woollahra showing Shaftesbury Reformatory and lighthouse at South Head, Vaucluse, courtesy National Library of Australia (MAP RaA 39, p43)

In an article in the Evening News in 1908 looking at the history of the Reformatory, columnist Mary Salmon wrote that ‘rioting occasionally took place, and the Institution was once set alight’. One of the reformatory's matrons was quoted in the article as having said: ‘I have found a great improvement since the first year I took over the institution...Where I used up thirty-six yards of cane a term, I can now easily manage with twelve.’ In 1904, the Reformatory was closed and the building was used as a home for babies and mothers before it became the Shaftesbury Inebriate Institution for men in 1915, the only state run institution for alcohol and drug offenders of its time. A female section opened the following year. The Institution also allowed people to voluntarily check themselves in for a fee, and residents could work so as to keep their minds occupied so their thoughts wouldn’t stray into that ‘craving that takes possession of the inebriate.’ The institution closed in 1929 and the building was demolished in 1930. There are now two private houses where the main Reformatory building once stood, while the former grounds house the Vaucluse Bowling Club and the luxurious Mark Moran Group retirement/aged care facility which opened in 2016 on the site of the former Vaucluse High School. Head to the Dictionary to read Kim Hanna's entry on the Shaftesbury Reformatory for more information: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/shaftesbury_reformatory Nicole Cama is a professional historian, writer and curator. She appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. 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. The Dictionary of Sydney has no ongoing operational funding and needs your help. Make a tax-deductible donation to the Dictionary of Sydney today!          

Michelle Scott Tucker, Elizabeth Macarthur: A Life at the Edge of the World

Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2018, ISBN 9781925603422, pp 1-386, RRP $32.99

Elizabeth Macarthur: A Life at the Edge of the World is the author’s first book. And what a fabulous triumph it is. Well researched and richly absorbing, this is the remarkable story of Australia’s first free female European to settle in colonial New South Wales. Expansive, engaging and utterly engrossing the fascinating life of one brave pioneer woman is here explored with lovely attention to detail. The reader is transported into her world with such vivid intensity, it is almost as if you are right there, standing by Elizabeth’s side and willing her on through all her trials and tribulations.  Of which, during her long and interesting life, there were many. It is also a timely book. Hazel King’s Elizabeth Macarthur and her World was published back in 1980 whilst Lennard Bickel’s Australia’s First Lady:The Story of Elizabeth Macarthur followed later in 1991. It was time for a fresh telling and the author is to be congratulated for doing it with such aplomb. Elizabeth Macarthur arrived in the colony with her husband John and young son Edward in 1790. She died here in 1850 on the eve on the gold rushes when the colony was a very different place indeed. During those sixty years, she was a loving wife and mother, entrepreneur, worker, farmer, businesswoman, sheep expert, gardener, homemaker, teacher and nurse. She worked damn bloody hard for much of her long life and she was also the peacemaker, the wise matriarch and the central key to the family’s subsequent success. Like a solid English oak firmly planted in the wilds of the Camden Park area. Elizabeth was also a prolific journal and letter writer, and she penned realms of regular correspondence to her friends and family back in England. Those that survive are housed in the collection of Macarthur Papers in the Mitchell Library in the State Library of New South Wales, together with diaries, journals, ledgers and account books. The author skilfully weaves them throughout the book to let us hear Elizabeth speak. The Macarthurs travelled as part of the Second Fleet and the author vividly captures the sheer terror of the long voyage for a young genteel lady who was heavily pregnant with her second child. Tucker also reminds us of the utterly abysmal conditions of the convicts stowed, starved, and chained below decks, as the tempestuous Southern Ocean slowly rolled them all towards the fledgling colony at the edge of the world. Over a quarter of the convicts sent out in the Second Fleet did not survive the journey. It was a scandalous state of affairs and it might have been avoided. Starvation and scurvy, disease and dysentery wasted many away. Neither did Elizabeth’s first born daughter survive. She too died at sea, soon after birth. Seven more children would bless the Macarthurs' long marriage of forty-five years, and so commence a dynasty. Along the way, the book includes the horrors of frontier violence, the politics of colonial society and the convict era, the vagaries of snobbish genteel ladies and the propensity of their husbands (including her own) to duel to resolve their gentlemanly disputes, the rum rebellion and the overthrow of Governor Bligh. But that is all in the background. This is the story of the making of a family dynasty through good luck, hard work, resilience and family loyalties. It is also the story of the sheer harshness of living in a frontier society for a woman with frequent pregnancies, and a husband frequently absent, either in Sydney or in exile back in Europe, or when he was suffering an episode of the mental disquiet which plagued him throughout his life.  But Elizabeth managed. Even when four of her own children very sadly predeceased her. This book is her story of living through all of this and the legacy she left behind for both her family and for the growing young nation itself. There is a select and yet expansive bibliography, endnotes and a comprehensive index. The picture credits are rather brief, although this is merely a small observation rather than a large criticism. A sweeping saga, a soaring family epic, this is an expansive book and takes us from Elizabeth as a new young wife to an aged, beloved and yet still sprightly grandmama aged eighty-three years of age, which in 1850, was a vintage age indeed.  It crosses decades and spans continents exploring exile, longing, memories and family ties. This would make for a fabulous television drama. I wanted to weep when Elizabeth died. Not that it was unexpected. But after 328 pages of experiencing this incredible woman, it was like losing a good wise friend. Her remarkable story, albeit of a different time and era, is yet a story which still resonates so deeply today. And ultimately, this is what makes A Life at the Edge of the World such a compelling and unforgettable read. Just gorgeous. Dr Catie Gilchrist May 2018 Available at all good book stores now. Find out more about the book and author on the Text Publishing website here Dr Gilchrist is the State Library of NSW Nancy Keesing Highly Commended Fellow 2018.

Cover of book 'The Shark Arm Case' by Vince Kelly, published by Horwitz Publications 1963, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ML 343.1/30A1)

This week on 2SER Breakfast, the Dictionary's special guest Minna Muhlen-Schulte talked to new breakfast host Tess Connery about a crime story that's been fascinating Sydneysiders since 1935. Listen to Minna and Tess on 2SER here.  The Shark Arm Case is a quintessentially Sydney story, with murders, cocaine smuggling, crooked bottom of the harbour schemes, speedboat chases and sharks, just begging to be made into a movie or television series. On 17 April 1935, fisherman 17th April 1935 fisherman Bert Hobson and his son Ron had hooked a small shark off Coogee Beach. While they were pulling it in however, a 4m tiger shark ate the smaller shark, allowing it to be caught too. Instead of dumping his catch, Hobson took the shark to the nearby Coogee Aquarium Baths (now the Coogee Pavilion) owned by his brother Charlie, thinking it would make a wonderful attraction for the Anzac Day weekend coming up. There'd recently been a spare of shark attacks and the lure of a monster of the deep in the pool would be a certain crowd-pleaser. Sure enough, people flocked to see the shark, even though it had begun looking decidedly green about the gills. As crowds watched on Anzac Day, the shark vomited up a human arm, complete with tattoos, despite the acidity of the shark's stomach. At first it was thought that the arm was that of another shark victim, but it became apparent that the arm had no bite marks and had in fact been severed with a knife, changing the nature of the enquiry completely. To find out more about the victim, the police published a photo and depiction of the tattoo, a depiction of two men boxing. Recognising the tattoo, Edwin Smith came forward to identify it as his brother Jimmy's, who hadn't been seen for a couple of weeks. Police took fingerprints from the hand to confirm the identification.

Truth (Sydney), 5 May 1935, via Trove

Jimmy Smith had been a jack of all trades, a builder, bookmaker, boxer, and a small time crim. He'd last been seen having drink with mate Patrick Brady in Cronulla. Brady was a shearer and WWI veteran, who also happened to be an expert forger. On investigating, the police found a cab driver who said that Brady had taken a cab from Cronulla the next morning after drinking with Smith to North Sydney, where he got out at the house of Reginald Holmes, a successful, well respected local boat builders. Who, it transpired, also allegedly collected cocaine, cigarettes and other contraband from ships passing the heads using his speedboats. Smith had apparently worked for Holmes, helping with the smuggling racket. It was speculated that they had fallen out over some kind of insurance scam and that Smith had begun to blackmail Holmes. The links Brady had with both men put Holmes under suspicion. When questioned, Holmes denied knowing either of the men or anything about the arm, and as the evidence was all circumstantial so far, the case stalled until 20 May. That day, Holmes left his boatshed in one of speedboats, sped out into the harbour, and, pulling out a pistol, attempted to shoot himself. The shot knocked him into the water, but a rope caught around one of his wrists as he fell, stopping him from drowning. The shock of the water revived him, and he crawled back aboard. The water police were alerted to these goings-on, and for four hours they chased Holmes, out past Circular Quay, through the mid-morning ferry traffic, right down Sydney Harbour until, finally, he gave up just outside Sydney Heads. After this, Holmes decided to change his story and agreed to be a witness against Brady who was subsequently charged with the murder of Smith. On the morning of 12 June, hours before he was due to appear in court as the star witness, Holmes was found dead in his car on Hickson Road. He had been shot at least three times. With the loss of their witness, the Crown's case collapsed and Brady was acquitted. Nobody was ever found guilty of either murder. More information emerged later revealing that Jim was a police informer (otherwise known at the time as a 'fizzer' or a 'fizzgig'), informing on one of Sydney's notorious criminals Eddie Weymark, so it was also possible that the murders may have been revenge killings. To read more, head to the Dictionary of Sydney https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/shark_arm_murder_1935 Minna Muhlen-Schulte is a professional historian and Senior Heritage Consultant at GML Heritage. She was the recipient of the Berry Family Fellowship at the State Library of Victoria and has worked on a range of history projects for community organisations, local and state government including the Third Quarantine Cemetery, Victorian War Heritage Inventory,  Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka (M.A.D.E) and Mallee Aboriginal District Services. In 2014, Minna developed a program on the life and work of Clarice Beckett for ABC Radio National’s Hindsight Program and in 2017 produced Crossing Enemy Lines for ABC Radio National's Earshot Program. She's appearing for the Dictionary today in a voluntary capacity. Thanks Minna! Listen to the podcast with  Minna & Tess here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Tess Connery on 107.3 every Wednesday morning to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.  The Dictionary of Sydney has no ongoing funding and needs your help. Make a donation to the Dictionary of Sydney and claim a tax deduction!

The arrest of Governor Bligh 1808, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (a128113 / Safe 4/5)

This week on 2SER Breakfast, the Dictionary's special guest Dr James Dunk talked to new breakfast host Tess Connery about the mental health of some of the participants in the Rum Rebellion. Listen to James and Tess on 2SER here.  In 1808 in Sydney a group of colonists and officers orchestrated a rebellion against the Governor William Bligh who was attempting to limit their commercial interests in the new colony. They marched on Government House, where the Museum of Sydney stands today, and arrested  the Governor, putting him under house arrest. The Rum Rebellion as it is often called  is one of the best known episodes in Australian history, and historians and journalists have been taking sides ever since. A few years ago I was reading the memoirs of George Suttor, a small-time botanist who, like most other small settlers at the time, remained loyal to Bligh. The rebellion had been orchestrated by a ‘triumvirate’, he wrote shortly before his death in the 1850s, which pressured Major George Johnston, the ranking officer in Sydney, to arrest the governor. The three in question were the wealthy grazier and ex-officer John Macarthur, the Corps’ second-in-command, Captain Edward Abbott, and the disgruntled settler Nicholas Bayly. Of these men, according to Suttor, two ‘went mad, and the third shot himself in Sydney,’ while the ‘catspaw’ Johnston, ‘pined to death’. Suttor, who from 1814-19 was superintendent of the asylum at Castle Hill, moralized these psychological histories – they were the ‘evil consequences’ of ambition. Suttor was not a neutral commentator by any account, but I wondered whether he was right and what that would mean for the history of the rebellion, so I started looking into the mental health, and subsequent unravelling, of some of the rebellion's participants.

John Macarthur, courtesy Dixson Galleries, State Library of NSW (a2408002 / DG 222)

We usually talk about John Macarthur in relation to merino sheep and the development of the wool industry in early New South Wales. A former officer and powerful, charismatic colonist, he was the driving force behind the rebellion. On his first voyage out to New South Wales Macarthur had been afflicted by a severe illness, and he afterward suffered from chronic depression, variously called melancholy, low spirits, and a ‘malady of the mind’. His illness did not begin with the rebellion, but was sharply inflected by it, and its aftermath. In 1832, 24 years after the rebellion, Macarthur was declared insane by the Supreme Court. Argumentative and troublesome in colonial society after his return to Sydney in 1817 (where he became known 'the great peturbator'), his mania finally emerged in delusions of persecution. He believed his sons had been poisoned, ‘their intellects were deranged and their loyalties perverted’. They had fled with ‘a formidable band of adherents’ they had ‘taken possession of a strong position in some remote part of the Colony’ and were plotting against him. He believed that he himself had already been poisoned, with ‘the most grievous effect’ to his body and a ‘sore on his head’. He threw his wife Elizabeth out of the house (that he had manically been renovating) with ‘pistols, swords and offensive weapons in his hands!’ Other participants in the rebellion also suffered. Edward Abbot, a senior officer in the New South Wales Corps and a moving force in the rebellion, later became a commandant in Tasmania where he died in 1832. There are hints of his unravelling in the newspaper report of his death, in which his anxiety and infirmities are described as ending in his ‘dissolution’. Nicholas Bayly, another of Suttor's alleged 'triumvirate' was ostracised after the rebellion and struggled financially. He slipped into delusion on the days before he died, in May 1823; he had been ‘for some time past been in a declining state of health’. The mind often breaks down in tandem with the body; neither Abbott or Bayly seem to show the ‘evil consequences’ of rebellion, as Suttor wants them to. It may be however that he had better information; madness is often private, and treated with discretion. George Johnston, after whom Johnston Street in Annandale is named, had been the officer to actually arrest Bligh under instruction from the other rebels, and he suffered deeply afterwards. His supporters had rapidly fallen away and he appears to have had deep regrets and abiding sadness. His wife Esther was declared insane by her children after his death in 1823, and during the trial a history of alcohol and abuse was displayed. Esther spoke of a conspiracy against her, and ‘violent and oppressive acts’. In early 1809, William Bligh wrote perhaps with some satisfaction, Lieutenant Cadwallader Draffin ‘was attacked with violent insanity’. Draffin had been 'very active among the officers', he noted - he had had a lead role in the deposal and  sat on court benches and in committees of the rebel administration. But he had manifested crippling symptoms of mental illness for at least the previous five years and his inclusion in the events has to be wondered at. Gregory Blaxland, who crossed the Blue Mountains with Wentworth and Lawson in 1813, signed the petition with his brother John to arrest Governor Bligh. He had some success and grew wealthy afterwards, but retired from public life in the 1820s and lived in isolation for the last 25 years of his life. He hanged himself in 1853 at the age of 74.  The coroner found that he had been temporarily deranged, but it is difficult to interpret a verdict which was frequently used as an emotional, social, and financial workaround. When we look at something as dramatic and public as a colonial rebellion but largely ignore the participants’ interior life, and their emotional and mental health, it produces a kind of hollowness, and looking at their subsequent lives can go some way to filling this gap. While it’s not possible to diagnose their illnesses or to prove any causative link between their participation in the rebellion and their subsequent ill health, it does show the strain of colonial living. The mercantile collapse, and social failure, anxiety, and bitterness that cut through the lives of the rebels were refracted throughout colonial society. Historian and journalist Malcolm Ellis, writing in his biography of Macarthur, suggested that his illness  was not remarkable; that brain disease, or madness was a ‘product of the age’. He meant, in fact, that it was a product of the specific conditions of colonisation of New South Wales – it was ‘the Botany Bay Disease’. Dr James Dunk is an historian of medicine and imperialism at the University of Sydney and is interested especially in the history of madness, paperwork, and settler colonial society. His book 'Bedlam at Botany Bay' will be published by NewSouth Books next year. He appears on 2SER for the DIctionary in a voluntary capacity. Thanks James! Listen to the podcast with James & Tess here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Tess Connery on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15-8:20am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.  The Dictionary of Sydney has no ongoing funding and needs your help. Make a donation to the Dictionary of Sydney and claim a tax deduction!