Australian History Live!: Eyewitness Accounts from the Past 9780642277787, 0642277788

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Published by the National Library of Australia Canberra ACT 2600 © National Library of Australia 2013 Introduction and commentary © Ian Warden Books published by the National Library of Australia further the Library’s objectives to interpret and highlight the Library’s collections and to support the creative work of the nation’s writers and researchers. Every reasonable endeavour has been made to contact the copyright holders. Where this has not been possible, the copyright holders are invited to contact the publisher. Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander communities should be aware that this book contains images and names of people who are now deceased. Editorial note: quotes from original documents are in the language as used in the recorded source. This book is copyright in all countries subscribing to the Berne Convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher. The views expressed in this book are those of the individual author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors or the publisher.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author:

Warden, Ian, 1945-

Title:

Australian history live! : eyewitness accounts from the past / Ian Warden.

ISBN:

9780642277787 (pbk.)

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Subjects: Australia--History Australia--History--Sources. Clippings (Books, newspapers, etc.) Other Authors/Contributors: National Library of Australia. Dewey Number:

994

Commissioning Publisher: Susan Hall Editor: John Mapps Designer: Noel Wendtman Image Coordinator: Jemma Posch Production: Melissa Bush Printer: Everbest NLA Publishing would like to thank George Nichols for his help with this publication. Find out more about National Library Publishing at http://publishing.nla.gov.au Cover images: see captions for images on pp. 17, 52, 66, 92, 102, 168, 292

australian history live! Eyewitness accounts from the past

Selected and introduced by

IAN WARDEN

NL A P UBL I S HING

CONTENTS 7

Introduction

13

In high spirits and perfectly at their ease

19 25 31 35 41 47 53

Two corroborees, 1796 and 1836

83 The days of toil, the nights of agony Explorer Ernest Giles, 1875

Golly! Old Nick, nine feet tall, approaches through the fog

87

The siege at Glenrowan, 26–28 June 1880

Crime fearfully depicted in their visages

93

Sydney’s Garden Palace burns down, 22 September 1882

They were crying and did not want to go

97

The Brisbane floods of February 1893

Deck the halls with boughs of Christmas bush

101 What a variety of legs Bicycles and cyclists in Australia

Behold a flower from Mount Kosciuszko

107 Suddenly guns boomed and Australia was born Federation occasions, 1901

These stupendous visitors

115 Every day you see occurrences that bring tears to your eyes Australians at the Boer War, 1899–1902

Trespassing through extravagant sea-realms

121 Sing on, Melba, enchantress, whether woman or devil! Nellie Melba comes home to Melbourne, 1902

Gold! Deliriously panting for the precious metal

127 Nice position for a federal cemetery The search for a site for the federal capital

That disgraced Sunday

133 His magnificent torso caused a deep breath of admiration to be drawn Sandow the Magnificent performs in Melbourne, 1902

Their sensitive, long, pure-bred faces

Europeans marvel at (and eat) kangaroos

Australia’s convicts

The massacre at Myall Creek, 1838

Christmas in colonial Australia

Europeans reach the highest place in the continent, 1840

The Great Comet of 1843 and Donati’s Comet of 1858

Victorian-era sea voyages to Australia

61

A gold rush in 1852 and a descent into an Aladdin’s Cave in 1895

67

The Eureka Stockade, 3 December 1854

A prima donna in rich maroon velvet with constellations of diamonds

73

Catherine Hayes performs in Melbourne, 1854

77

The melancholy wreck of the Dunbar, 20 August 1857

The gaze of the sorrowing throng above

The greatest and most terrible fire that Australia has ever known

Houses smashed like eggs in a strong man’s hand

137 Rescued from unutterable misery and vice The Yarrabah Aboriginal Mission at Cairns, 1903 and 1910 141 Will we wear skirts? No! Modesty at the beach, 20 October 1907

145 Murderous heat, then raindrops beat their drums of hope on the roof A heatwave in 1908 and a (timeless) breaking of a drought 149 One has to be singularly equipped mentally to stand it Lonely patrols of the rabbit-proof fences

213 The womenfolk especially became intoxicated by the ballet Ballets Russes in Australia, 1936–1940 219 It appeared that the whole state was alight The Victorian bushfires of January 1939

155 Square-faced, pale young men with accents like banjos The USA’s Great White Fleet visits Sydney, 1908

225 I heard the bomb screaming earthward Two air raids of the Second World War—Darwin 1942, London 1943

161 The supremacy of the white race goes to the Devil Jack Johnson humiliates Tommy Burns, Boxing Day 1908

233 The power of the willy-willie is amazing Francis Ratcliffe visits The Kingdom of the Dust, c. 1936

167 A dash of sensationalism Harry Houdini sinks and then soars in Melbourne, 1910

237 Nothing seemed to happen to him as it does to other people Percy Grainger

171 The men behaved like heroes Australians go to the Great War, 1914–1918

243 Melbourne wins its own gold medals The Melbourne Olympics, 1956

181 Those wonderful dark eloquent eyes Henry Lawson’s mates remember him

251 The home to which we can never return Old Adaminaby is drowned for the greater good of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme

185 Like a huge, squat wedding cake The provisional Parliament House is inaugurated, 9 May 1927

257 You and me, we sweat and strain Paul Robeson sings at the Sydney Opera House while it’s being built, 1960

191 Hinkler Hinkler Little Star Bert Hinkler flies alone from England to Australia in 1928

261 I had a look at Kronborg Castle, at Elsinore Jørn Utzon imagines the Sydney Opera House

197 The pawnshop windows became more and more crammed The Great Depression of the 1930s 205 Symphony of steel The building and opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, 1924–1932

267 Worth more than any money of any sort Lake Pedder is lost 274

List of works

282

References

287

Index

J. Redaway & Sons (engraver), William Blandowski (artist, 1822–1878) Aborigines of Australia, Corrobori or Native Festival 1855 or 1856

INTRODUCTION I

s time travel to the past possible? Stephen Hawking doesn’t think so, since we never seem to meet ‘tourists’ who are visiting us from the future. But Carl Sagan wonders: it might be that time travel into the past is possible, but they haven’t gotten to our time yet, they’re very far in the future and the further back in time you go, the more expensive it is … They can come to as far back as whatever it would be, say AD 2300, but not further …

Perhaps we can achieve a kind of time travel, inexpensively too, back to the past. With a little help from our imaginations, the best eyewitness descriptions of past occasions enable us to do some time-travelling. This book is a collection of virtual time-travellings back to occasions great and minor in Australia’s past. Those of you who hold this twenty-first-century book in your twenty-first-century hands will never be thrilled by the actual sights and sounds of a full-bloodedly authentic Aboriginal corroboree, will never actually see the Great Comet of 1843 and will never actually see and hear Nellie Melba singing at her majestic best. But long-dead others saw and heard these phenomena and have reported them exquisitely in ways that put us there with them— the reporters. John Carey’s The Faber Book of Reportage (1987) is an enormous 700-page collection of reportage across history, beginning in Athens in 430 BC. In the introduction, Carey writes: ‘All knowledge of the past which is not just supposition derives ultimately from people who can say “I was there”. What’s more, writes Carey: ‘eye-witness accounts

have the feel of truth … unlike “objective” or reconstituted history, which is laborious but dead’. Carey required everything in The Faber Book of Reportage to pass some tests before inclusion. Likewise, everything in this book had to impress with its qualifications. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, the piece had to be good enough to enable readers to do the virtual time travel and to feel that they, too, are there, seeing and feeling what the reporter saw and felt. The best eyewitness reporting achieves this quite magically, in ways we shouldn’t overanalyse because that ‘magic’ is usually much, much more than terrific reporting technique. Indeed some of the best pieces are by people who gave little thought to technique but who just burbled amateurishly about what they’d seen. Reporters, whether they be professional and amateur, polished and unpolished, always do their best work when they’re truly thrilled, astonished or shaken. For example, the success of Captain John Hunter’s description in transporting us to the corroboree he attended in 1791 owes lots to the pleasure and excitement the occasion stoked in him. Hunter’s description also illustrates that the very best eyewitness reporting can come with reporting of, as well, what the eyewitness heard. Thus, the corroboree report is rich in both sights and sounds. Eyewitnesses take their noses with them too. Louisa Anne Meredith, for instance, reports how branches of Christmas bush cut to deck Australian halls (there being no holly in the colony) smelt of new-mown hay. And William Hobbs can’t stay to make a painstaking account of the dead of the Myall Creek massacre because the stench drives him away.

7

Another kind of book might attempt a kind of eyewitness history of Australia that just concentrates on obviously important events. In this book, although there are some pieces about some great occasions, the quality of the putting-us-thereness of the piece has been the paramount qualification. And so, for example, Bernard O’Reilly’s rapturous description of ‘just another breaking of just another drought’ (which leaves the reader feeling soaked to the skin by the welcome rain) chose itself. So did Francis Ratcliffe’s description of the experience of being caught in a willy-willy (which leaves the reader feeling filthy with dust). This collection of Australian occasions errs on the side of eyewitness descriptions that pack a punch. The wallop may be because of quirkiness, starkness or even tragedy. Deep within this collection of eyewitness reports, the reader will come across descriptions of a bewildered little terrier dog refusing to leave the much-bayoneted dead body of its master just killed at the Eureka Stockade. The sight of it scalded the memories of everyone who saw it. The fact that Carey’s collection has a description of Mary Queen of Scots’ tiny dog found hiding in its just-beheaded mistress’ Rotary Photographic Co. (Firm) Mme. Melba c. 1907

8

Cliff Postle (1913–2004) Bert Hinkler Lands at Eagle Farm Racecourse in His Avro Avian during a Race Meeting, Queensland 1928

skirts gives this book’s little dog at Eureka authoritative approval. Small things like an animal’s grief in the shadow of the colossal awfulness of Eureka (or of the beheading of a monarch) are sideshows incidental to great events. But it’s those small things that seem to humanise that greatness and help make it life-sized after all. An evocative description of a face or faces also helped a piece bustle into this collection. Faces and what they tell us of their owners are mightily important to us. Henry Lawson’s unique eyes beguiled everyone who ever had his gaze trained on them. George Witton’s description of the deathly pallor on Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant’s face at the news of Morant’s death sentence is hard to forget. Although some of this book’s best contributors had the latent journalist in them brought out by the accident of their ‘being there’, the contribution of professional journalists is considerable. Let us acknowledge those writers, writing at a gallop for the next edition, producing pieces that read beautifully, as if produced at a poet’s self-indulging, muse-awaiting speed. Some of the pieces written for The Bulletin about the festivities of the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge are fine examples of this

craft, this art form. Writing in a deadline-induced panic but writing elegantly is an underrated and unsung skill. One idea behind this book was to shine the limelight on some beautiful print journalism that once did have a few minutes of fame (while being read) but then had the page it was printed on used to line a parrot’s cage or to serve some even less dignified function. Candidates for this collection had to be seen to be at least trying to tell the whole truth, insofar as any eyewitness can, given how minds and memories play tricks. Some of the chosen pieces do feel embellished but that has been readily forgiven. With a stuffy no-embellishment rule, the collection couldn’t have included gems like the ecstatic piece by ‘Peter Quince’ about his belief that Nellie Melba was singing only to him and to no one else in the concert hall. In reporting, there’s no embellishment-proof fence to keep the plain truth from being a little ‘improved’ by poetic licence. In two or three selections, such as Henry Lawson’s recollections of past Christmases, both reporting and fiction rub shoulders without doing one another any harm. One unanticipated effect on this selector of reading so many eyewitness reports has been uncharitable feelings of

9

from reality, its lessons are—and ought to be— more telling. It will be a bonus if readers of this more modest (but still human and one hopes humanising) collection get some educating of their sympathies as well as some delight from what’s here. One much more shy hope I have for this collection is that it may sensitise some readers to how exactly like us (alive like us and vulnerable like us, sometimes rejoicing, sometimes despairing) past Australians have been. Formal histories seldom convey this well and seem, like feature films, to have only casts of actors. In the introduction to Dancing with Strangers, historian Inga Clendinnen describes how a particular experience ‘made me realise that the past … had once been as real as the present, which is always an electrifying realisation’. For me that electrifying realisation came during the two years in which I immersed myself in the eyewitness reportage that has been winnowed for this collection. I wish readers of this collection that same electrification. IAN WARDEN, CANBERRA

Montague B. Younger Columbia! Welcome! A Song of Greeting to the American Fleet c. 1908

envy of the lucky dead who saw things I wish I’d seen. If this collection is successful, its readers will feel some of these pangs. Of course one doesn’t envy those who were eyewitnesses to the grisly events like the carnage that accompanied the melancholy wrecking of the Dunbar or the 1939 bushfires. But, oh to have been there on a Sydney harbourside rooftop or in a niche on a sandstone cliff when the world’s greatest armada, the Great White Fleet, swaggered into and became juxtaposed with the world’s loveliest harbour! Oh to have been a proud Bundaberg local in 1928 to welcome home, with his proud mother there to meet him, the triumphant Bert Hinkler and his gnat-sized aeroplane. In his introduction to The Faber Book of Reportage John Carey makes some grand claims for the superiority of fine reporting over fine fiction writing: reportage may change its readers, may educate their sympathies, may extend—in both directions—their ideas about what it is to be a human being, may limit their capacity for the inhuman. These gains have traditionally been claimed for imaginative literature. But since reportage, unlike literature, lifts the screen

10

John Longstaff (1861–1941) Portrait of Henry Lawson c. 1900

Harold Cazneaux (1878–1953) Crowds on the Sydney Harbour Bridge after the Opening Ceremony, Looking towards North-East Pylon and Neutral Bay 1932

Jon Rhodes (photographer, b. 1947), Port Jackson Painter (artist) Portrait of Bennelong

12

IN HIGH SPIRITS AND PERFECTLY AT THEIR EASE

Two corroborees, 1796 and 1836

Writing in the 1960s, the anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner reflected in sadness on how Aboriginal Australians were dispirited now by ‘homelessness, powerlessness, poverty and confusion’. They’d been ‘worsted’ by Europeans but ‘were originally a highspirited and in their own way a militant people’. Here, in two Europeans’ eyewitness accounts of corroborees (one performed in 1791 and the other in 1836) we get glimpses of great high spirits and exuberance shown by Aboriginal people still largely at their ease.

N

o one alive today has ever been to corroborees as true, full-blooded, manic and thrilling as these, and perhaps we feel some envy of the eyewitnesses/reporters, John Hunter and Charles Darwin. They saw and heard (and at least in Darwin’s case felt too, because dancers’ earth-walloping feet made the ground vibrate) Aboriginal performances barely different from those performed for thousands of years before there were Europeans to attend

them and write critiques of them. The performers and their European audiences (the Europeans 20,000 kilometres from home) were what Inga Clendinnen has called contrasting, and ‘un like peoples’. In spite of the prejudices they brought with them to the occasions (Hunter thought the dancing ‘wild and savage’ and Darwin thought the entertainment performed for him and his companions ‘a perfect display of a festival amongst the lowest barbarians’) we can tell that both men were fascinated by what they saw. Hunter in particular sounds transparently appreciative, and, endearingly, seems to have got up and had a go (in vain) at making his unschooled white legs do the ‘alarming’ things the skilled dancers could do with theirs. For both Englishmen the sheer savage exuberance and physicality of the Australians’ dancing was a great contrast with the polite and mannered dancing of ‘home’ as described in Jane Austen’s novels and in which no dancer ever raises a sweat. John Hunter, having arrived in 1788 with the First Fleet, saw his corroboree at Port Jackson in 1791. Charles Darwin attended his while the Beagle was moored at King George Sound (near present-day Albany in the far southwest corner of Western Australia) in March 1836.

13

Samuel Thomas Gill (1818–1880) Native Corroboree 1874

36 18 e, en sc s ou ar rb ba , de ru a s se es itn w Charles Darwin

s, rved the light of the blazing fire and chil- meaning; but we obse en wom the har ch whi ous hide nied in ing mpa en and all mov ONE day I acco d as spec- that the black wom ecte coll e wer disn ect dre perf d a Bal ed to form Captain Fitz Roy n watched it with mony, rs; the Cockatoo and childre play of a festival amongst Head … A large tribe of tato sure … men formed the greatest plea s rge’ Geo g Kin ite Wh the lowest barbarians. In natives, called There was one called the the parties, and inct dist have two ed pen hap ra , ch each Tier del Fuego, we Cockatoo men in answer Emu dance, in whi ced dan ly es eral scen gen ious a cur y ent man lem arm in a beheld to pay the sett The dancing man extended his r. othe I er, each nev to but e. life, ther e ge wer the neck in sava visit while we r running bent manner, like thei in ed ives sist nat con the re as l whe wel one k, These men, as t bird. In another thin its, er sideways or in Indian of tha imitated were in such high spir those of the tribe belonging eith space, and dance, one man n ope an r into thei file at y nd, ectl Sou perf s so to King George’ of a kanga- and ground with the movements the ping cing dan stam r the offe r the Afte by . being tempted zing in the woods, ease ty t force as they marched roo gra led up was over, the whole par of some tubs of rice and grea heavy foot- while a second craw ir The . the ther on toge le circ to t ed grea a uad ed sugar, were pers pretended to spear form rice s were accompanied by and tribes ground, and the boiled hold a ‘coroberry,’ or great step nt, by beat- him. When both gru of d ted, kin ribu a dist as was soon ar As sug dancing-party. dance, the and s and spears mingled in the club r thei ing all. s of fire ght ll deli sma it grew dark, trembled with the to the ther, and by various ground were lighted, and the men toge of their steps, ss CHA RLES DARWIN IN HIS r gesticulations such heavine with ed commenced their toilet, othe RNAL OF RESEARCHES und JOU reso air their arms and the g ndin exte as tpain in INTO THE NATURAL HISTORY ry one which consisted r bodies. their wild cries. Eve thei ng ggli wri AND GEOLOGY OF THE and in te whi ing themselves in high spirits, d eare app bar e, IES VISITED DURING rud NTR t COU mos was a spots and lines. As soon as It group of nearly the GE OF H.M.S. BEAGLE VOYA and THE our to , and e, ous scen ed by all was ready, large fires bar ROUND THE WORLD (1845) any sort of naked figures, view out with s, idea nd rou ing, were kept blaz

14

John Hunter sees an exhibition well worth seeing, 1791 BEFORE I left Port Jackson, the natives were becoming very familiar and intimate with every person in the settlement … We have frequently observed, since this familiar intercourse took place, that they often had a dance amongst themselves at night, on the lower part of Sydney-cove, where a small house had been built by the governor’s order, for their accommodation. It had been signified to some of the principal amongst them, that we

should be glad to have an opportunity of seeing them dance, which they readily agreed to, and the following night was appointed, when the governor and a considerable number attended; every one being provided with arms of some kind: a caution which, not withstanding friendly appearances, was generally allowed to be necessary; for experience had convinced us that these people have a good deal of treachery in their disposition.

Preparatory to this exhibition, much attention was paid to the decorating [of] themselves; they were all Adams and Eves, without even a fig-leaf, but without their dignity. The young women were employed with all their art in painting the young men, who were chiefly ornamented with streaks of white, done with pipe-clay, and in different forms, according to the taste of the man himself, or to that of the lady who adorned him: no fop

preparing for an assembly was ever more desirous of making his person irresistibly beautiful. This paint, so much in use among them, could not be applied without a little moisture, and the lady, in drawing those marks on the face, which were so essential a part of the decoration, I observed frequently to spit in the face of her friend, whom she was employed in adorning, in order to make the white clay mark the stronger. When they were all

Joseph Lycett (c. 1775–1828) Corroboree around a Camp Fire c. 1817

15

Henry Dangar (1796–1861) Corroboree or Native Dance at Durhambak on the Banks of the Upper Manning, New England, Australia c. 1830

prepared, we walked down to the place appointed, after dark, for they prefer taking their amusement by fire-light. We found several fires lighted, and a considerable number of people assembled. We walked round to see that there were no armed lurkers in the bushes. The dancers being ready, we were placed in a semicircle, by Bannelong, and Coalby, who seemed to have the chief authority and direction. The dance was begun by a few young boys, and was encreased by men and women, chiefly

16

by the former, until their number amounted from twenty to twenty six. Their dance was truly wild and savage, yet, in many parts, there appeared order and regularity: one man would frequently single himself out from the dance, and, running round the whole of the performers, sing out in a loud voice, using some expressions in one particular tone of voice which we could not understand: he would then join the dance, in which it was observed that certain parties alternately led forward to the front, and there exhibited, with their

utmost skill and agility, all the various motions which, with them, seemed to constitute the principal beauties of dancing. One of the most striking was, that of placing their feet very wide apart, and by an extraordinary exertion of the muscles of the thighs and legs, moving the knees in a trembling and very surprising manner, such as none of us could imitate; which seemed to show that it required much practice to arrive at any degree of perfection in this singular motion. There appeared a good deal of variety in their

different dances; in one of which they paired themselves, and frequently danced back to back; they then changed suddenly and faced each other: sometimes all the performers sat down on the ground with their feet under them, and at a particular word, or order, they all raised themselves up: this motion they performed without any assistance from the hands; now they ran back in different rows, then advanced in the same order; again they would form a circle, with some distinguished person in the centre, and

Tommy McCrae (c. 1836–1901) Two Groups of Aboriginal Men at a Corroboree, Wahgunyah Region, Victoria 1880

sometimes the whole of the performers would appear with a green bough in their hands, which they held up in a conspicuous manner. In all the different figures which they performed, I observed that they generally finished by certain numbers of their principal dancers advancing to the front, and going through that favourite part of the dance, the quivering motion of the knees … On the whole, this exhibition was well worth seeing; and this was the first opportunity that had offered for us to see any thing of the

kind, since we had been in the country. Their music consisted of two sticks of very hard wood, one of which the musician held upon his breast, in the manner of a violin, and struck it with the other, in good and regular time; the performer, who was a stout strong voiced man, sung the whole time, and frequently applied those graces in music, the piano and forte; he was assisted by several young boys and girls, who sat at his feet, and by their manner of crossing their thighs, made a hollow between

them and their belly, upon which they beat time with the flat of their hand, so as to make a kind of sound which will be better understood from the manner of its being produced, than from any verbal description: these children also sung with the chief musical performer, who stood up the whole time, and seemed to me to have the most laborious part of the performance. They very frequently, at the conclusion of the dance, would apply to us for our opinions, or rather for marks of our approbation

of the performance; which we never failed to give by often repeating the word boojery, which signifies good; or boojery carriberie, a good dance. These signs of pleasure in us seemed to give them great satisfaction, and generally provided more than ordinary exertions from the whole, company of performers in the next dance. JOHN HUNTER IN HIS AN HISTORICAL JOURNAL OF THE TRANSACTIONS AT PORT JACKSON AND NORFOLK ISLAND (1793)

17

Nora Heysen (1911–2003) Bohrah the Kangaroo 1930

THEIR SENSITIVE, LONG, PURE-BRED FACES Europeans marvel at (and eat) kangaroos

Australians have largely lost the naive, child-like ability to be astonished by the kangaroos they share the continent with. But any Australian who takes overseas visitors to see their first kangaroos notices in the visitors an enviable astonishment and twittering excitement. Australians, kangaroo-blasé now, may envy the twitterers the delight they’re being given by our iconic animal. Kangaroos are fascinating and a lost ability to see this and to know it is a sad loss, like a grown-up’s lost ability to be enchanted by fairy-tales.

W

e can envy one overseas visitor, the writer D.H. Lawrence, who spent three months in Australia in 1922 and who found the kangaroo a source of wonder. In his poem Kangaroo he notices with his astonished English eyes all sorts of things in a ‘delicate mother Kangaroo’ like ‘the great muscular python-stretch of her tail’ and ‘Her sensitive, long, purebred face’ that kangaroo-familiar Australians usually don’t see. The English naturalist and writer Gerald Durrell saw kangaroos on his two visits to Australia and thought them ‘astonishing animals’. He’d watched the birth of a red kangaroo and thought the achievement of the blind baby, only an ‘embryo’ really and with ‘powerless’ back legs, in climbing up and up and into its mother’s pouch ‘was really the equivalent of a blind man with both legs broken crawling through a thick forest to the top of Mount Everest’.

Here below are some expressions of man-meets-kangaroo surprise. Members of Matthew Flinders’ meat-starved crew first mistook the kangaroos they saw through their telescopes for rocks that moved and then found the kangaroos (having never known men and hence with no reason to fear them) eerily unwary. The Reverend Thomas Edwards, visiting a pair of kangaroos kept among the curiosities of a public menagerie at the Exeter Exchange on The Strand in London, saw the male bound ‘with astonishing speed and vivacity’. The naturalist-hunter John Gilbert marvelled at the size of one great ‘herd’ of kangaroos encountered in Western Australia in 1840 and imagined he could see cornered kangaroos’ eyes ‘sparkle with rage’. D.H. Lawrence, in Australia and studying his semi-domesticated kangaroo, credited it with ‘wonderful liquid eyes … So big and quiet and remote, having watched so many empty dawns in silent Australia’.

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D.H. Lawrence watches a mother kangaroo and her joey, 1922 Kangaroo Delicate mother Kangaroo Sitting up there rabbit-wise, but huge, plumb-weighted, And lifting her beautiful slender face, oh! so much more gently and finely lined than a rabbit’s, or than a hare’s, Lifting her face to nibble at a round white peppermint drop which she loves, sensitive mother Kangaroo. Her sensitive, long, pure-bred face. Her full antipodal eyes, so dark, So big and quiet and remote, having watched so many empty dawns in silent Australia.

While something stirs quickly in her belly, and a lean little face comes out, as from a window, Peaked and a bit dismayed, Only to disappear again quickly away from the sight of the world, to snuggle down in the warmth, Leaving the trail of a different paw hanging out.

Helena Forde (1832–1910) The Kangaroo (Macropus Major) 1871

Her little loose hands, and drooping Victorian shoulders. And then her great weight below the waist, her vast pale belly With a thin young yellow little paw hanging out, and straggle of a long thin ear, like ribbon, Like a funny trimming to the middle of her belly, thin little dangle of an immature paw, and one thin ear. Her belly, her big haunches And, in addition, the great muscular python-stretch of her tail. There, she shan’t have any more peppermint drops. So she wistfully, sensitively sniffs the air, and then turns, goes off in slow sad leaps On the long flat skis of her legs, Steered and propelled by that steel-strong snake of a tail. Stops again, half turns, inquisitive to look back.

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Still she watches with eternal, cocked wistfulness! How full her eyes are, like the full, fathomless, shining eyes of an Australian black-boy Who has been lost so many centuries on the margins of existence!

She watches with insatiable wistfulness. Untold centuries of watching for something to come, For a new signal from life, in that silent lost land of the South. Where nothing bites but insects and snakes and the sun, small life. Where no bull roared, no cow ever lowed, no stag cried, no leopard screeched, no lion coughed, no dog barked, But all was silent save for parrots occasionally, in the haunted blue bush. Wistfully watching, with wonderful liquid eyes. And all her weight, all her blood, dripping sackwise down towards the earth’s centre, And the live little-one taking in its paw at the door of her belly. IN D.H. LAWRENCE’S THE COMPLETE POEMS (1957)

Matthew Flinders gives an island an appropriate name, 1802 21 March, 1802 NEITHER smokes, nor other marks of inhabitants had as yet been perceived upon the southern land … but every glass in the ship was pointed there, to see what could be discovered. Several black lumps, like rocks, were pretended to have been seen in motion by some of the young gentlemen, which caused the force of their imaginations to be much admired; next

morning, however, on going towards the shore, a number of dark brown kangaroos were seen feeding … and our landing gave them no disturbance. I had with me a double-barrelled gun, fitted with a bayonet, and the gentlemen my companions had muskets … [The party killed 31 kangaroos] the least of them weighing sixty-nine, and the largest one hundred and twenty-five pounds …

W. Butcher & Sons (Firm) A Kangaroo Hunt 1910s

After this butchery, for the poor animals suffered themselves to be shot in the

eyes with small shot, and in some cases to be knocked on the heads with sticks … the whole ship’s company was employed this afternoon in skinning and cleaning the kanguroos; and a delightful regale they afforded after four months privation from almost any fresh provisions. Half a hundred weight of heads, fore-quarters, and tails were stewed down into soup for dinner on this and the succeeding days; and as much steaks given, moreover, to both officers and men, as they could consume by day and by night. In gratitude for so seasonable a supply, I named this southern land Kangaroo Island. MATTHEW FLINDERS IN HIS A VOYAGE TO TERRA

S.A. Lindsey Kangaroo Sticking, Darling Downs, Queensland 1894

AUSTRALIS (1802)

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George Lacy (c. 1816–1878) A Kangaroo on the Tambaroora Goldfields c. 1852

John Gilbert meets enraged kangaroos, 1840 THE grey kangaroo, Macropus Ocydromus … has very thin hair in summer while in winter the coat is thick and woolly … This large kangaroo is tolerably abundant over the whole colony of Western Australia … in fact I have never seen in any part of Australia, so large a herd as the one I met with on the Gordon plains in 1840: at the most moderate calculation, there could not have been less than five hundred kangaroos; several of the party, in their astonishment, considered there

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were even a greater number than I have stated ... It would scarcely be supposed, from seeing this animal in confinement, where it appears so quiet and harmless, that it can be excited to rage and ferocity; yet such is the case in a state of nature. Upon finding itself without a chance of escape, it summons up all its energies for a last struggle, and would often come off victor if it had dogs alone to contend with: the moment it sees the approach of man, it appears to know instinctively that he is its most formidable

opponent; its lips are then curved and contracted; its eyes sparkle with rage, and seem ready to start from their sockets; its ears are in rapid and constant motion, and it utters its peculiar though not loud voice—a sort of smothered grunt, half hiss or hard breathing; its attention is totally withdrawn from the dogs to its new enemy … If a female with a tolerably large young one in the pouch be pursued she will often, by a sudden jerk, throw the little creature out; whether this is done for her own protection, or for

the purpose of misleading the dogs, has been debated by hunters; I am inclined to think the former is the case, for I have observed that the dogs pass on without noticing the young one, which in general crouches in a tuft of grass, or hides itself among the scrub without attempting to run or make its escape; the mother, if she eludes her pursuers, doubtless returns for her offspring. JOHN GILBERT IN THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON (1844)

Thomas Smith sees kangaroos in London, 1806

THERE are at present (1806) a remarkably fine pair of kanguroos in the exhibition rooms at Exeter ’Change. They were brought over from Port Jackson in New South Wales, and have been in Mr Pidcock’s possession between six and seven years. The male, when in an erect posture, is upwards of six feet high, and is an animal of prodigious strength. On visiting the menagerie some

months since, I saw this noble quadruped wrestle with the keeper for the space of ten or fifteen minutes, during which time he evinced the utmost intrepidity and sagacity; turning in every direction to face his opponent, carefully watching an opportunity to close with him, and occasionally grasping him with his forepaws, while the right hind leg was employed in kicking him upon the

thigh and hip … nor did he [the kangaroo] seem willing to return to his apartment, till the female was brought out to entice him. He then returned, bounding through the exhibition room with astonishing speed and vivacity. The female, though considerably smaller than the male, is a fine animal, and has had five young ones, some of which are now stuffed and preserved

among the other curiosities in the menagerie … The food of these animals in their native wilds, is supposed to consist principally of grass; but those in the menagerie are regularly fed with bread, hay, bran, oats, and cabbages. THE REVEREND THOMAS SMITH IN HIS THE NATURALIST’S CABINET (1806–1807)

Robert Cruikshank (1789–1856) Popular Gardens, Tom, Jerry and Logic Laughing at the Bustle and Alarm Occasioned amongst the Visitors by the Escape of a Kangaroo 1822

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Thomas Francis, Ly. Franklin 4, Taken at Port Arthur, 1874

Thomas Molineaux, per Isabella 2, Taken at Port Arthur, 1874

Sutherland, 29.5.83

John Finlay or Finelly, per P. Bomanjee, Taken at Port Arthur, 1874

CRIME FEARFULLY DEPICTED IN THEIR VISAGES

Australia’s convicts

Between 1788, when the first convicts arrived at Port Jackson, and 1868, when the last convict ship delivered convicts to Swan River in Western Australia, 160,023 souls were transported to Australia. The ferocity and the callousness of transportation and of the subsequent treatment of the transported is legendary, but three of the following excerpts give glimpses of improbable idealism and decency at work within the general ghastliness of the convict and penal systems.

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hen an ACT Labor government with humane inclinations commissioned the building of the territory’s own prison (it opened in 2008), it called it the Alexander Maconochie Centre after a remarkably liberal commander of the penal colony at Norfolk Island. Maconochie, his term at Norfolk Island commencing in 1840, had progressive views (still radically progressive-sounding in our own ‘tough-on-crime’ times) on penology. Colin Arrott Browning MD was an idealistic surgeon-superintendent of convict ships whose Christian idealism, though it sometimes sounds impossibly naive, seemed to survive and grow during his superintending

of ten convict-transporting voyages, eight of them from England to Australia. He believed that education of convicts in Christian things worked wonders. Part of his book, The Convict Ship, and England’s Exiles, describes his ‘system of instruction and government’ put into action by him as surgeon-superintendent on his fifth voyage. On that voyage he presided over 264 male convicts sailing aboard the Earl Grey from Plymouth for Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) in 1842. David Burn, a Tasmanian, was a Scottish-born playwright and his account of An Excursion to Port Arthur in 1842 is full of readably literary descriptions and flourishes. The Reverend Thomas Rogers began work as a chaplain on Norfolk Island in September of 1845 and so was there for the murderous convict ‘outbreak’ of 1846. Kindly and sensitive, he was sure that the rioters had been driven to riot by cruelty and hunger. Twelve of the convicted ringleaders were sentenced to death and they were hanged early one morning in two batches of six. Rogers helped two other clergymen preside at the gallows (where as the victims waited everyone present sang a hymn), but by then had been awake all of the previous night in the cell of three of those waiting to be executed. One of those he spent the night with was the former bushranger William Westwood or ‘Jackey Jackey’, and as Westwood left his cell for the gallows he pressed into Rogers’ hand the short autobiography that Rogers had urged Westwood to write.

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John Boyne (1750–1810) Landing at Botany Bay 1786

Alexander Maconochie beholds a sea of faces, 1840 I WAS appointed to the command of Norfolk Island. I arrived there on the 6th of March, 1840, and found the state of things certainly not better and in some respects even rather worse, than I had expected. 1400 doubly-convicted prisoners, the refuse of both penal colonies (for the worst offenders were sent here from Van Diemen’s Land as well as New South Wales), were rigorously coerced all day, and cooped up at night in barracks which could not decently accommodate half the number. In every way their feelings were habitually outraged, and their

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self-respect destroyed. They were required to cap each private soldier whom they met, and even each empty sentry box that they passed. If they met a superior officer they were to take off their caps altogether, and stand aside, bare-headed, in a ditch if necessary, and whatever the weather, till he passed, in most cases without taking the smallest notice of them. For the merest trifles they were flogged, ironed or confined in gaol on successive days on bread and water … The possession of a pipe, a newspaper, a little tea, some article of clothing not furnished by

the Government, or the omission of some mark of respect, or a saucy look, or word, or even an imputation of sullenness, were deemed unpardonable crimes. They were also fed more like hogs than men. Neither knives, nor forks, nor hardly any other conveniences were allowed at their tables. They tore their food with their fingers and teeth, and drank for the most part out of water-buckets … The Island had been fifteen years a penal settlement when I landed, yet not a single place of worship was erected on it. There were no schools, no books;

and the men’s countenances reflected faithfully this description of treatment. A more demoniacal looking assemblage could not be imagined, and nearly the most formidable sight I ever beheld was the sea of faces up-turned to me when I first addressed them. Yet, three years afterwards, I had the satisfaction of hearing Sir George Gipps ask me what I had done to make the men look so well? CAPTAIN ALEXANDER MACONOCHIE IN HIS NORFOLK ISLAND (1847)

Colin Browning sends 264 convicts to school, 1842 ON THE day immediately following that of their embarkation … the earliest opportunity was embraced to ascertain, by a close and personal examination, how the people stood as to their ability to read and write; and the following is the result: Read and write, 53; read only, 23; read a little, 65; know their letters, 45; ignorant even of the alphabet, 78. Therefore, in a very limited sense of the expression, there were found— educated 76; uneducated,

188. The prisoners were now formed into twenty four schools. Nothing could be more deeply interesting than the appearance which our decks now presented, above and below. All was order, life, and activity. The hum of the twenty-four schools, containing 264 pupils, from seventeen to fifty-eight years of age, had an effect upon my ear far surpassing that of the finest music. Wherever a school could be conveniently assembled, there the busy group were

to be seen surrounding the teacher, eagerly vying with each other in application and zeal … almost every countenance betrayed thoughtfulness and attention, and was soon lighted up with more or less hopeful animation … It is difficult to imagine any spectacle more impressive than that of 264 outcasts, consigned by the violated laws of their country to all the horrors of transportation, closely seated on the quarter-deck of a transport, under sail

to a remote quarter of the earth, with scarcely a hope ever again to tread their native shores, or to behold, in the flesh, those who are dearest to their hearts, and the ship’s company, the soldiers, their wives and children, all in their Sabbath-day’s costume, arranged in their proper places on deck, all seriously engaged in the worship of the Most High … COLIN ARROTT BROWNING MD IN HIS THE CONVICT SHIP, AND ENGLAND’S EXILES (1846)

William Redmore Bigg (1755–1828) Soldiers Boarding Prison Hulk c. 1800

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David Burn reads some eyes, 1842 NEXT day being Sunday, we proceeded after breakfast to see the convicts mustered prior to their being marched to church. They were drawn up in three lines, each gang forming a separate division—the overseers (convicts) taking their stations in the rear. It was hideous to remark the countenances of the men, to which their yellow raiment (or half black, half yellow), with P.A. [Port Arthur] and their respective numbers stamped in various parts, imparted a most sinister and most revolting expression. Scarcely one open set of features was to be found. To read their eyes, it seemed as though they were speculating chance of gain or advantage to be hoped from us. Crime and its consequences were fearfully depicted in their visages; and we turned from the disagreeable caricature of humanity with as much disgust as pity… [Later] The crew of H.M.S. Favourite were present;

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their frank, manly, jovial, countenances offering a striking contrast to the lowering aspects of the miserable yellow jackets. DAVID BURN IN HIS AN EXCURSION TO PORT ARTHUR IN 1842 (1898)

Convict Uniform between 1830 and 1849

Reverend Rogers shares the last night of three condemned men, 1846 [AT Norfolk Island] I passed the last night of his [Westwood’s] mortal life with him in his cell, in which two other men, also under sentence, were present. It was a night to be remembered. Sleep came not to the eyelids which were so soon to close for ever; nor drowsiness to men whose wakeful hearts were pondering on the dread mysterious secrets which the grave would unfold to them upon the morrow. Yet, although subdued, they were not dejected. They were even cheerful, and disposed for conversation … When the cell door was bolted on us, and the gaolyard locked down for the night, a painful stillness seemed to come down and gather round us with a stifling oppressiveness, and for a few minutes we all sat silent, as if listening for some sound or voice that might assure us of our proximity to living beings. We seemed as though entombed in a charnel house. But the only sound that came was the booming roar of the South Pacific Ocean hurling its massy waves upon the coral reefs, over which they tumbled and fell with a foaming crash along the narrow beach close to the prison walls, which vibrated with the concussion. From this short stupor the

chaplain gently recalled the men, inviting them to religious discourse and to acts of devotion until midnight. Free and friendly converse then ensued for a while, and the three doomed ones spoke of various passages in their penal life, mingling frequent, though not boisterous, laughter with many quaint and witty comments on their own and others’ doings or misdoings. About an hour after midnight our candles had burned low, and the task of lighting fresh new ones was undertaken by Truelock, the oldest of the three men. In performing this task some burning wick fell on the back of his hand, and the grimaces he made in his hurried efforts to dislodge it were so comical his colleagues laughed merrily at them … Another hour was then employed in prayers, and as these were ended Whiting, who was only 22 years of age, looked sharply up, to the grating over the cell door. We all turned our eyes in the same direction, and lo, the dull grey glimmer of a wintry dawn was faintly visible. It seemed to me as the eye of the angel of death grimly looking in upon his victims … While Westwood was still gazing upwards at the light, the garrison bugles sounded the reveille, which led the chaplain

Death of a Convict on the Hulk Justitia 1830s

to speak of the judgment trumpet, and then engaged once more in prayer. As this prayer ended the bell of the prisoners barracks hard by began to ring … ‘It is tolling for our funeral,’ said Truelock. ‘Aye,’ responded Whiting, ‘it’s our death knell.’ Shortly after the barracks bell had ceased its harsh jangle the footsteps of the turnkey were heard approaching. The bolt of our cell door was withdrawn, and a welcome sea breeze came whirling in upon us with its saline odours and refreshing chilliness. But something still more welcome soon entered. The chaplain’s wife and other ladies had sent down a basket well filled with cold fowl and ham and eggs, and well-buttered bread, and a can of coffee for the dying men’s last breakfast. Plates and mugs were soon filled and handed round to those for whom they were provided. Did not the thought

of the ropes dangling from the gallows erected within 20 yards of them spoil their appetite? Apparently it did not. In spite of rope, and heavy chains and coarse white cap, they ate with seeming relish, and even with jocularity. While I was handing an additional slice of ham to Whiting … he said, ‘What a pity it is, men, that we aren’t to be hanged every morning, if the ladies would only send us such jolly fine breakfasts,’ at which the ‘men’ laughed heartily, as they did at one or two other ludicrous trifles that occurred while eating their last meal on earth. Shortly after the repast was finished the sheriff came and ordered their chains to be struck off, so that they might ascend the ladder to the platform. FROM A BUSHRANGER’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY ‘PEUTETRE’ (THOMAS ROGERS) IN THE AUSTRALASIAN OF 1 FEBRUARY 1879

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Title page from Awful Execution of 17 Convicts … 1852

THEY WERE CRYING AND DID NOT WANT TO GO The massacre at Myall Creek, 1838

As a child Mary Gilmore became horribly aware, through the reminiscences of her grandfather and grandmother and others, of just how commonplace white massacres of black Australians had been in rural eastern Australia. [Of] the Clarence River massacres alone … I heard men who had left the coast in horror, say that the bodies, not in ones and twos, but in dozens for months floated down the current of the river … So dreadful was the recollection of it [the Clarence River massacres], at least to some white people, that two men at different times in my father’s employment when I was a girl, begged me not to question them any further as to what they had seen, as even after a lapse of so many years they could not bear to tell of it. But they told me that ‘No man hearing a child cry in the bush ever went near it for fear of what he would see.’

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ost atrocities went uninvestigated and unpunished but one massacre that was famously investigated and that then saw seven murderers tried and hanged was the Myall Creek killing of not less than 22 Aboriginal people in 1838.

In a despatch of 19 December 1838 to Colonial Secretary Lord Glenelg, Governor George Gipps reported the executions in Sydney of seven of the murderers and gave a summary of events. On the banks of the Big River there are several cattle stations besides that of Mr. Dangar, and it appeared at the trial that for some weeks previous to the 10th June, not less than 50 blacks, of all ages and sexes, had been living at these stations (but mostly at Mt Dangar’s) in perfect tranquility, neither molesting the whites nor being themselves molested by them … In consequence of some old quarrels, however, or possibly from accounts having reached the place of occurrences in other quarters, a determination seems to have been formed by the white men to put the whole of the blacks to death. Among the enclosures Gipps sent to Lord Glenelg with the 19 December despatch were copies of eyewitness evidence given in court by Dangar employees George Anderson and William Hobbs. Anderson was there when the Aborigines were taken away to their deaths and Hobbs, away at that time, went several days later to the massacre site.

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A frightened George Anderson sees the blacks led away I AM an assigned servant to Mr. Dangar; I was at his station at Myall Creek, as hut-keeper … While master was away, some men came on a Saturday … they came on horseback armed with muskets and swords and pistols; all were armed … this was about an hour and a half before sundown … The blacks, when they saw the men coming, ran to our hut, and the men then, all of them, got off their horses; and Russel had a rope, which goes around a horse’s neck, and began to undo it whilst the blacks were in the hut; while he was undoing it I asked what they were going to do with the blacks, and Russel said, ‘We are going to take them over the back of the range to frighten them.’ Russel and some one or two went in … I heard the crying of the blacks for relief or assistance to me and Kilmeister; they were moaning the same as a mother and children would cry; there were small things that could not walk; there were a good many small boys and girls. After they were tied, I saw

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Russel bring the end out of the rope they were tied with, and gave it one of the men on one of the horses … The party then went away with the blacks; the man who took the rope from Russel went in front, and the others behind; all the blacks were tied together, and this rope tied them all fast; they were tied with their hands; one black fellow had a pair of handcuffs; they were all fastened with one rope; it was a tether rope for horses in the field; it is a very long rope; they brought out the whole except two, that made their escape as the men were coming up; they were two little boys, and they jumped into the creek close to the hut … There was a little child at the back of the hut when they were tying the party, and when the blacks and party were going away, this little child, as I thought, was going to follow the party with its mother, but I took hold of it and put it into the hut, and stopt it from going … There was an old man, named Daddy, the oldest of

Australian Aborigines Slaughtered by Convicts illustration in Camden Pelham, The Chronicles of Crime …

the lot; he was called Old Daddy; he was an old, big, tall man; this Daddy and another old man named Joey, they never tied along with the rest; they were crying, and did not want to go; they made no resistance. Some of the children were not tied, others were; they followed the rest that were tied; the small ones, two or three, were not able to walk; the women carried them on their backs in opossum skins; the small children were not tied that followed the mob; they were crying in and out of the hut, till they got out of my hearing. They went up

towards the west from the hut, the road way … I was frightened … they were not in sight above a minute or so after they went away; about a quarter of an hour, or 20 minutes at the outside, I heard the report of two pieces, one after the other; the reports came from the same direction they went … GEORGE ANDERSON CITED IN GOVERNOR GIPPS’ DESPATCH OF 19 DECEMBER 1838

William Hobbs follows tracks made by naked feet

[ON THE EVENING of 15 June] Davy went with me, under half a mile, in a westerly direction. I saw horse tracks and black men’s tracks of naked feet. There had been a little rain, which made the impressions visible. The impressions were very numerous; there were children’s footsteps … The tracks of feet

were between the tracks of the horses, and the horse tracks were outside of the naked feet tracks. These tracks led me to where I found a number of dead bodies lying: there were a great number of bodies, but the stench was so great I could not count them with accuracy … I made out the least number above 20.

I can swear there were remains of above 20 human beings. I saw some bodies with flesh remaining; they were terribly disfigured. I could not tell how many. I knew Daddy well, he was an elderly man, very large; the largest man I ever saw in my life, either a white or black. I saw a large body there, but it had no head on. From the size I should imagine it was his … I saw the children’s heads quite distinct; from 10 to 12 small heads that I took to be children’s; also some of the children’s bodies … I saw several heads with the flesh on; I know none of the features ... I recognized some female and male heads. I saw

male heads with the hair not scorched. Where the fire had not burnt the hair off, the heads could be distinguished ... I saw several places all round where the ground had been stained with blood … The native dogs would lessen the number of remains every hour. There were a great many birds of prey at the bodies, eagles, hawks and crows. WILLIAM HOBBS CITED IN GOVERNOR GIPPS’ DESPATCH OF 19 DECEMBER 1838

left: Samuel Thomas Gill (1818– 1880) The Avengers c. 1860

below: Thomas John Domville Taylor (c. 1817–1889) Squatters Attack on an Aboriginal Camp, One Tree Hill, Queensland 1843

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Helena Forde (1832–1910) Christmas Card with Australian Wildflowers and a Butterfly c. 1881

DECK THE HALLS WITH BOUGHS OF CHRISTMAS BUSH Christmas in colonial Australia

Transplanted Britons have always found their first Christmas in hot Australia a surreal and homesickness-stoking experience. Louisa Anne Meredith, enduring her first antipodean Christmas in 1839, was charmed to see holly-impoverished locals harvesting red and green native shrubbery as a substitute for the holly of home.

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very Australian state has its own local, native ‘Christmas Bush’ species and in New South Wales it is the showy-in-December Ceratopetalum gummiferum. At Christmas 1888 The Town And Country Journal reported that no one dared grow the shrub in their Sydney gardens now because at times of great seasonal demand for it ‘ruthless larrikins’ knocked down fences and trampled on gardens to steal it to sell. Botanist J.H. Maiden noticed that even the shrub’s gum was pretty to see. By felling a tree and cutting it into logs there exudes a kino [gum] of exceptionally beautiful

appearance. It is of a rich ruby colour, perfectly transparent … it is exceedingly astringent, sticks to the teeth, and obviously contains a large proportion of gummy matter. Henry Lawson’s reminiscences of Australian bush Christmases of his childhood (in the 1870s) also include mention of halls being decked with native foliage. His ‘The Ghosts of Many Christmases’ (it is in the 1902 collection The Children of the Bush) was written either while he was in England (1900–1902) or very soon after his return, and describes briefly his inverted version of the Christmas homesickness suffered by Britons, like Mrs Meredith, finding themselves in the wrong place to enjoy a comfortingly familiar Christmas. Two of the ‘Ghosts’ of the essay/story are ghosts of a Christmas spent in England during which transplanted Australians like Lawson suffer ‘leaden skies that lie heavy on our souls’ and pine for Australian Christmases of ‘bright skies and suns overhead, and sweeps of country disappearing into the haze’. ‘Christmas in a London flat. Gloom and slush and soot. It is not the cold that affects us Australians so much, but the horrible gloom. We get heart-sick for the sun.’ This heart-sickness, this hankering for sun and light, was one of the reasons why the Lawsons came home from England in 1902.

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Mrs Meredith’s Sydney Christmas, 1839 FOR SOME days before Christmas, in our drives near the town, we used to meet numbers of persons carrying bundles of a beautiful native shrub, to decorate the houses, in the same manner that we use holly and evergreens at home. Men, women and children, white, brown and black, were in the trade; and sometimes a horse approached, so covered with the bowery load he bore, that

only his legs were visible, and led by a man nearly as much hidden; carts heaped up with the green and blossomed boughs came noddingly along, with children running beside them, decked out with sprays and garlands, laughing and shouting in proper Christmas jollity. I liked to see this attempt at the perpetuation of some of our ancient homely poetry of life … It seemed like a good

The Christmas Bush (Ceratopetalum gummiferum, Sm.) between 1895 and 1898

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Robert Bruce (engraver, active 1866–1886), Nicholas Chevalier (artist, 1828–1902) Christmas Morning in Australia 1869 opposite: Samuel Calvert (1828–1913) Gathering Wattle for Christmas c. 1873

healthy memory of home … The shrub chosen as the Sydney ‘Christmas’ is well worthy of the honour … It is a handsome, verdant shrub, growing from two to twelve or fifteen feet high, with leaves in shape like those of the horse-chestnut, but only two or three inches broad, with a dark green, polished upper surface … The flowers, which are irregularly star-shaped, come out in light terminal sprays, their chief peculiarity being, that they completely open whilst quite small, and of a greenish white colour; they then continue increasing in size, and gradually ripening in tint, becoming first a pearl white, then palest blush, then pink, rose-colour, and crimson: the constant change taking place in them, and the presence of all these hues at one time on a spray of half

a dozen flowers, has a singularly pretty appearance. The scent when freshly gathered is like that of newmown hay … The ‘Christmas dinner’ truly seemed to me a most odd and anomalous affair. Instead of having won a seasonable appetite by a brisk walk over the crisped snow, well muffled in warm winter garments, I had passed the miserable morning, half-dead with heat, on the sofa, attired in the coolest muslin dress I possessed, sipping lemonade or soda-water … and vainly watching the still, unruffled curtains of the open window for the first symptom of the afternoon sea-breeze. LOUISA ANNE MEREDITH, MRS CHARLES MEREDITH, IN HER NOTES AND SKETCHES OF NEW SOUTH WALES (1844)

Henry Lawson sees ghosts of Christmases past, 1870s

Samuel Calvert (engraver, 1828–1913), Thomas Selby Cousins (artist, 1840–1897) The Bushman’s Christmas Dream 1869

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CHRISTMAS on the Goldfields in the last of the Roaring Days, in the palmy days of Gulgong and those fields. Let’s see! It must be nearly thirty years ago! Oh! How the time goes by! Santa Claus, young, fresh-faced and eager; Santa Claus, blonde and flaxen; Santa Claus, dark; Santa Claus with a brogue and Santa Claus speaking broken English; Santa Claus as a Chinaman (Sun Tong Lee & Co., Storekeepers) with strange, delicious sweets that melted in our mouths and rum toys and Chinese dolls for the children. Lucky Diggers … Santa Claus in flannel shirt and clay-covered moleskins. Diggers who bought lollies by the pound and sent the little ones home with as much as they could carry. Diggers who gave a guinea or more for a toy for a child that reminded them of some child at home … [Diggers] who set a family of poor children side by side on the counter and called for a box of mixed children’s boots—the best—and fitted them with great care and anxiety and frequent inquiries as to whether they pinched. Who stood littler girls and boys on the counter and called for the most expensive frocks, the latest and best in sailor suits, and the brightest ribbons …

Livingston Hopkins (1846–1927) The Average Australian Christmas c. 1900

Ah, the wild generosity of luck-intoxicated diggers of those days! And the reckless generosity of the drinkers. ‘We thought it was going to last forever!’ ‘If I don’t spend it on the bairns I’ll spend it on the drink,’ Sandy Burns used to say. ‘I ha’ nane o’ me own, an’ the lass [back home in Scotland who had eventually married someone else] who was to give me bairns, she couldn’t wait.’ … Christmas at Eurunderee Creek, amongst the old

selection farms in the western spurs of the Blue Mountains … They make plum-puddings yet, weeks beforehand, and boil them for hours and hang them in cloths to the rafters to petrify; then they take them down and boil them again. On Christmas Eve the boys cut boughs or young pines on the hills, and drag them home and lash them to the verandah posts … [Christmas Day] In the morning the boys and some of the men go down to the

Edward Roper (c. 1830–1904) Christmas in the Colonies, a Christmas Dinner at the Diggings 1860s

creek for a swim in the big shady pool under the she-oaks, and take their Sunday clothes with them and dress there … The family sit down to dinner. ‘An old mate of your father’s’—a bearded old digger—has arrived and takes the place of honour … the dinner—of hot roast and red-hot plum-pudding — passes off fairly well. The men sleep the afternoon away and wake up bathed in perspiration and helpless; some of the

women have headaches. After tea they gather on the verandah in the cool of the evening, and that’s the time when the best sides of their natures and the best parts of the past have a chance of coming uppermost, and perhaps they begin to feel a bit sorry that they are going to part again. HENRY LAWSON IN HIS ‘THE GHOSTS OF MANY CHRISTMASES’ IN THE CHILDREN OF THE BUSH (1902)

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Adam Forster (1848–1928) Ranunculus lappaceus, New South Wales between 1916 and 1919

BEHOLD A FLOWER FROM MOUNT KOSCIUSZKO

Europeans reach the highest place in the continent, 1840 On 12 March 1840, fortified by a lyre-bird supper the night before, Paul Edmund de Strzelecki, the Polish explorer and scientist, and James Macarthur became probably the first Europeans to climb to Australia’s most elevated place. Strzelecki then and there named the mountain Kosciuszko after the Polish democratic leader and national hero Tadeusz Kosciuszko. The peak was well above the treeline but there were wildflowers blooming up there and Strzelecki picked a flower and later sent it in a letter to his beloved, Adyna Turno. ‘Behold a flower from Mount Kosciuszko,’ he wrote. ‘It is the highest peak in the continent, the first in the New World bearing a Polish name. I believe that you will be the first Polish woman to have a flower from that mountain. Let it remind you ever of freedom, patriotism and love.’

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James Macarthur climbs up and up through flying mist

Paul Edmund de Strzelecki (1797–1873) Map of New South Wales & Van Diemen Land 1845

11 March 1840

COUNT Strzelecki, myself and two natives started at 7 a.m. in high spirits to accomplish our object. The weather intensely hot we marched on with our blankets and provisions ‘au militaire’. The Count carried in addition a heavy case of instruments for scientific observations … The thermometer ranging upwards of 90F during the day we determined after refreshing ourselves to accomplish as much of the ascent as we could during the cooler hours of the night, and only camped when the bright moonlight failed us. A fine lyre-bird furnished an ample supper and consoled us for the want of water. The early dawn of the 12th found us again on our way, and after five hours of tedious ascent we reached a small open spot. A fine spring afforded us the means of making a hearty breakfast … The

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spot we had now reached was the favourite camping ground of the natives during their annual visits to feast on the Boogan Moth. Traces of their camps were everywhere in all directions … Being on the margin of the timber we determined to leave our blankets etc. calculating that we would descend to this spot after accomplishing our object. Pushing through first a belt of thick brush wood and secondly a belt of dead timber we reached the open summit clothed with a peculiar gigantic grass called by the natives ‘Monnong’ it is from 2 to 3 feet high— bright green and succulent. It was very difficult to travel through. Flying mist occasionally enveloped us accompanied by a keen freezing air. After two hours of toilsome ascent we found ourselves still far from the highest point … Strzelecki and I then proceeded

towards the extreme summit which we reached after a very laborious climb—the air was bitterly cold. We found the actual summit divided into six or more points. The Count by aid of his instruments quickly detected one of these as being in fact considerably higher than where we stood. A deep ravine separated us from this. He determined to reach it. As the day was far advanced I thought it more prudent to return towards the point where I had ordered the natives to wait our return. Before leaving the Count he told me of his intention of recording his visit to the highest point in Australia by associating the name of Kosciuszko with our successful ascent. I could not but respect and feel deep sympathy with my friend when with his hat off he named the Patriot of his Country. Parting on the summit I commenced my

descent, leisurely enjoying the ample supply of fine water cress that abounded in every crevice in the rocks. The beautiful flowers then in full bloom afforded me great pleasure … The air after night fall was alive with the Boogan Moths causing a deep sounding humming noise in character like that of a gigantic beehive. On the most shaded side of the mountain there was still an extensive patch of snow, judged by my friend to be perpetual as it was more or less stained by the decay of vegetation … On the 13th we made a rapid descent to the camp where we had left our horses. On the 14th the Count was engaged in completing and verifying his observations. He fixed the height he had reached as 7,800 feet. FROM JAMES MACARTHUR’S FIELD-BOOK OF A JOURNEY TO GIPPSLAND, 9–14 MARCH 1840

Eugene von Guerard (1811–1901) North-East View from the Top of Mount Kosciusko, New South Wales 1867

Eugene von Guerard (1811–1901) Mount Kosciusko, from the North-West 1897

Frank Hurley (1885–1962) Gathering Storm over Kosciusko from Guthrie between 1910 and 1962

Reaching the summit remunerates Strzelecki’s fatigue CONSPICUOUSLY elevated above all the heights hitherto noticed in this cursory view [Strzelecki has been describing the Australian Alps], and swollen by many ragged protuberances, the snowy and craggy sienitic cone [sienite is a kind of rock] of Mount Kosciuszko is seen cresting the Australian Alps, in all the sublimity of mountain scenery … the view from its summit sweeps over 7000 square miles …

Mount Kosciuszko is one of those few elevations, the ascent of which, far from disappointing, presents the traveller with all that can remunerate fatigue. In the north-eastward view, the eye is carried as far back as the Shoalhaven Country, the ridges of all the spurs of Moneiro [today’s Monaro] and Twofold Bay, as well as those which, to the westward, inclose the tributaries of the Murrumbidgee … Beneath the feet, looking

from the very verge of the cone downwards almost perpendicularly, the eye plunges into a fearful gorge 3000 feet deep, in the bed of which the sources of the Murray gather their contents, and roll their united waters to the west. To follow the course of that river from this gorge into its farther windings, is to pass from the sublime to the beautiful. The valley of the Murray, as it extends beneath the traveller’s feet,

with the peaks Corunal, Dargal, Mundiar and Tumbarumba, crowning the spur which separates it from the valley of the Murrumbidgee, displays beauties to be compared only to those seen among the valleys of the [European] Alps. PAUL EDMUND DE STRZELECKI IN HIS PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF NEW SOUTH WALES AND VAN DIEMEN’S LAND (1845)

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Richard Peele The Comet as Seen at Sea on Board H.C.S.V. Victoria, March 1843

THESE STUPENDOUS VISITORS

The Great Comet of 1843 and Donati’s Comet of 1858 Today we’re given notice of coming comets and we’re told, as each arrives on schedule, which comet it is and when (if ever) it was last seen. But when the comets of 1843 and 1858 shimmered into view they were unannounced and so were startling and mysterious. Had they ever been seen before? In 1858 a Melbourne poet speculated that the comet they were seeing might long ago have been seen by a wondering Adam.

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he Great Comet of 1843 may have been the largest and brightest ever seen by humans. It was so enormous and so enormously bright that it could be seen in daylight, although of course it was seen at its blazing best at night. Its very straight ‘tail’ was perhaps 480 million kilometres long, the longest known. The 1843 comet was what’s called a ‘sun grazer’ and almost grazed the sun’s cheek by coming perhaps as close as 160,000 kilometres to it. The sight of it stoked superstitions in both black and white Australians. The astronomer and firmament aficionado Patrick Moore thinks that Donati’s Comet of 1858 was ‘possibly the most beautiful ever seen, because of its wonderfully curved main tail and its two shorter ones’. He says that ‘Its real claim to fame, apart from its beauty, is that obvious disturbances’ caused by ‘masses of brilliant matter’ took place in its tail. Watching from Melbourne with a state-of-the-art observatory telescope, a thrilled Ludwig Becker saw some of this brilliant matter pulsating in the comet’s elegant tail.

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The comet creates intense alarm, 1843 THE natives of Australia … are very superstitious. Comets are their peculiar aversion. The first night the great comet of 1843 appeared, there was dreadful consternation among the Australian tribes. A large number were encamped close to the station where I resided, and I remember the intense alarm it created—different spokesmen gesticulated and speechified far into the night; but as the comet still remained, and all their endeavours to explain the unusual appearance were fruitless, they broke up their camp in the middle of the night—the only time I ever remember it being done—and crossed the river, where they remained huddled up together until morning. Their opinion was that the comet had been caused by and sent by the Ovens blacks to do them some direful harm. They left the station and did not return until the comet had disappeared. ALBERT A.C. LE SOUEFF IN R.B. SMYTH’S THE ABORIGINES OF VICTORIA (1878)

Walter Synnot (1773–1851) Sketch of a Comet... 1843

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The Merediths set up their instruments, 1843 THE sudden appearance of the comet of this year (1843) which we first saw on the 5th of March, was a glorious incident in our somewhat monotonous life here … this stupendous visitant gave them [our thoughts] for a time, a loftier impetus. Mr Meredith determined to measure the apparent length of the comet subtended on the sky, although we did not possess a single fit instrument for such a purpose [and so] firstly, there was made, with all possible accuracy, a ‘cross staff’ and plummet, and thus we proceeded to work:—At night, and when the comet was brightest, with the nucleus just above the mountain tier, we ‘set up our instruments’ (i.e., laid them on a chair, on the lawn) … When my better and cleverer half had fairly shot the nucleus, at which he took deliberate and deadly aim with the crossstaff, I brought the lantern to bear on the latter, and marked with a pencil where the thread of the plummet fell; ascertaining the altitude of the extremity of the tail in like learned and scientific manner … The

popular responsibilities of comets in general are known to be heavy and various, and this being a comet of such vast and startling dimensions, had naturally a great deal to answer for with some of the simple people around us ... if the hens ceased laying the comet had frightened them; if an apple tree died, the comet had blighted it;— and whatever domestic accident occurred it ‘was all along of that comet!’ To us its rapid progress was a source of great interest; night after night we traced it, changing its direction, and traversing one constellation after another, waning in brightness as it receded, until first a doubt arose whether we could discern it, and then came the reluctantly-acknowledged certainty

that we could not. We felt as if some friend and companion, who had for a while spoken to us, with stirring eloquence, of the glory of Nature, and of Nature’s GOD, had departed from beside us.

Mary Morton Allport (1806– 1895) Comet of March 1843 Seen from Aldridge Lodge V.D. Land c. 1843

LOUISA ANNE MEREDITH IN HER MY HOME IN TASMANIA (1852)

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Donati’s Comet takes Melbourne by surprise, 1858 DONATI’S Comet was first seen at Melbourne a little before seven o’clock on the evening of 11 October, 1858. Previously to that date the sky had been clouded for several days, and as it was not known then, on our side of the globe, that a Comet, visible to the naked eye, was near us, its appearance surprised every one who noted the beauty of the evening of the 11th of October. The silvery twilight near the horizon formed the base of a well-developed zodiacal light, the pink-colored upper part of which

reached the deep indigo of an almost tropical evening sky. The young moon stood, like a key-stone, on the top of the pointed arch of the zodiacal-light; and close to her, in her greatest brightness, Venus and the fiery Antares. Looking at that splendid constellation, the observer perceived, nearly due west, a streak of light like a small, lonely cloud. There it stood, motionless, its luminosity slowly increasing—and before a minute of time had passed on, the cry was heard:—‘A Comet, lo! A Comet!’

[Using a sophisticated telescope Becker watched the Comet at night for a month from Melbourne’s Flagstaff Hill Observatory, making detailed drawings of the Comet’s anatomy.] October 12 … The Comet in its fullest light at about 7h. 37m. Nucleus of an oval shape, more convex on that part which faces the sun, less so on the opposite side; of a dull, pale-yellowish color; apparent diameter of nucleus, about one third of the diameter of Venus. In front of nucleus, and touching the same, is a band of

Ludwig Becker (c. 1808–1861) Observational Views of Donati’s Comet, 1858, 1, 3 and 4

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light, which, turning round on each side and backwards, enters the tail. In front of that band of light is a less defined and less intense layer of luminous matter, which is united with the former, and likewise entered the tail … The last third of the tail is filled with light … LUDWIG BECKER IN HIS OBSERVATIONS ON DONATI’S COMET, MADE BETWEEN OCTOBER 12TH AND NOVEMBER 12TH (1859)

Ludwig Becker (c. 1808–1861) Donati’s Comet over Flagstaff Hill Observatory, Melbourne, 11 October 1858

Donati’s Comet ducks out of sight Ode to the Comet

Wonderful stranger, healthy, fresh and fiery You’ve on us bounced Quite unannounced, By any sort of almanac or diary. Where have ye been These last three centuries—upon the spin? ... How long have you been tearing Through boundless space, incontinently scaring Whole worlds in your sky-rockety career? Most venerable comet, Sir or Madam, ’Tis not absurd To think you might have stirred Some speculation in the soul of Adam.

Respecting you, my incandescent stranger, Whether you heralded good luck or danger. Pray did our great forefather make remarks About your vast expenditure of sparks, Your most amazing, Continuous prodigality of blazing? ... This Wednesday night You don’t seem right, You look so miserably dull and dowdy, It makes us sympathetically cloudy— ’Tis quite inscrutable, Oh! All ye muses!

Just as our fevered inclination chooses To write some verses spirited and suitable, And the nine powers Declare them ours, From gentle Clio up to Polyhymny— There falls a blow, A dreadful go— That blessed comet’s gone behind a chimney! AN ANONYMOUS POET IN MELBOURNE’S PUNCH OF 14 OCTOBER 1858

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The long, long sea voyages of those who came to Australia in wooden ships involved experiences so alien to us (today great aeroplanes whisk us across those distances) that every good eyewitness description of one of those voyages reads like engrossing fiction. No passengers any longer cross those sorts of distances by sea and a twenty-first century Australian’s best chance of feeling salt spray on his or her face (and what an exhilarating experience it is, perhaps because of its authentic nineteenth-century feel) is for that exciting oppositethe-Heads ten minutes on the 31-minute ferry voyage between Circular Quay and Manly on a day when a great swell stampedes in through Sydney Heads.

Augustus Earle (1793–1838) Scudding Before a Heavy Westerly Gale off the Cape, Lat. 44 Deg. 1824

TRESPASSING THROUGH EXTRAVAGANT SEA-REALMS

Victorian-era sea voyages to Australia

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n his poem ‘The First-Comers’ Hal Porter imagined himself as a nineteenth-century migrant from Scotland to Australia in a vessel ‘trespassing through extravagant sea-realms’. Today we trespass through extravagant airrealms to travel to and from Australia and the traveller’s experience is transformed. The greatest of the transforming agents is the different time taken. On the long but relatively brisk flights from Europe to Australia there’s seldom time for births, deaths and brand-new dalliances and certainly not the time or opportunity to feel part of some kind of temporary community, let alone a temporary village. We’re not aloft long enough to suffer torturous ennui, and because air is so benign a medium (by comparison with the moody deep) any turbulence we meet doesn’t fling us about and doesn’t last for long. But Victorian-era seafarers really did live, for the weeks of their voyage, in a seagoing village (or parish). There were births and deaths (and so, of course, funerals) and there were dalliances and interactions of all kinds, becoming and unbecoming. On some voyages the sense of villageness or parishness was increased by there being a necessarily ‘local’ newspaper, usually a weekly, produced and distributed on board and dealing, necessarily, with ‘local’ news. Thomas Baines hand wrote (the quality of his handwriting determined by the state of the seas) and illustrated a weekly on a voyage in 1855. He did it, he said, to help him and his fellow passengers fight ‘That formidable foe ennui’. Hal Porter’s poem is an evocative imagining of a long voyage in which there was both extreme ennui and

extreme terror. Horribly, tediously becalmed in the tropics, rats as big as tabby cats came out and ‘basked’ on the decks. Then, in storms, ‘liquid alps sheered up, steep tons to crash/On the abyss-bound, lightning-skewered ship … ’. A migrants’ vessel was a seagoing village and the Reverend John Mereweather chose to make his migrant ship his ‘parish’ too for his voyage in 1850. Curmudgeonly and judgmental (he wrote that lots of the free migrants aboard were morally and intellectually inferior to convicts), he kept a diary while at sea for almost 140 days before the arrival at Adelaide on 15 June. His was a turbulent parish. ‘This long voyage has a most demoralizing tendency on all,’ he growled on 23 May as all around him he saw health and morals decomposing. William Strutt brought an artist’s eye for detail to his description of his voyage of migration to Australia in 1850 aboard the Culloden. Before sailing from England to Australia in 1852 aboard the Havering, John Hindmarsh promised a beloved aunt that he’d write and send to her an account of his voyage. The aunt had to wait quite some time but it’s highly likely she felt the wait worthwhile when, probably in 1856, she received her nephew’s Scenes during a Passage from England to Australia. The exquisite, velvet-bound object tells in verse the story of his voyage and illustrates the saga with his own miniature watercolour paintings. Keith Cameron produced a weekly newspaper, The Gull, aboard the Otago during a fourth-month voyage from Glasgow to Brisbane in 1884.

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Reverend Mereweather sees a liquid mountain, 1850 MARCH 15TH. At night the sea around the ship seemed a mass of fire, presenting a spectacle most wonderful to see. The cause of this phosphoric phenomenon does not seem to be exactly known … We seemed [to be] floating over an abyss of liquid flame in never ceasing motion, whilst the monsters of the deep, as they rushed past the ship, had the appearance of being garbed with fire … March18th Remonstrated with a female emigrant, an unmarried person, on her flirting propensities … March 19th.—Very hot … The emigrants began at sun down to dance country dances to the sound of a flute and violin. No grace in their movements—no picturesqueness in their costume, and a rudeness rather than a heartiness in their merriment. During the whole of the voyage I saw only two groups worthy of sketching. One was a young mother and her two children; the other three or four men listening to another reading aloud. Out of the mass of human beings on board there was not one person, man, woman, or child, who would have been considered interesting either by the artist, or the lover of the beautiful … [they were] but a mob of sturdy Anglo-Saxons, hungrily inclined, flying from a country where beef

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Edward Charles Moore Warm Reception that Ye First Albatross Met with 1854

and mutton is seven pence a pound, to one where it is only three halfpence. April 24th—In the afternoon an albatross was caught by means of a hook baited with pork—the usual mode of catching these birds. The moment it was hauled on the poop, its beak was held tight to stop it from vomiting over this sacred part of the vessel, as Captains consider it. It measured ten feet between the tips of its wings, and although it looked very large in its feathers, yet when skinned, it was not much bigger than a large goose. When washed and quartered ready for stewing,

it was like rabbit, and resembled rabbit in taste. April 29th—One of the women on board brought a giant baby into the world weighing ten pounds and three quarters. Both are doing well … April 30th—Saw the beef weighed out to the emigrants. It looks vile carrion. May 4th—About five P.M. one of the ship’s apprentices, a fine and good lad, the son of a widow, was hurled from the mizzen mast into the sea by a very heavy roll of the ship. [Feverish and brave attempts to rescue him all failed] … I caught one glance of the poor lad

after he fell from the ship; with one hand he was striking out, with the other he was endeavouring to scare away the foul birds of prey which were swooping over his head with their heavy wings. His haggard looks were directed with terrible despair towards the ship and those standing on the poop; a liquid mountain then rolled over him, and concealed him for ever from our view. REVEREND JOHN MEREWEATHER IN HIS LIFE ON BOARD AN EMIGRANT SHIP: BEING A DIARY OF A VOYAGE TO AUSTRALIA (1852)

William Strutt sees a resolute look on his captain’s face, 1850 [AT SEA another vessel stayed quite close to Strutt’s vessel, the Culloden, but wouldn’t get into conversation with it.] He [the captain of the Culloden] therefore thought it prudent to prepare the passengers and emigrants for a possible encounter and arm them. There were, as it happened, in the vessel a considerable number of muskets, pistols, cutlasses and boarding pikes. The passengers and emigrants were then armed … [and] he was, moreover, so fully convinced that mischief was brewing and [so] in earnest in preparing for

the worst, that he gave particular directions to a very powerful man, a sturdy butcher we had amongst the emigrants, that in case a boat approached the ship to board us, he was to watch his opportunity and drop a very heavy grindstone into it, and send it to the bottom. ‘Wait,’ he said, ‘till she comes quite alongside, and then drop it plump into her, and that will settle her and all in her.’ I remember to this day the resolute look of the Captain and the big butcher taking up the huge grindstone, testing its weight and looking not at all displeased at the

prospective job … Happily a delightful breeze sprung up in the night, and there was no further need of nursing our doubts and fears, … The uncanny ship had slipped off in the darkness of the night and now we could breathe freely. But it was lucky for us that nothing in the shape of an attack did happen, for none of the armed passengers and emigrants had any experience in the use of swords and pikes; and probably few had even fired off a gun. Indeed it was fortunate no accidents happened. One young fellow I saw, sitting fast asleep,

with the butt of his loaded rifle on the deck, between his feet, and the muzzle just under his chin! WILLIAM STRUTT IN HIS UNPUBLISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHY OFF FOR AUSTRALIA: EMIGRATION EVERY BODY, AND EVERY THING, NOW, ALL IS NEW

Charles Joseph Staniland (1838–1916) Emigrants Going to Australia 1880s

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John Hindmarsh hears ‘Sail ho!’ on Christmas Day, 1852 XIX. Christmas Day at Sea.

Christmas Day, is herald in They speed and hurry with weather clear and fine, onwards—now seen—now lost to sight The sea’s blue waves Within the mighty waters—now reflecting beneath the mounting with the swell bright sunshine … Still hurrying quickly onwards The day rolls quickly onwards each stroke doth bravely tell at Noon we greet the Sound We see them make the vessel Of ‘Sail ho’ on the Starboard remain there some half hour bow, and looks she And then we see them homeward bound. leaving.—And as by Magic The sturdy helmsman’s power ordered for this strange sail The Barque spreads out her to steer canvas, and bending ’neath And within a few minutes we each sail bring the vessel near. Speeds on her homeward She proves an homeward journey Old England soon to bounder; we hasten down hail below Our Vessel’s Boat doth near us To add to former letters to let each one does lend a hand our dear Friends know And every soul on Shipboard The latitude, etcetera,—of does by the gangway stand course all is confusion And gladly do we welcome each, And midst it all, each letter, as he steps on board meets with a quick And list with ears most anxious conclusion to news which each afford Our letters sealed and posted, How that the said good vessel, we walk away to view was the Barque ‘Alexander’ The Stranger Friend that nears Bound from Peru to Liverpool so us as thro’ the waters blue said her kind commander She rolls and plunges forward, Australia still was yielding a our gallant ship to meet rich supply of gold To hail us on the Ocean with Title page from J.H.S. Hindmarsh’s Scenes during And some had made their golden News to greet. a Passage from England to Australia 1856 fortune and many in wealth The Barque we come abreast of:— roll’d both ships are now lain to, All eyes and ears were opened The ‘Havering’s’ gig is lowered, sweet thoughts of future sown the Captain and a few And cherished Hopes were Embark with some small strengthened, all fears and presents, and soon the doubts o’erthrown … painter clear Set off upon their mission, filling each soul with fear The Day is quickly closing we cast a look astern As thro’ the heaving billows in their frail boat so slight Our Christmas Day Companion we hardly can discern …

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XXV. Storm.

A tempest high is raging an hurricane does blow We’re filled with anxious wonder,—we to the deck ascend To view the roaring tempest and to our hold depend A wondrous Scene’s presented exciting awe and fear Each Element majestic in furious strife appear The Wind, the Sky, the Waters each one contending fierce … And now illumination, spreads o’er the darken’d sky The lightning’s vivid flashes darts forth o’er all on high And next the wrathful thunder in dreadful tone peals forth So grand and so majestic, so solemn in its wrath. And next the Sea, exulting, rejoicing in her force Delighting in her Language pursues her mighty course Each wave in madness rising crowned by the foaming white Rolls on its fearless journey dashes on with dreaded might And midst this grand confusion Our Gallant Vessel braves The elements tempestuous, the stormy winds and waves, Now sinking in each abyss and covered with the froth Now rising with the waters regardless of its wrath …

XXXVI. Moonrise.

And silent darkness reigneth—Towards the East we turn Where light is softly breaking, where silvery clouds return For yonder comes in beauty, the lovely Queen of Night Appearing in her fullness, amidst the starry height. Along the mighty waters, her silvery path is spread Her beauteous footsteps beaming her light so softly shed She treads upon the Ocean, she smiles on every wave And passes o’er in silence many a brave one’s grave … J.H.S. HINDMARSH IN HIS SCENES DURING A PASSAGE FROM ENGLAND TO AUSTRALIA (1856)

Illustrations in J.H.S. Hindmarsh’s Scenes during a Passage from England to Australia 1856

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Keith Cameron sees dear little Daniel Robertson buried at sea, 12 May 1884

Thomas Baines (1820–1875) The Clipper Ship Blue Jacket 2700 Tons, Captn. Underwood, Passing an Iceberg lat. 49 South, on Her Voyage to Australia 1855

[THE Brisbane-bound Otago saw land, Cape Otway, on Sunday, 11 May.] Monday, 12th May, we were fairly in the Straits, land all around us, and many eager eyes turned shorewards to gaze for the first time for months on trees and cliffs and houses … Again on this day the silent messenger of God visited us at ten minutes to six in the evening, and bore away the spirit of dear little Daniel Robertson. The little fellow, who was about two years of age, died of

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congestion of the brain. At 2 a.m. on Tuesday, the 13th, the report spread like wildfire that a fair wind had come, and we were about to pass out of the Straits. In a few moments the passengers swarmed on the deck, although so early, and were well rewarded by the magnificent sight awaiting them. There on the left was the fine headland of Cape Liptrap, and on our right the towering walls of the Rodondo, an enormous rock … At 6.30 a.m. the faces so recently smiling in

gladness, because of our passage out of the Straits, grew strangely sad and overcast when they witnessed the preparations being made for consigning to the deep the remains of Daniel Robertson … And when the beautiful words of the burial service fell on our listening ears, and we saw the tiny shrouded form going down to endless rest in the heart of the beautiful sea, the faces of the women, gathered in a mournful group, were wet with tears, and the little girls present

were sobbing bitterly. I shall never forget the scene as long as I live. The sun was rising in gorgeous magnificence at the time of the burial, and we were sailing direct towards it. The glorious gates of the eastern sky were opening wide to usher through God’s radiant life giving orb of beauty and light, whilst away behind us rolled great banks of cloud of every tinge in black and white and grey, adding still more to the charm of the gleaming golden sky in front of us. The whole scene resembled, to my mind, as we sailed onwards, what one could imagine the flight from Hades to Paradise would be like, and it seemed as if the jewelled portals of Heaven were thrown open and angels awaiting there to welcome in the guileless spirit of the baby boy whose body we were leaving behind us in the great stretching waste of water and gloom. Another jewel to the Saviour’s crown. Baby Daniel was a favourite with everybody on board … I am sure that none of our passengers will ever forget the sunny golden curls and sweet face of the dear child … KEITH CAMERON IN HIS THE GULL (1884)

John Hunter (1737–1821) Porpoise c. 1790

Mark Twain sees a once-in-a-lifetime show, 15 September 1895 SEPTEMBER 15—Night. Close to Australia now … The passengers were sent for, to come up in the bow and see a fine sight. It was very dark. One could not follow with the eye the surface of the sea more than fifty yards in any direction—it dimmed away and became lost to sight at about that distance from us. But if you patiently gazed into the darkness a little while, there was a sure reward for you. Presently, a quarter of a mile away you would see a blinding splash or explosion of light on the water—a flash so sudden and so astonishingly brilliant that it would make you catch your breath;

then that blotch of light would instantly expand itself and take the corkscrew shape and imposing length of the fabled sea-serpent, with every curve of its body and the ‘break’ spreading away from the head, and the wake following behind its tail clothed in a fierce splendor of living fire. And my, but it was coming at a lightning gait! Almost before you could think, this monster of light, fifty feet long, would go flaming and storming by, and suddenly disappear. And out in the distance whence he came you would see another flash; and another and another and another, and see them

turn into sea-serpents on the instant; and once sixteen flashed up at the same time and came tearing towards us, a swarm of wiggling curves, a moving conflagration, a vision of bewildering beauty, a spectacle of fire and energy whose equal the most of those people will not see again until after they are dead. It was porpoises—porpoises aglow with phosphorescent light. They presently collected in a wild and magnificent jumble under the bows, and there they played for an hour, leaping and frolicking and carrying on, turning somersaults in front of the stem or across it

and never getting hit, never making a miscalculation … They were porpoises of the ordinary length—eight or ten feet—but every twist of their bodies sent a long procession of united and glowing curves astern. The fiery jumble was an enchanting thing to look at, and we stayed out the performance; one cannot have such a show as that twice in a lifetime. MARK TWAIN IN HIS FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR: A JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD (1897)

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Samuel Thomas Gill (1818–1880) Prospecting 1864

GOLD! DELIRIOUSLY PANTING FOR THE PRECIOUS METAL

A gold rush in 1852 and a descent into an Aladdin’s Cave in 1895

The Victorian gold rushes of 1851 and 1852 drained Melbourne of most of its able-bodied men. Those men rushed away to Bendigo and Ballarat. In his The Rush that Never Ended Geoffrey Blainey describes how Melbourne’s police force shrank dramatically, how ships were marooned in Port Phillip Bay because they had no crews (and how ships that came right into port were deserted by men who joined the rush) and how preachers in pulpits found themselves denouncing avarice to congregations with no men in them because those men, having given in to avarice, were at the goldfields. In Melbourne the English artist and draughtsman William Strutt at last gave in himself to gold’s delirium and joined the rush. Because he had such acute senses and was so sensitive to the ugliness of rush fever (he painted and wrote about its human and animal casualties) his painted and written account of the rush he joined seems especially vivid.

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nd we see from the composition of his own expedition (‘a young chaplain, an architect, an artist, four carpenters and builders, a tailor, a grocer, two grooms’) and from his meeting a gold-hungry dentist on the road, how the gold fever sucked away from Melbourne men of all callings. The sheer virulence of the gold fever seems bewildering now, but Blainey explains that then Gold had a magnetism which the welfare state has dulled. To win gold was the only honest chance millions of people had of bettering themselves, of gaining independence, of storing money for old age or sickness, of teaching their children to read and write. In 1895 Julius M. Price, Special Artist Correspondent of the Illustrated London News, visited the Western Australian goldfields and on 16 August went to the Hannan’s Brownhill mines at what is now Kalgoorlie. The manager took a nervous but enthralled Price deeply, dangerously underground to see where a solitary miner was working for slight wages in a spot so rich that the mine’s manager called it ‘a very Bank of England in itself’.

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Samuel Thomas Gill (1818–1880) The New Rush 1864

William Strutt’s motley company rushes to Ballarat, 1852 [SOON after news of discoveries of gold at Ballarat] The sober Melbournites became dizzy, and a veritable gold fever of great virulence seized the population … It was in February 1852, when all ordinary work became pretty nearly suspended in town, that I too felt compelled to follow the

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tide … Well, being about to become a gold digger, I thought it wise to assume the digger’s simple and comfortable dress consisting of a serge shirt, canvas or moleskin trousers, loose necktie and cabbage tree hat. Nevertheless, a first rate work-a-day costume, in which, of course, I became

almost unrecognisable to my friends in town. But before leading my readers out into the bush I ought to describe our motley company … We had then a young chaplain, an architect, an artist, four carpenters and builders, a tailor, a grocer, two grooms and the wife of one of these, an invaluable

personage, she being the cook of the party … Our conveyance was simply to carry our effects, a bullock dray, two very intelligent and steady men for drivers, and a splendid team of six stout, serviceable oxen, for the roads, being only mere tracks, horses were unsuitable …

Our dray on leaving Melbourne and passing through Flemington soon got into the digging track … [we] overtook on the roads a Melbourne dentist who, with some adventurous friends, was going to try his luck at the Australian Ophir. Not to extract teeth but nuggets from the soil … [Arriving at Golden Point on the Ballarat diggings] Here indeed was an extraordinary sight. A piece of ground about two or three acres in extent sloping gently down towards a moderate sized creek, was perfectly honeycombed with holes; some just beginning to be dug, but in most of them diggers were deep down below getting out the auriferous soil, which others above were hauling up in buckets to carry in barrows to the cradles where this washing stuff, as it was called, was most thoroughly washed at the side of the creek by being rocked to and fro in the sieve which falls through to be collected from the bottom of the cradle. The creek was lined as thick as it could be packed. Every claim holder had a right to a space in front of the running stream where his cradle stood … This cradling by thousands of men simultaneously moving to and fro, rock, rock, rock, produced a noise like low rumbling thunder and was heard for a long distance—aye, miles, before reaching the diggings … The whole field of operations reminded one of a huge

Thomas Ham (1821–1870) Commissioner’s Tent, Ballaarat Goldfields 1854

ant hill, just disturbed, with the distressed insects hurrying about hither and thither to set things in order once more … The first paroxysm of the Gold Fever was soon over. While it lasted, however, it seemed as if the whole settlement was deliriously panting for the precious metal. The road from the capital [Melbourne] to Ballarat was thronged with vehicles of all descriptions. Many broke down on the way; the poor beasts of burden willingly pulled at their heavy loads till, when utterly exhausted they could pull no longer, just sunk down and died on the road, when their carcasses were dragged a few paces from the main thoroughfare and there left to poison the atmosphere for

weeks and weeks to come … [Strutt returned to Melbourne, to work on lithographs and sketches of what he’d seen at the goldfields, and saw some of the misery the rush was wreaking.] The Government, seeing the continued rush of emigrants into the Colony and the utter impossibility of providing even shelter for them, allotted certain pieces of ground … whereon they might erect tents. … Thus sprung up, in an incredibly short space of time, two tented towns [in Melbourne] called ‘Canvas Towns.’ None however but their actual residents, knew of the wretched misery endured in these places by the unfortunates there located; as numbers and

numbers of emigrants arrived in the Colony, with scarcely any money and in a very short time were compelled to sell even their clothes to obtain food. I have myself seen a row of these distressed ones, aye, persons of respectability, standing in Flinders Street, near the Prince’s Bridge, each trying hard to sell articles of more or less value, spread out on the ground before them, urging the passers by, with a pleading, despairing look, sad indeed to behold, to purchase something of them. WILLIAM STRUTT IN HIS UNPUBLISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHY OFF FOR AUSTRALIA: EMIGRATION EVERY BODY, AND EVERY THING, NOW, ALL IS NEW

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Julius M. Price sees, by candlelight, the whole place positively sparkling with gold, 1895 AFTER a good walk round on the surface, the manager suggested a visit to the workings below [and] this was what I really most wanted to see. So some candles were procured and I followed my guide to the mouth of the shaft … we had to make the descent, which was of about 200 feet, by ladders, not an operation necessitating any particular aptitude for gymnastics, as they went in easy flights all the way down as far as the 100-foot level. Here I stopped to have a look around. On all sides were to be seen the glimmering lights of the candles of the miners, whilst the sound of pick and shovel in the surrounding obscurity made up

a weird impression which long remained in one’s mind. I then made an interesting tour through what appeared in the darkness to be almost interminable tunnels, stopping here and there to examine rich patches in the walls or roof, where the gold could be seen glistening on the face of the decomposed ironstone … At last we reached another shaft which led to the lower level and down which went a perpendicular ladder. This was to me a somewhat trying experience, but having got so far I could not well back out … It seemed as though we were never going to reach the bottom, and all the time I was thinking how on

Samuel Thomas Gill (1818–1880) Zealous Gold Diggers, Bendigo, July 1st, ’52 1852

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Samuel Thomas Gill (1818–1880) Diggers of High Degree 1853

earth I should ever manage to climb up again. However, at last we got down, and found ourselves in a small narrow drive which had just been commenced. The heat was intense, and after my unusual bit of exercise it took me some few minutes to pull myself together. One solitary miner was working down here, … [and] my eyes were attracted by a peculiar glint in the rocky walls around him. ‘Look closer,’ said Mr Varden, noticing my attention. I did so, when I was astonished to find that the whole place was positively sparkling with gold. I had often pictured to myself what a gold mine would be like, but in my wildest dreams I had never imagined

anything to equal this. The man must have knocked out at least a hundred pounds’ worth of ore during the few minutes I had been watching him in this veritable Aladdin’s cave. It absolutely made my mouth water … whilst I could not help trying to realise the feelings of this poor digger, finding himself quite alone and surrounded by all this untold wealth which he was getting out for the benefit of others, while he himself was only earning £3 10s per week! JULIUS M. PRICE IN HIS THE LAND OF GOLD: THE NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY THROUGH THE WEST AUSTRALIAN GOLDFIELDS IN THE AUTUMN OF 1895 (1896)

Mine Works, Ballarat between 1870 and 1899

Replica of the Flag Flown by the Miners at the Eureka Stockade, 1854 c. 1970

THAT DISGRACED SUNDAY The Eureka Stockade, 3 December 1854

Just before dawn on 3 December 1854 soldiers and police who’d marched with stealth from the Camp (the government’s administrative village) at the Ballarat diggings attacked the makeshift stockade at Eureka. There were about 140 armed diggers (albeit sometimes only armed with pikes made by a blacksmith) inside the stockade, another 800 armed men having gone home for the night because there weren’t enough tents at Eureka for all to sleep in and because an attack hadn’t been thought likely. Waking in fright the diggers fought back (lots fled), but in an inglorious battle that lasted perhaps half an hour they were overwhelmed. About 30 diggers died (15 died there in the stockade and the rest later from their bullet and bayonet wounds) and about five soldiers, including Captain Wise of the 40th Regiment.

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few days earlier the miners’ fermenting grievances had seen them gather in righteous rage at Bakery Hill. The cost of a mining licence was oppressively steep, and because the Ballarat diggings were notoriously difficult to work a digger often simply had no ready cash with which to renew a licence. The officers who came ‘licence-hunting’ (demanding to see miners’ licences) were often swaggeringly, bullyingly obnoxious and now, in recent times, the frequency of these dignity-stripping houndings had greatly increased. The fuming diggers met at Bakery Hill. The Southern Cross flag was raised and warlike sentiments were aired and some military-style preparations were made. Raffaello Carboni, an eyewitness and a miner who knew and felt and bristled with all of the miners’ grievances,

wrote about the dramatic events within months and with his partisan memory still fresh. Tom Keneally, in an introduction to a recent edition of Carboni’s The Eureka Stockade, muses that although there certainly were ideologically driven men on the goldfields,

To Raffaello and probably to the bulk of Australians Eureka stood for something less ideologically defined—a practical assertion of fair-goism, which at the cost of some anguish and death, produced good results, including police reform, the unlocking of land, miners’ courts, and universal male franchise. ‘A correspondent’ wrote in agitated horror just hours after the bloodshed, and Carboni wrote about Eureka just months later. Then in 1904 some Victorian newspapers invited veterans of that day in 1854 to contribute 50th anniversary reminiscences of it. An incident involving the loyalty of a little dog to its dead master made an especially deep impression on all who saw it.

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Raffaello Carboni beholds the Southern Cross hoisted ON THAT Thursday, November 30th, more memorable than the disgraced Sunday, December 3rd, the sun was on its way towards the west: in vain some scattered clouds would hamper its splendour—the god in the firmament generously ornamented them with golden fringes and thus patches of blue sky far off were allowed to the sight, through the gilded openings among the clouds. The ‘Southern Cross’ was hoisted up the flagstaff—a very splendid pole, eighty feet in length,

and straight as an arrow. The maiden appearance of our standard, in the midst of armed men, sturdy, self-overworking gold-diggers of all languages and colours, was a fascinating object to behold. There is no flag in old Europe half so beautiful as the Southern Cross of the Ballaarat miners, first hoisted on the old spot, Bakery-hill. The flag is silk, blue ground, with a large silver cross, similar to the one in our southern firmament; no device or arms but all exceedingly chaste and natural …

F.A. Sleap Administering the Oath, Eureka Stockade, 1854 1888

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PETER LALOR, our Commanderin-chief, was on the stump, holding with his left hand the muzzle of his rifle, whose butt-end rested on his foot. A gesture of his right hand, signified what he meant when he said, ‘It is my duty now to swear you in, and take with you the oath to be faithful to the Southern Cross. Hear me with attention. The man who after this solemn oath does not stand by our standard, is a coward in heart. ‘I order all persons who do not intend to take the oath, to leave the meeting at once. Let all divisions under arms ‘fall in’ in their order round the flag-staff.’ The movement was made accordingly. Some five hundred armed diggers advanced in real sober earnestness, the captains of each division making the military salute to Lalor, who now knelt down, the head uncovered, and with the right hand pointing to the standard exclaimed in a firm measured tone:— WE SWEAR BY THE SOUTHERN CROSS TO STAND TRULY BY EACH OTHER, AND FIGHT TO DEFEND OUR RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES.’

Ludwig Becker (c. 1808–1861) Peter Lalor 1856

An universal well rounded AMEN, was the determined reply; some five hundred right hands stretched towards our flag. The earnestness of so many faces of all kinds of shape and colour; the motley heads of all sorts of size and hair; the shagginess of so many beards of all lengths and thicknesses, the vividness of double the number of eyes electrified by the magnetism of the southern cross; was one of those grand sights, such as are recorded only in the history of ‘the Crusaders in Palestine.’ RAFFAELLO CARBONI IN HIS THE EUREKA STOCKADE (1855)

t u o rt u p s d o lo b is h s e e s y n n Michael Ca MY BROTHER Patrick … and I were in the stockade fight. I was a young fellow of 18 or 19. When the fight began Teddy Moore, John Hines, my brother and I were standing behind a dray turned up on its heels, with the shafts in the air. It was bright moonlight, and we saw the redcoats blazing away at us. I had my own rifle and fired several shots. I saw Captain Wise fall,

and a couple of soldiers take him and drag him behind a mullock heap. Teddy Moore and John Hines fell dead beside us. Then my brother was hit with a bullet, which splintered his shin bone, and he was stretched out. I had my rifle ready for another shot when a bullet pierced my right arm, went in at my side, and out under the breast bone. It did not hurt but the blood

spurted out, and scared me. I threw the rifle down, and went over the stockade fence like a deer, and ran like a racer over the hill towards Pennyweight Flat, where our tents were. In the early morning light I could see two troopers coming towards me. There were a cluster of tents near by with a break-wind of brushwood round them. I ran for them and crawled

under the brushwood until the troopers passed, and then made for my tent. My sister-in-law was in the neighbouring tent, and she brought a cloth and a bucket of water, and I pulled off my shirt, and kept bathing the wound in my side with water to try and stop the bleeding … MICHAEL CAN NY

REM INISCING IN THE ARGUS OF 3 DECEMBER 1904

John Black Henderson (1827–1918) Eureka Stockade Riot, Ballarat, 1854

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A.W. Arnold gets his white trousers covered in blood IN 1854 I was playing in Mrs Hammer’s theatre on the Red Hill, and was lodging at Frank Carey’s restaurant close by. On the Sunday morning the black cook woke us up. There was Harry Jackson, Walter Howson, and myself, as we saw the sun shining on the bayonets of the soldiers on the Melbourne Road as they passed towards the Stockade. We dressed and went towards Pennyweight Flat to get up to the Stockade … As we were going over the flat I heard a single shot fired, followed by the volleys of the troops, after which we saw the diggers firing over the hills towards us. As we were well known we spoke a few words to them, and then we went up to the Stockade, and just as we got over the slabs [of the barricade] I saw one man lying on his stomach, wounded, kicking, and throwing his arms about. A soldier was standing over him, and I saw the latter put his bayonet right through the Stockader’s back, who kicked no more. We were then called upon to help place the killed and wounded in carts to take them to the camp … I assisted to place several—I think six—in the carts. Our white trousers were covered with blood, and I kept mine for years as a memento. Being connected with the theatre

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we were well known, and so they were glad to make use of us. As we were about to remove the body of one man, his little dog, which was lying on his breast, stoutly resisted us, and it

was some minutes ’ere we could get hold of the body. A.W. ARNOLD REMINISCING IN THE BALLARAT COURIER OF 2 DECEMBER 1904

E. Vaughan On the Wing of the Storming Party 1854

‘A correspondent’ sees more than he can bear I WILL … give you a faint outline of what passed under my own eyes … I didn’t wake up till 6 o’clock on Sunday morning. The first thing that I saw was a number of diggers enclosed in a sort of hollow square, many of them were wounded, the blood dripping from them as they walked, some were walking lame, pricked on by the bayonets of the soldiers bringing up the rear. The soldiers were much excited, and the troopers madly so … The diggers’ Standard [the captured Southern Cross flag] was carried by in triumph to the Camp, waved about in the

air, then pitched from one to another, thrown down, and trampled on. The scene was awful … I went with R— to the barricade, the tents all round were in a blaze; … I counted fifteen dead … but the spectacle was so ghastly that I feel a loathing at the remembrance. They all lay in a small space with their faces upwards, looking like lead; several of them were still heaving, and at every rise of their breasts, the blood spouted out of their wounds, or just bubbled out and trickled away. One man, a stout-chested fine fellow, apparently about forty years old, lay with a

pike beside him, he had three contusions in the head, three strokes across the brow, a bayonet wound in the throat under the ear … I counted fifteen wounds in that single carcase. Some were bringing handkerchiefs, others bed furniture, and matting to cover up the faces of the dead. O! God Sir, it was a sight for a Sabbath morn that, I humbly implore Heaven, may never be seen again. –Poor women crying for absent husbands, and children frightened into quietness … A little terrier sat on the breast of the man I spoke of, and kept up a continuous

howl, it was removed but always returned again to the same spot, and when his master’s body was huddled with the other corpses into the cart, the little dog jumped in after him, and lying again on his dead master’s breast began howling again … I bid farewell to the gold-fields … I am horrified at what I witnessed, and I did not see the worst of it. I could not breathe the blood-tainted air of the diggings, and I have left them for ever. ‘A CORRESPONDENT’ IN THE GEELONG ADVERTISER OF 6 DECEMBER 1854

Portion of the Flag Flown by the Miners at the Eureka Stockade 1854

Christopher Crook sees something unforgettable UPON that fatal Sunday morning, when the strife was practically over, I visited the scene. I saw eleven bodies lying upon the ground … I saw the little terrier whining piteously beside his dead master. While viewing this solemn scene a dray arrived in which was placed the

body of the man who in life was the owner of the dog. When the little dog saw his master removed, his grief knew no bounds. Those interested tried to drive him away; they could not beat him back. He got in the dray and sat upon his master’s breast, revealing in most unmistakable

language that his master was taken away from him. No human being could have lamented more at the loss of their dearest relative or friend than that affectionate and faithful dog bewailed the loss of his master. Though fifty years have passed away, this pathetic scene is vivid

in my memory as though it occurred yesterday. This is one of those scenes which time cannot efface. CHRISTOPHER CROOK REMINISCING IN THE GEELONG ADVERTISER OF 6 DECEMBER 1904

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George W. Mason Miss Catherine Hayes, September 1854 1857

A PRIMA DONNA IN RICH MAROON VELVET WITH CONSTELLATIONS OF DIAMONDS

Catherine Hayes performs in Melbourne, 1854

The Irish-born soprano Catherine Hayes (1825–1861) was the first indisputably excellent world-famous prima donna ever to tour Australia. She was in Australia, performing in Sydney and in Melbourne, in 1854 and again in 1855.

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he caustic, observant Louisa Anne Meredith went to hear her in Melbourne’s cavernous Exhibition Building (one writer has credited its interior with ‘suburbs’ of space) where it surely wasn’t the diva’s fault if her voice couldn’t fill the whole cavern by reaching its outer suburbs. Meredith’s is a review of the whole occasion and its distractions and is a glimpse of a Melbourne evening-out in 1854.

W.C. Harwood The Catherine Hayes, Polka 1855

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Louisa Anne Meredith studies a marvellous head-dress THAT evening we went to hear Catherine Hayes at concert in the Exhibition Building … roses, composed of calico of divers colours, but of sadly-crumpled and glory-departed aspect, were disposed around, in shallow festoons, by way of extra decoration. The prima donna herself, looking extremely well in rich maroon velvet, with constellations of diamonds, was precious to one’s sight as a pleasant picture amidst such uglinesses. The programme was miscellaneous, including sacred, operatic, and ballad music,—a combination, in my humble estimate, of more than questionable taste. Some of Handel’s grandest choruses, and those awful, thrilling words, with their elaborate subtle harmony of music, ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth,’ had scarcely faded from our ear’s memory, and their solemn echoes yet lingered in our souls, when a jiggy, twitchy, pert, and, alas! only too familiar strain, summarily dismissed all quiet thought, and sent discarded solemnity incontinently packing,—whilst we were confidentially enlightened, by

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a warbling coquette, as to her possessions … when ‘Comin’ thro’ the Rye.’ … Sweetly as Catherine Hayes warbles [this ballad] the intricate elaboration of her roulades and cadences made one opine that rye must be a most entangling medium for a walk … Being possessed of a peculiarly simple taste in music, I do not like to hear a ballad cadenzified out of its identity … The majority of the audience, however, were not of my opinion, for they encored most lustily again and again. Once, whilst the first notes of some sacred song were being softly played, a man in working gold-digger’s garb, up in the gallery, leaned over the front, and waving a great cabbage-tree hat, apparently to attract attention, called loudly out, ‘Hallo, I say, you down there! Give us something spicy! Play up, you fiddlers! Scrape us a Poker [polka] can’t ye?’ Then came a struggle and a scuffle, in process of which the vociferous visitor … [became] extinguished. Except Catherine Hayes, whose sweet voice was certainly a treat (although the building was much too

Walter G. Mason The First Appearance of Miss Catherine Hayes at the Victoria Theatre, Sydney, on Tuesday September 25th, 1854 1857 opposite: G. Alary Variations: As Sung by Miss Catherine Hayes c. 1857

large for her power), there was nothing else to reward us for sitting two or three hours to hear; and of necessity, there was little to see: one marvellous head-dress, whose wearer sat before me, employed me some time in trying to find out how such an astonishing fabric of long pins, plaits, mock-pearl beads, black velvet lace, and other matters, had been put together, but I had to ‘give it up,’ as a too difficult problem. The design seemed an exaggerated aureola, or Virgin Mary’s ‘glory;’ but it was not quite successfully realized.

I wondered how long it would take to undo again? and whether she slept in it?—for the hair looked as if a brushing once a week was more than it was used to; perhaps it was a wig, and put on and off altogether? It must have been very heavy; and some of the great pins looked as if they were driven … several inches into her head: altogether it was a most mysterious and distracting fabric. LOUISA ANNE MEREDITH IN HER TRAVELS AND STORIES IN OUR GOLD COLONIES (1867)

The Dunbar New East Indiaman 1862 or 1863

THE GAZE OF THE SORROWING THRONG ABOVE

The melancholy wreck of the Dunbar, 20 August 1857

At about midnight on 20 August 1857 the merchant and passenger ship Dunbar, 80 days out from Plymouth and on the doorstep of its destination, Sydney, was smashed to smithereens against cliffs. In vile weather and thick darkness she’d been searching for the entrance to Sydney’s harbour. Of the 122 aboard her (63 passengers and 59 crew) only one, the seaman James Johnson, survived the wrecking.

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he impact on the small city of Sydney (about 55,000 souls) was incalculable. Lots of the dead were locals coming home to loved ones. Others were first-time migrants and had been working aboard the Dunbar for a shilling a day in return for its delivery of them to a new life. In so small a society as Sydney and New South Wales almost everyone was touched in some way by the tragedy. The immediacy of the disaster possessed and obsessed Sydney. Wreckage, bodies, body parts and items of the ship’s vast and varied cargo were washed through the heads and into the harbour and along the immediate coast. Many thousands went to the clifftop above the wreck site to look down at the spectacle far below where bodies and body parts were being washed to and fro by waves. At the ‘dead house’ there was much harrowing identifying of corpses and pieces of corpses by local loved ones. There were inquests and there were private funerals and a big public one. There was looting of irresistible items of the cargo. Some unique entrepreneurial opportunities blossomed.

Within days an Illustrated Narrative of the Melancholy Loss of the Ship Dunbar ‘containing five highly finished engravings on wood’ was on sale for one shilling. The National Library of Australia has one of these, the cover boasting that the Narrative is now into its sixth thousand. Bradshaw’s, within the week of the tragedy, began to advertise (to advertisers) that the Dunbar-focused September issue of its Railway Guide would have a ‘guaranteed’ circulation of 10,000. George Thornton was the Mayor of Sydney and after a traumatising day of supervision on the clifftop, wrote, quickly, a description for the press of what he’d seen. Early on the Saturday morning (the Dunbar was wrecked at about midnight on the previous Thursday) a small flotilla of official and semi-official vessels carrying anxious loved ones of those feared lost, the press and appropriate officials, left Circular Quay and scoured the harbour’s waters and beaches. A reporter from The Empire was with them. Post-traumatic stress is a modern notion and so there’s no suggestion in the contemporary reporting of the possibility of lasting psychological harm being done to those Sydney folk who saw nightmarish things. We, though, might wonder what became, emotionally, of some of them. What of the unnamed reporter for The Empire? Was he perhaps young and sensitive? Since nothing could have prepared him for what he saw how did he cope, later, with the memories of what he’d seen? On the Monday after the Thursday night/Friday morning catastrophe there was a ‘funeral pageant’ for those so far recovered who were not being privately buried. The enormous procession took far longer than anticipated to assemble and, moving at a funereal pace, to reach the cemetery. And so the burial ceremony finished in moonlight and with the clergyman needing to read the funeral service by candlelight.

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James Johnson hears the screaming begin

James Johnson, the Sole Survivor of the Dunbar

John Thomas Doyle and Samuel Thomas Gill (1818–1880) Wreck of Dunbar South Head c. 1862

THE VESSEL was running in on a heavy sea: it was blowing very fresh in squalls, with thick, small rain: it was about eleven o’clock when the hands were called up … the night was very dark; we could not see a hand before our face nor see a man alongside of you … the captain sang out ‘Do you see anything of the North Head?’ and the mate said ‘No, I see nothing of it,’ … shortly after this the second mate sang out ‘Breakers ahead’ … she went side on to the rocks; she was trying to stretch out to the eastward, her head lying along the land to the north; then we struck and then the screaming

began; the passengers running about the deck screaming for mercy; the captain was on the poop; he was cool and collected; there was great confusion and uproar on the deck with the shrieks of the passengers; … [I] saw some of the young ladies running … about in their chemises, screaming, screeching, and crying, and calling on Mr Spence (second officer) to know if there was any possibility of being saved; almost in five minutes after she struck the vessel began to break up, and in an hour’s time nothing remained of her … I was thrown upon the rocks in a heap of timber and rubbish …

I could see nothing, for the rain and the darkness; and I could hear nothing but the roaring of the surf. I saw nobody besides myself anywhere; the first thing I saw in the morning was the dead bodies brought in by the sea, and carried out by the under tow; the ship was completely broken up, nothing remained but her foreyard. I was about ten yards above the sea, and the spray came over me as the seas broke below; there was no hollow or anything … JAMES JOHNSON’S EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT REPORTED IN THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD OF 25 AUGUST 1857

A reporter confronts an appalling scene AT HILLERY’S Spit [Middle Harbour] an appalling scene presented itself. Under the overhanging rocks, from which the water was dripping fast, lay the bodies of eleven unfortunates. The first that was identified was the body of Captain Steane, R.N.; his face was not much disfigured, but his clothing was considerably torn; if the marks upon his linen had not shewed who he was, his features could have been recognised; close to him was the body of Mr. Downey who had received severe bruises upon the face and legs. These two alone amongst the passengers had their clothing on. A young midshipman recognised as Mr. Williams and whose linen was marked W.B.W., 24, had received severe contusions to the face, which was much swollen. It was evident that when the ship struck, he was on deck upon watch, for he was fully dressed, and had on besides a monkey jacket and comforter … his clothing was much torn. A young lady, about 18 years of age, was next found, who had not suffered much from contusions. Her body was not recognised then;

but she was remarkable for the smallness of her hands and feet. One of the most affecting spectacles was a woman with two children in her arms, and upon whose countenance, even after passing through the horrors of death, there appeared a smile. A lady was recognized as Mrs Waller by her brother-inlaw Mr J.G. Waller. A girl

of twelve, who had gold earrings, and another body of a female, were not recognised. All around this place the spars were covered with miscellaneous goods; in a small inlet were two bulls …

Scene in the Gap on Saturday, August 22nd, at Sunrise 1857

AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE EMPIRE OF 24 AUGUST 1857

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George Thornton gazes down at a heart-rending scene SIR,—I have been all day down at the scene of the wreck of the Dunbar … [A] brave fellow, whose name I have not yet learned, volunteered to go down and send up some of the mangled corpses, now and then lodging on the rocks beneath us—now a trunk of a female from the waist upwards— then the legs of a male, the body of an infant, the right arm, shoulder, and head of a female, the bleached arm and extended hand with the

wash of the receding water, almost as ’twere in life, beckoning for help! Then a leg, a thigh, a human head would be hurled along, the sea dashing most furiously, as if in angry derision of our efforts to rescue its prey; one figure, a female, tightly clasping an infant to the breast, both locked in a firm embrace in death, was for a moment seen, then the legs of some trunkless body would leap from the foaming cataract caused by the receding

sea, leaping wildly, with feet seen plainly upward in the air, to the abyss below, to be again and again tossed up to the gaze of the sorrowing throng above. We procured a rope, lowered the man, with some brave stout hearts holding on to the rope above, and in this manner several portions of the mutilated remains were hauled up to the top of the cliff, until a huge sea suddenly came, and nearly smothered those on the cliff, wetting them all

to the skin. I caused the man to be hauled up, thinking it too dangerous to continue. It was a heart-rending scene, and I was glad to leave it, which I did soon after, and returned to Sydney about dark. Wonderful to say, Johnson [the sole survivor] has not so much as a scratch about him, and is otherwise quite well. GEORGE THORNTON IN THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD OF 24 AUGUST 1857

A reporter attends a moonlit funeral THE BAND of the Artillery Companies formed a part of the procession and played the ‘Dead March’ from ‘Saul’ with fine effect … the footpaths throughout the streets of this city were literally walled with people … The sun had been set for upwards of an hour when at length it [the cortege] arrived [at the cemetery] … the grounds were filled, and the greatest zeal displayed to secure positions which would command views of the proceedings in the closing scene of an occasion which had already been the cause of so much suffering and sympathy. The hearses

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now drew up to the eastern side of the Cemetery, where the single grave for the reception of the unidentified victims was situated, and around which the spectators earnestly thronged. The four [chief] mourners, including the sole survivor (Johnson), were ranged along the edge of the grave and in deep silence the coffins were at length brought forth, and deposited in compact order; that of Captain Stearne [a local dignitary] had a separate grave, and was borne by six seamen of her Majesty’s Navy, and was covered by the national flag. The clergyman (the

Wreck of the Dunbar off Sydney Heads, 20th Septr 1857 opposite: The Sailor Rescued

Rev. C.C. Kemp) read the service for the dead, in portions of which the audience joined their voices; and having concluded with a last look into the grave, they began to disperse. Though this time was not chosen for the funeral ceremony, perhaps the calmness of

the dim moonlight night, during which the dead were laid in rest, was not an unsuitable association to the impressiveness of the occasion. AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD OF 25 AUGUST 1857

Portrait of Ernest Giles, Australian Explorer between 1860 and 1897

THE DAYS OF TOIL, THE NIGHTS OF AGONY

Explorer Ernest Giles, 1875

So many of Australia’s explorers wrote so splendidly about their adventures and ordeals that one wonders, gratefully, why the standard of Australian exploration writing is so high. In his book The Explorers Tim Flannery fancies that the explorers took special pains. ‘Many of the explorers … knew their journals were as important as their walking boots [and] were aware that a thing is not truly discovered until it is written about, for only then does it take shape in the minds of those who have no direct experience of it.’

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rnest Giles is for Flannery one of the ‘marvellous describers’ of Australian exploration literature. From his writings about his adventures and ordeals one can feel that Giles simply didn’t know how to write tediously. He thought he was ‘usually the least gloomy-minded of men’ and his writing rings, usually, with love of life. He was an especially audacious, even reckless explorer (he came close to death on several occasions and once when starving to death, ate a live wallaby) and his writings seem to partake of his overall derring-do and dash. Beginning on 13 March 1875 he led an investigative expedition from Fowlers Bay on the western coast of South Australia, northwards and then eastwards through bleak and baking country.

Ernest Giles (1835–1897) Australia Twice Traversed

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Giles, usually the least gloomy-minded of men, feels gloom overwhelm him ON THE 24th of March, 1875 … with Peter Nicholls, old Jimmy as guide, the two camels and calf, and three horses, I turned my back on the Youldeh camp, somewhat late in the day. Nicholls rode the old cow, Jimmy and I riding a horse each, the third horse carrying a load of water … and it was our first practical acquaintance with camels; Jimmy and I had continually to wait till Nicholls and the camels made their appearance, and whenever Nicholls came up he was in a fearful rage with them. The old cow that he was riding would scarcely budge for him at all. If he beat her she would lie down, yell, squall, spit, and roll over on her saddle, and behave in such a manner that, neither of us knowing anything about camels, we thought she was going to die. The sandhills were oppressively steep, and the old wretch perspired to such a degree, and altogether became such an unmanageable nuisance, that I began to think camels could not be half the wonderful animals I had fondly imagined. The bull, Mustara, behaved much better. He was a most affectionate creature,

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and would kiss people all day long; but the Lord help anyone who tried to kiss the old cow, for she would cover them all over with—well, we will call it spittle, but it is worse than that. [A few days later, at Wynbring, Giles was keen to meet some ‘natives’ and sent Old Jimmy to find some to bring to the camp.] Away he went, and returned with five captives, an antiquated one-eyed old gentleman, with his three wives, and one baby belonging to the second wife … The new old man was very tall, and had been very big and powerful, but he was now shrunken and grey with age. He ordered his wives to sit down in the shade of a bush near our camp: this they did. I walked towards the old man, when he immediately threw his aged arms round me, and clasped me rapturously to his ebony breast. Then his most ancient wife followed his example, clasping me in the same manner. The second wife was rather incommoded in her embrace by the baby in her arms, and it squalled horridly the nearer its mother put it to me. The third and

Alone in the Desert, illustration in Australia Twice Traversed by Ernest Giles

youngest wife, who was really very pretty, appeared enchantingly bashful, but what was her bashfulness compared to mine, when compelled for mere form’s sake to enfold in my arms a beautiful and naked young woman? It was really a distressing ordeal. She showed her appreciation of our company by the glances of her black and flashing eyes, and the exposure of two rows of beautifully even and pearly teeth. However charming woman may look in a nude or native state, with all her youthful graces about her … woman never appears so thoroughly charming as when her graces are enveloped in a becoming dress. [This was at Wynbring after which, heat and lack of water made things

increasingly desperate.] Whenever the horses were given any water, we had to tie the camels up at some distance. The expression in these animals’ eyes when they saw the horses drinking was extraordinary; they seemed as though they were going to speak, and had they done so, I know well they would have said, ‘You give those useless little pigmies the water that cannot save them, and you deny it to us, who have carried it, and will be your only saviours in the end’ … At 150 miles from Wynbring my poor horse Chester gave in, and could go no farther … now he was completely exhausted and rolled upon the ground in the death agony of thirst … it was quite impossible for him to ever rise again,

so in mercy I fired a revolver-bullet at his forehead, as he gasped spasmodically upon the desert sand: a shiver passed through his frame and we left him dead in the lonely spot … We had one unfortunate horse left, the grey called Formby, and that poor creature held out as long and on as little water as I am sure is possible in such a heated and horrid region. On the following morning the poor beast came up to Nicholls and I … and began to smell us, then stood gazing vacantly at the fire; a thought seemed to strike him that it was water, and he put his mouth down into the flames … We were choking with thirst ourselves, but we agreed to sacrifice a small billyful of our remaining stock of water for this unfortunate last victim to our enterprise … [He] swallowed up

the last little draught we gave, fell down and rolled and shivered in agony, as Chester had done, and he died and was at rest … For my own part, in such a region and in such a predicament … I would not unwillingly have followed him into the future … The days of toil, the nights of agony and feverish unrest, that I spent upon this journey I can never forget … my reflections the night after the last horse died, when we had come nearly 200 miles without water, of a necessity assumed a gloomy tinge, although I am the least gloomy-minded of the human race … [That night he lay on ‘my heated couch of sandy earth’ gazing ‘helplessly but rapturously’ at ‘the glittering bands of brilliant stars shining in the azure vault of heaven’, and thinking philosophically about Life’s meaning.]

These were some of my reflections throughout that weary night; the stars that in their constellations had occupied the zenith, now have passed the horizon’s verge; other and fresh glittering bands now occupy their former places—at last the dawn begins to glimmer in the east, and just as I could have fallen into the trance of sleep, it was time for the race for life, again to wander on, so soon as our animals could be found. This was the eighth day of continued travel from Wynbring; our water was now all gone, and we were yet more than 100 miles from the Finniss Springs … we were all very bad, old Jimmy was nearly dead. At about four o’clock in the afternoon … as I went along I caught sight of a whitish light through the mulga trees partially behind me, and without saying a word

for fear of fresh disappointment [they’d imagined water before], I walked towards what I had seen; Nicholls and Jimmy, who both seemed dazed, went on with the camels. What I had seen was a small sheet of very white water, and I could not resist the temptation to drink before I went after them. By the time I had drank they had gone on several hundred yards; when I called to them and flung up my hat, they were so stupid with thirst, and disappointment, that they never moved towards me, but stood staring until I took the camels’ nose rope in my hand, and, pointing to my knees, which were covered with yellow mud, simply said ‘water’; then, when I led the camels to the place, down these poor fellows went on their knees, in the mud and water, and drank, and drank. … Oh, dear reader, if you have never suffered thirst you can form no conception what agony it is. But talk about drinking, I couldn’t have believed that even thirsty camels could have swallowed such enormous quantities of fluid. It was delightful to watch the poor creatures visibly swelling before our eyes. I am sure the big bull Mustara must have taken down fifty gallons of water. ERNEST GILES IN HIS AUSTRALIA TWICE

Ernest Giles (1835–1897) Map Showing the Routes Travelled and Discoveries Made by the Exploring Expeditions Equipped by Thomas Elder and under the Command of Ernest Giles 1876

TRAVERSED: THE ROMANCE OF EXPLORATION (1889)

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Ned Kelly and the actual events at Glenrowan in June 1880 have been made fuzzily folkloric for us by fanciful books, films, paintings, songs and ballets. And so this writer went to what ought to have been the plain non-fiction facts as told by those who were there, recollections still quite fresh and harvested just a few months later by the Royal Commission of

The Kelly Gang—from an Original Photograph, Steve Hart, Dan Kelly, Ned Kelly c. 1870

Enquiry into the Circumstances of the Kelly Outbreak. Already, though, these early testimonies showed some fiction-like qualities, not so much because witnesses lied (although, with careers and reputations at stake, there was some embellishing) as because some things that actually happened at Glenrowan can sound like a novelist’s inventions. Fictitious-sounding facts include

GOLLY! OLD NICK, NINE FEET TALL, APPROACHES THROUGH THE FOG The siege at Glenrowan, 26–28 June 1880

the way the besieged gang members put on armour they’d made from ploughshares, the way they organised some sports and dancing among their 62 hostages while waiting for their hoped-for carnage of a coming train crash. Then, especially, there was the way the apparition of Ned Kelly in his armour put the fear of the supernatural into some who saw it. Then there’s the way in which by its end the siege had a big audience of stickybeaking onlookers that, like a theatre audience, broke into applause for the bravura performance of one of the occasion’s actors. Surreal, too, and perhaps simply too odd to have he Kelly Gang had planned a series of astonishbeen much written, painted, danced and sung about, ing events that included the wrecking of a trainload of pursuing police. To wait for the crash the outlaws there’s the way in which Kelly, the despised policeensconced themselves with at first 62 hostages, in Mrs murderer, was shown some tenderness immediately Jones’ hotel at Glenrowan. The train wreck was averted, police surrounded the hotel and on the afternoon of 28 June after a siege had been maintained by three outlaws after his capture.

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against nearly 50 police for about 14 hours, things were brought to the famous bloody and blazing conclusion. Ned Kelly was shot in the legs and taken prisoner early in the day and by the time in the afternoon when police set fire to the hotel to bring things to a head, Dan Kelly, Steve Hart and Joe Byrne had already died.

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James Reardon feels Ned Kelly’s revolver at his cheek JAMES REARDON sworn and examined. What are you?—I am a laborer on the railway line. Do you remember the night that the Kellys had you all in Mrs. Jones’ hotel, prisoners?—Yes, on the night of the 27th. And were you kept in the hotel all day?—Yes, and all night. How many were in the hotel prisoners—about?— Well, I counted 62 altogether on Sunday … Did the Kellys use you for any purpose?—Yes, they took me on Sunday morning from my own place. It was

twenty minutes past two when I left my house—he took me to break the [railway] line … Ned Kelly came up and put a revolver to my cheek and said ‘What is your name?’ and I said ‘Reardon,’ and he said ‘I want you to come up and break the line.’ He said, ‘I was in Beechworth last night, and I had a great contact with the police. I have shot a lot of them, and I expect a train from Benalla with a lot of police and blackfellows, and I am going to kill all the ---------.’ I said, ‘For God’s sake, do not take me. I have got a large family to look after.’

He said … ’You must do it or I will shoot you,’ and he took my wife and seven or eight children to the [railway] station … [and] so we broke the road [the track]. [Then James Reardon was taken to join the others at Mrs Jones’ hotel.] I do not suppose he treated you badly in the hotel?—No, he did not treat us badly. Not at all. Was there any drinking?—Yes, they had drink in them in the morning. When I first saw them Steve Hart was pretty drunk. What occurred during the night before the police

George Gordon McCrae (1833–1927) The Kellys, the Glenrowan Quadrilles c. 1880

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came?—Well, they were very jolly, and the people and Mrs. Jones cleared the house out. They would not have it without a dance. She wanted me to dance, and I said ‘No, something is troubling me beyond dancing’ … Was there a dance got up in the house?—Yes; there was three of the Kellys, Ned, Dan and Byrne danced, and Mrs. Jones and her daughter, and three or four others I did not know. JAMES REARDON TESTIFYING ON 14 MAY 1881

Constable Dwyer gives Ned Kelly a kick CONSTABLE DWYER sworn and examined. What are you?—A constable stationed at Melbourne. Were you engaged in the North-Eastern District in the search for the Kellys?— Yes; a few days after the murders of the police by the Kellys in the ranges I made application to Captain Standish to give me permission to go in pursuit of them. I stated in my application … that I would do my best to search for and capture them or die in the attempt, and now I can truthfully tell you that I faithfully kept my word. [Dwyer then gave under questioning a detailed account of the approach, with bullets flying, to within earshot of the armourencased Ned Kelly.] I looked up, seeing where they [Ned Kelly and the police] were, and saw Ned Kelly at the time. He had on a grey top-coat. He said ‘Fire away, you b-----s, you cannot kill me: I am encased in armour.’ You heard that?—Yes; and [he also] said ‘Come out, boys, and we will lick the lot of them,’ beckoning to the other two outlaws, ‘Come out, and whip the lot of them; Oh you b------s, we will put the daylight through you.’ [Dwyer testified that he and others stormed Kelly and that the outlaw, hit by

a shot fired by Sergeant Steele, dropped down behind a dead tree.] I vaulted over the log and got at Ned Kelly’s feet as he was bending on his knees. Sergeant Steele had him with his left hand across his neck, this way [indicating the same], Senior-Constable Kelly was standing behind, Bracken had hold of Kelly’s left arm, and I was in front. Kelly was trembling with fear, and said ‘Do not kill me, let me live as long as I can, I never injured one of you.’ … What did you say?— When he said he never injured any of us, I said, ‘You d----- wretch, after shooting my comrade and Mr Hare, and when poor Kennedy was begging his life of you as you are begging yours of us, you shot him like a dog.’ Did you give him a friendly kick?—I did not. The kick I gave him was the kick I would give a cow to wake her up. It was to show my contempt; it would not have hurt a child. He said, ‘For God’s sake let me live as long as I can.’ He did not want to die?— No, he showed all the symptoms of cowardice … I gave him a tip with my boot. When the crowd was leaning over Kelly, two bullets whizzed past from the outlaws in the house. [Dwyer testified he then left the securely captured Kelly and then went to the

railway station to give the news of Kelly’s capture. En route he spoke with Inspector O’Connor and so when he got to the railway station building he was able to reassure a terrified and worried Mrs O’Connor that her policeman husband was safe.] I saw she was crying, and looked very pitifully, and to cheer her, I said, ‘There is no occasion for you to fret or make yourself miserable, he is all right,’ and I commenced to laugh to cheer her up. She said ‘My poor fellow, will you have a drink of brandy?’ I was dreadfully fatigued and hungry at the time, and had nothing to eat since Sunday evening, and been out all the time. She called the sister, and said, ‘Give him a good nip.’ … and she poured out the brandy with some milk, and also gave me the bottle of brandy to take around to the men. [Dwyer testified that he eventually got back to the railway station where Superintendent Sadleir was giving orders about how Kelly must be looked after. It was about 7 am.] Ned Kelly on seeing me, on my entering the door, said ‘Oh here is the ------- whom I fired my last shot at.’ He was then on a stretcher. He said, ‘What is your name?’ I said ‘My name is Dwyer.’ He said, ‘Where are you from?’ I said, ‘That is no matter to you.’

I saw him looking wistfully at the bottle in my hand, and looking down I saw I had about a nobbler in it, and I said, ‘Will you have a drink of brandy?’ and he said, ‘Yes please, if you will give it to me.’ I said, ‘Why would I not?’ He said, ‘Put the glass to my lips, I cannot—my hands are tied.’ I put it to his lips, and some of the brandy fell on his big beard, and he put his hand up to suck the brandy in this way—[indicating his meaning]—and looking up at me, he said, ‘Give me a bit of bread, I am very hungry.’ Mr Sadleir, hearing his remark, said ‘You shall have every care and attention, Ned. Go, Dwyer, and see if you can get a bit of bread for him.’ I went and got some scone cakes from Mrs. McDonald’s, and Mr Sadleir, seeing from his [Kelly’s] sucking his beard that he would like more brandy, told me to fetch a bottle of brandy. Mr Sadleir gave him the brandy, and I gave him the bread. Ned Kelly, looking up, said, ‘Thanks Mr Sadleir, this is more kindness than I ever thought to get.’ Mr Sadleir replied, ‘You shall have every care and attention, Ned; do not irritate yourself; keep yourself quiet,’ settling Ned Kelly’s head on the pillow, and some one putting cotton round his sore leg and arm. CONSTABLE DWYER GIVING EVIDENCE ON 1 JUNE 1881

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Patrick William Marony (1858–1939) Capture of Ned Kelly 1894

Jesse Dowsett sees his bullet ricochet off Old Nick JESSE DOWSETT sworn and examined. What are you?—Guard on the Victorian railways. Do you remember the morning of the day on which the Kellys were captured?—Yes … There seemed to be any amount of pellets going about. You could hear them in the trees?—Yes, and hear them whistle; and all at once something [some pellets] seemed to come as if somebody was [firing at me from behind me] and I turned round and saw this strange-looking object coming over the hill from the

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Wangaratta side. What time was that?— About half-past seven. Was it getting daylight?—Yes, but the smoke of the guns hung over the ground and made like a fog. What did you do?—It proved to be Ned Kelly afterwards, but at the time it looked like a great big blackfellow. I called out, I said ‘Healey, what’s this coming?’ and somebody behind said ‘Keep back, keep back’; but the object kept coming on … and I said ‘You’d better scatter boys.’ … After this he [the ‘object’] seemed to be coming right straight for me, and he

walked into the fork of the log as it were, and as he did, I could see Steele on the left, coming towards him, and I could see Senior-Constable Kelly on the right, coming towards him; so then I said to him [Ned Kelly] ‘You had better surrender old man, you are surrounded’; and he said ‘Never, while I have a shot left’; and I could see the top of his head just above the log, and I fired at it, but it just [ricocheted] off like a parched pea, and took no effect … Did you see he had armour on while you were shooting?—No, I never heard

a word about any armour or anything else, not till we were at the log when we pulled it off, because he had like a white mackintosh over the whole affair down to his heels, and the helmet standing on his head, and what with the fog and one thing and another, golly! it made him about nine feet high; upon my word it did, coming through the gloom there. What were your own thoughts?—I said it was Old Nick, and upon my word I thought it was at the time. JESSE DOWSETT BEING EXAMINED ON 8 JUNE 1881

The Reverend Matthew Gibney earns the crowd’s applause REVEREND MATTHEW GIBNEY sworn and examined. What are you?—I am the Vicar-General of the Roman Catholic Church in Western Australia … I then said to myself ‘These men [in the hotel, now set alight] have not five minutes to live. If they stop in they will be burned, and if they come out they will be shot … They will be very glad to see anyone coming to them.’ [Initial police advice was not to go there, but he did.] As I was going on towards the house there was a large number of people about. I am not a very good judge of numbers that way, but I

thought there could not be less than 500 or 600 people … They were coming in from all directions … When I was going up towards the house the excitement of the people was very great, and they clapped hands as if I was going on a stage … and then when I came inside I called out to the men that I was a Catholic priest, and came to offer them their life, and asked them for God’s sake to speak to me. I got no answer … Then I found first the body of Byrne … His body was lying there where he had fallen in a straggled kind of way. He seemed to have fallen on his back, like on his hip … and his body

His captors see Ned Kelly’s look of wild passion ALL THOSE who saw Ned Kelly while he lay helpless on a mattress were struck with the gentle expression of his face. It was hard to think that he was a callous and cruel murderer. But the old spirit, half savage, half insane, was there notwithstanding, for while talking to him the same evening as he lay swathed in bandages, there passed suddenly over his face a

startling look of wild passion as he called me to send away the black b------ who was leaning over him. It was the fireman with his face blackened from his work on the engine, whom Kelly had taken to be one of the black trackers. JOHN SADLEIR IN HIS RECOLLECTIONS OF A VICTORIAN POLICE OFFICER (1913)

quite stiff. The place was blazing considerably. I was afraid at the time that I might be caught with the flame; I just blessed myself in the name of God and I rushed through … and I looked in upon the floor and found the two corpses lying together. Both dead?—Both dead … Are you under the impression they were dead prior to the fire?—Oh! I am certain they were … My impression is that they were certainly not killed by the fire—were not suffocated by the heat of the fire. I myself went in there, and stopped there safely, and just when I came into their presence they were very composed looking, both lying at full stretch, side by side, and bags rolled up under their heads, the armour on one side of them off. I concluded they lay in that position to let the police see when they found them that it was not by the police they died … You concluded they committed suicide?—Yes, that is my own belief … I took hold of the hand of the one that was near me to see

Patrick William Marony (1858–1939) Ver. Rev. Dr Gibney: Heroic Rescue at Glenrowen c. 1894

whether or not they had recently killed themselves—whether there was life in them, and I found it was quite lifeless. Then I looked at his eyes, and found that his eyes showed unmistakable signs that he was dead for some time; and then I went to the other to touch him. I satisfied myself that life was completely extinct in both of them before I left. REVEREND MATTHEW GIBNEY GIVING EVIDENCE ON 28 JUNE 1881

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Gibbs, Shallard & Co. (Firm) Burning of the Garden Palace, Sydney, September 22, 1882, as Seen from Macquarie Street 1882

THE GREATEST AND MOST TERRIBLE FIRE THAT AUSTRALIA HAS EVER KNOWN

Sydney’s Garden Palace burns down, 22 September 1882

Enormous and festive, decorated with towers and a noble dome and all in all what one writer has called ‘a bonanza of the picturesque and the exuberant’, Sydney’s Garden Palace was erected at a swashbuckling pace in just nine months, to be the venue for Sydney’s International Exhibition of 1879–1880. Architect James Barnet’s exciting creation dominated the city and was visible for great distances from almost everywhere. It inspired awe, but then on 22 September 1882 it was consumed in just one and a half hours by what some writers thought was a matchingly awe-inspiring inferno. One poet thought the fire almost biblically awesome: All so completely gone, Alas! ’twould seem As though the ‘Garden Palace’ was a dream, Or bright creation by a master hand, Which vanished at the same supreme command.

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he city was bereaved by the fire. The International Exhibition the Garden Palace had been built for had, like in our own times the Sydney Olympic Games of 2000, given a great fillip to Sydney’s self-esteem. The Palace had been a dashing embodiment of the city’s pride, spirit and ambitious optimism. As with great and

promising people who die young (poets like, say, John Keats and Rupert Brooke, and actors like James Dean) we’re left imagining what great exhibitions, performances and occasions the Garden Palace might have contained by now, and still be staging, if still with us.

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The fire terrifies Miss Flower Sydney Ladies College, Macquarie Street, September 22nd 1882 My dear old Frank, I wont forget the date of this letter in a hurry for the poor old Exhibition was burnt down this morning … Flo sang out that it was on fire, but I thought it was the sun rising behind it. However when I got to the window there sure enough was the smoke in great thick black volumes, and it seemed to come all around the dome at once, and we had scarcely looked a minute when the flames broke out. In an instant it seemed, the whole building was on fire and lead melted and ran I shall never forget the sight. The and the flames were in a stream all along the ground r we were to it and perfectly awful. You know how nea was terrified … In about [the headmistress] Miss Flower a fearful crash and ten minutes the dome fell in with ble and we had to shut then the heat was really unbeara the windows all cracked the windows. The paint outside could hear crash after and the windows cracked … You reach enormous heights. crash and the flames seemed to quite blood colour with The sun rose and was of course g round and round. the fire and seemed to be spinnin the smoke and dust and Every now and then through all on the sea [Sydney flames we could see the reflection ly. Tower after tower fell Harbour] beyond and it was love and broken we could and when the glass was all burnt ue of the Queen on the see the flames inside and the stat with flames all around fountain stood such a long time ains are skeletons of the and above it … now all that rem west) and a huge heap four towers (north, south, east and bish. of smoking smouldering black rub Y IN A LET TER SCHOOLGIRL ETH EL POCKLE IN EDIN BURGH TO HER BRO THER FRA NK,

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Queen’s Statue in Garden Palace, Sydney International Exhibition Building c. 1879–1884

A reporter sees kaleidoscopic colours in the flames JUST AT sunrise, the Palace was seen to be burning, and that in no flickering manner, but with a sudden force and fury … and then for nearly an hour the greatest and most terrible fire that Australia has ever known raged, and leaped, and roared; and there, where a graceful and lofty dome had towered, and where long aisles and naves had stretched in symmetry, there remained but a smoking, crumbling ruin … As the building of the Garden Palace had been a gigantic work, so was its destruction. An enormous column of smoke rose at first slowly skywards from the great dome, and as the light breeze from the southwest caught it, spread out and floated away over the harbour … Then with the smoke there began to be mingled tongues of flame, which darted swiftly upwards, whilst within the dome itself could be heard a roaring louder than that of the fiercest hurricane or the angriest sea. In but a few minutes from this … the large beams and rafters which made the framework of the dome, fell inwards with a crash, and then

Philosopher Jawkins falls out of a tree

Garden Palace, Sydney International Exhibition Building, Seen from the Royal Botanic Gardens in the Domain c. 1882

there shot up a broad torrent of fierce flames and heat that bore with it, like feathers, sheets of the corrugated iron with which the dome had been roofed, and tossed and toyed with them, as if they had been but straws in a summer breeze. And now eastward from the building was spread a great pall of smoke and flame, from which there rained downwards charred and smoking fragments that strewed [the neighbourhood] and fell hissing in the harbour … Kaleidoscopic colours permeated the fire as the galvanised iron and other metallic materials of the building melted in the fire, and just at the time that the flames seemed to be at their greatest heat, a series of distinct and pretty loud explosions occurred, and numerous flashes of blue and green and yellow

colours showed amidst the general red. It is thought that these proceeded from quantities of rock salt, saltpetre, and other minerals, which had been presented by exhibitors to the Technological Museum … Daybreak was well on when the fire was first noticed, and when it had wrapped the whole Palace in flame, broad daylight had come. But the fire was of such volume that even in open light of day, it was as grand and awful a spectacle as if of a fire of great magnitude at night. Amidst the roar was heard a hoarse and continuous crackling as the great quantities of dry timber which composed the walls and flooring of the Palace were consumed.

ON ARRIVAL in Macquarie Street, a strange sight presented itself in the presence of the residents in that fashionable locality. Dressing gowns were in abundance, and the ladies who were witnessing this final scene in the Exhibition drama wore expressions of intense excitement, intermixed with no inconsiderable amount of regret and remorse at the destruction of the eminence for which that particular street is famed … Large numbers were to be seen in the Domain, where the trees nearest the fire were completely baked, and the leaves rendered crisp by the intense heat. The flames spread from north to south, and the towers in each direction, lighted up by the blood-red flames which forked out from each of the apertures, presented a spectacle of terrible grandeur … An individual of a particular type, and who was called by his friends (who

appeared to be numerous) ‘Philosopher Jawkins,’ was about the least concerned of the whole of the bystanders surrounding the fig tress in the Domain. This oddity [was] seen climbing the trees in anticipation of testing the qualities of the baked figs. Whether his researches were of a satisfactory nature or not did not transpire, but his labours were brought to a hasty conclusion by the snapping of a slender bough, by which means Mr. Jawkins narrowly escaped a fractured limb. Simultaneously, the two walls of the [Palace’s] southern tower collapsed, and the double event drew from the crowd a prolonged ‘Oh,’ followed by a sigh of relief. BY ‘A GENTLEMAN LIVING IN THE VICINITY OF THE GARDEN PALACE’ IN THE DAILY TELEGRAPH OF 23 SEPTEMBER 1882

AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN SYDNEY’S THE DAILY TELEGRAPH OF 23 SEPTEMBER 1882

Garden Palace, Sydney International Exhibition Building in Ruins c. 1882

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1893 Flood Damage to Jetties and Boat Houses near the Victoria Bridge

HOUSES SMASHED LIKE EGGS IN A STRONG MAN’S HAND

The Brisbane floods of February 1893

‘T At the time of writing, the memory of the terrible January 2011 floods in Brisbane is very fresh, but one shudders to think what will become of the people and property of modern Brisbane if ever there’s a repeat there of the Black February floods of 1893. At 8.3 metres, the flood waters’ 1893 peak was almost double that of the flood of January 2011.

he flood of 1893 has been a drama in three acts’, The Brisbane Courier reflected ruefully late in February of that year. In Brisbane and in much of the southeast of the state there had been three great deluges of rain and three bouts of flooding between 3 February and 21 February. A little historical fossicking reveals that Brisbane was established with more zeal than meteorological pragmatism in an exceptionally flood-prone place. There has been flood after flood there. The 1893 floods themselves followed, and trumped in awfulness, severe floods of 1890. Newspaper reports of the Brisbane flood spectacles of 1893 are typically rich in word pictures with writers supplying what photographs do now. The Courier lacked the means to hurry photographs into print and its first, belated illustrations of the floods were mawkish drawings that didn’t capture anything as well as the wordsmiths had. Brisbane was compact and small then (the population had just passed the 100,000 mark) and most citizens who wanted to watch the river’s rampage through the city centre didn’t have far to come. They came (and often stayed for ages) in their thousands, and the Courier reported the sightseers’ presence without condemning them for any ghoulishness the way the media might today. The spectacle of houses, in good times the embodiments of stability and solidity, being tossed about like flotsam, was terrible and thrilling at the same time.

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Emma Street Toowong during 1893 Flood

A reporter sees and hears floating houses smashed like eggs THE RIVER [surging through the city] told an unmistakable tale of the havoc which had been wreaked in its watersheds. Long before Saturday night had set in houses could be seen coming down, and it was with breathless anxiety that the crash was awaited as the roofs struck [Victoria Bridge] … The sight which was seen yesterday morning from the top of Queen-street … will live in the memory

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of all who saw it … With remorseless flow the flood waters swept on, bearing on their bosom houses, stables, trees, snags of all sizes and even live stock. Every now and again a cry would be raised that there was another structure coming down, and then would follow a rush to the river side to see the building strike the bridge. It was a literal rending of the heart strings when the crash came, and what was at one time—and

how short a time since!— a comfortable residence smashed against the bridge like an egg in a strong man’s hand … Occasionally one would see a cat perched on top of a house, and perhaps some fowls, a duck or two, or a cow … A great deal of drunkenness was unfortunately observable in various directions … when kegs and barrels of beer floating away from the West End Brewery were washed

ashore at the foot of Bowenterrace and others from the Phoenix Brewery were picked up in Fortitude Valley the scenes enacted were disgusting in the extreme, and men were seen drinking all they could and then quarrelling for possession of the cask containing the balance. UNNAMED REPORTERS IN THE BRISBANE COURIER OF 6 FEBRUARY 1893

The curator’s residence disappoints the flood’s spectators SAD indeed were the vigils of the people of Kangaroo Point on Saturday night … [as] with the departure of each hour the inroads of the river grew by feet … by midnight rescue work was at its full, the police, aided by many of the youths, doing their utmost, and unmindful of danger to themselves went wherever cries summoned them. The scene was one that must live for ever in the memories of those who witnessed it. Women clad in the scantiest of raiment, and in many cases bearing children in their arms, were dragged out dripping wet from the boats and herded under the few verandas

until some haven could be found for them. The wailings of women and children, the shouts of the spectators, and the cries of distressed animals rose above even the roar of the river, which ruthlessly swept away the savings of lifetimes and the little all of hundreds … Sunday morning in Brisbane never dawned on so much desolation. It was only then that the full extent of the cruel waters’ work could be gauged … Towards noon a portion of Peacock’s Jam Factory went, and the large sheds on Gibbs, Bright’s wharf partly collapsed. As if to keep company with its

neighbours, a house owned by Sergeant Colclough also slipped away. Hundreds of people had by this time assembled at the water’s edge in Main-street, but by far the larger number paraded or seated themselves on the many points of vantage to be found on River-terrace, there to watch the havoc of the flood. Many sat the whole day expecting to see the curator’s residence in the Gardens go but the structure settled down at the two ends, the middle part remaining intact, and nothing would shift it further. About 4 o’clock the sound of many whistles

told that something was wrong. Hundreds of eyes were immediately turned towards the river, and it was soon seen that the dredge plant had broken adrift. This included the large dredges ‘Groper’ and ‘Hydra,’ a clamshell dredge, three steam-barges, and the pilot steamer ‘Advance’ … they drifted down at a very smart pace … There was, of course, a general stampede to the Point, but only those mounted on horses reached this place in time to see them go round. UNNAMED REPORTERS IN THE BRISBANE COURIER OF 7 FEBRUARY 1893

A mighty hand plays chess with Rosalie’s houses

Steamer in Queen Street, Brisbane, Sunday, February 19, 1893

IN ROSALIE the general appearance is as though a mighty hand had played chess on the flats, with houses for pieces, and had in a moment of anger brushed them carelessly into a confused heap.

Gunderson’s [house] is on the main road, and traffic has to pass under its veranda. Opposite there is a cottage lying peacefully on edge … Still further over is a large building, apparently without damage,

Stanley Street, South Brisbane, after the Flood

settled down quietly in someone else’s garden … Nearly all the houses were well furnished and had pianos in them. In some cases the owners seem to have abandoned everything, and have not taken

the trouble even to look for their strayed homes. UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE QUEENSLANDER OF 11 FEBRUARY 1893

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Nettie Palmer on a Bicycle at Elsternwick, Victoria 1902

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WHAT A VARIETY OF LEGS

Bicycles and cyclists in Australia

‘The World A’Wheel! That’s the only phrase which expresses the present position’, The Sydney Mail observed in an excitable supplement in July 1895. ‘From throne to cottage the all conquering bicycle has seized upon the imaginations of all civilised peoples.’

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ustralia had its first cycling boom in the 1880s, but it was a relatively small and exclusive boom because those bicycles were the spectacular ‘ordinaries’ or ‘penny farthings’ that were expensive to buy and difficult and dangerous to ride. Because riding them required such a manly indifference to cuts and bruises and involved such potential and actual sacrifices of dignity, the ‘ordinaries’ couldn’t be embraced by the fair sex. Then in the 1890s the arrival of the ‘safeties’ (bicycles basically very like our modern ones, with wheels of the same size and with braking mechanisms) allowed for a bigger, wider boom. Cycling historian Jim Fitzpatrick found that As the 1890s progressed, a cycling craze swept Australia. The country found itself in the mainstream of the world bicycle boom, with machines being imported along with cycle journals, [new] social attitudes and accompanying debates … churches still questioned the morality of Sunday cycling; doctors debated the effects of riding.

Boom and craze reached a peak around 1897 when there were over 150 makes of bicycle on sale in Australia. Fitzpatrick estimates that in Victoria alone between 75,000 and 100,000 bicycles were sold up to and including 1900. Cycling journals of the time bristle with evangelism on behalf of cycling’s virtues, one of them being the way associations of cyclists enabled men and women to meet to share an (at first) platonic companionship. Mrs Maddocks wrote the ‘Ladies’ Column’ of The NSW Cycling Gazette at the height of the 1890s boom. Early in the 1920s The Sydney Morning Herald commissioned C.E.W. Bean ‘to describe the wool industry from any point of view which he chose’. His articles were eventually collected into the book On the Wool Track, first published in 1925. The point of view Bean chose was that the wool industry ‘is mainly responsible for creating that Australian whom we know as “ the man from the bush ”’. And so it was with men that the articles dealt, so it was that he described the way in which so many shearers cycled to where the work was.

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Mrs Maddocks is pained, 1897 HOW often one is pained to see a well formed and well dressed woman posed upon her bicycle in a most ungraceful attitude but wearing an expression of self-satisfaction. If she could only see herself as others see her she would not rest content until her style had been improved …

The cultivation of a style in riding is very essential and should form part of every woman’s cycling education. The ease with which a light modern machine is propelled is rather a snare to the novice, who is apt to think herself a proficient rider as soon as she can steer and balance fairly

well, ignorant of wasted power … [but] a graceful rider will glide along, head erect and body elegantly carried, with easy continuous pedalling, and without any apparent exertion. MRS MADDOCKS IN E THE NSW CYCLING GAZETT OF 10 APR IL 1897

Four Young Women with Their Bicycles on the Beach, Moruya, New South Wales c. 1900

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C.E.W. Bean sees shearers cycling to work, c. 1922 IT LOOKED like an overloaded towel-horse. It stood in the grass-choked gutter, and leaned against the decrepit grey verandah-post of the hotel. Everyone who stirred from time to time down that straggling, wide, very sleepy street stopped just for a moment to look at it. There was a sort of horse-collar of weatherbeaten canvas looped over its forepart, another looped over the back part, and a bulging triangle of canvas packed in between. Hooked on ingeniously to various angles of the frame or handles were a billy, pannikin, water-bag, and one or two unconsidered trifles. From somewhere in front and somewhere behind protruded a segment of rubber tyre. There was scarcely anything else to guess by. But those who went down that street turned their heads and smiled. They knew it well enough. They were looking for a sign of the seasons, much as others watch for the returning swallows. And here it was—the advance guard in the invasion of New South Wales … each year from July to November, the shearers come across New South Wales. And the sign of them, at the time we went through, was their bicycles … of late years the

bicycle had spread through the country as fast as the rabbit. It is extraordinary in what unlikely places one found those tyre-tracks. They straggle across the very centre of Australia … The shearer sets out on these trips exactly as if he were going from Sydney to Parramatta. He asks the way, lights his pipe, puts his leg over his bicycle, and shoves off … And so from out of those solitudes, during a certain week a little before the spring, there begin to appear—leaning against the huts around the big shearing sheds of ‘outside’ Australia—bicycles. There is not a bicycle shop within two hundred and fifty miles. But bicycles turn up all the same … If you look carefully at the arriving bicycles, you will notice that some of their tyres appear curiously lumpy. The rider has foreseen trouble, and has procured on his journey a kangaroo hide and slit it into lengths, which he has bound around the rim … When a front fork breaks, the average cyclist would conclude that his only resource was to walk. But there has wobbled up to a Western shed before now a strange thing— a complicated arrangement of tree branches and

up entified Gro –1951) Unid 0 88 (1 n n John Fly 12 and 1955 between 19

on Bicycles of Shearers

Nicholas Caire (1837–1918) The Melbourne Bicycle Club c. 1878

fencing wire. A front wheel waggles like a drunken man between two solid supporting saplings, which are bound with winding after winding of fencing wire to the debris of a bicycle fork. Across the drunken wheel itself are two battens of wood, nailed like a cross. There was a smash somewhere out there on the sandhills, in which a rider found himself on the

ground, lucky not to have lost his life, with broken bits of a bicycle around him. But he picked himself up and set to work. And in the end he steered it—stayed out, tied up, bandaged, propped, secured, jury-rigged like a ship, grinding like a chaffcutter, but still a bicycle— safely into port. C.E.W. BEAN IN HIS ON THE WOOL TRACK (1925)

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Mrs Maddocks studies men’s legs, 1897 THE following is a conversation which took place recently in the Centennial Park. ‘Do you know, Lil, I have just been thinking what a marvellous introduction into our lives bicycling is. How much it has already done in the way of relaxing certain stupid social conventions, and how much freer and happier our lives are—but Oh! Do look at that beautiful machine!’ ‘Yes, and did you notice the rider’s costume, Nell?’ ‘I am afraid my whole attention was given to her bicycle. Describe it to me, please.’ ‘It is the neatest costume I have seen for a long time. It was an art green cloth, tailor-made Norfolk jacket, coat collar, shewing the daintiest little stiff white collar and front, and a pink tie. I noticed the sleeves were small legs of mutton, fastened at the wrist with three buttons, and the hat was a boat-shaped felt, to match the dress. A neat pair of patent leather shoes completed the costume.’ ‘Charming!’ acquiesced Nell. ‘But, Lil, I think that lady’s costume is just as effective. I mean the lady who has just dismounted and is sitting in the shade of that tree. Did you see what a lovely shade of grey tweed it was, and how beautifully

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Richard Wingfield Stuart (1843–1914) The Bike Picnic, Bedford between 1862 and 1899

cut the jacket is, fitting the figure without any fullness, and just meeting in front over a white waistcoat; a white felt hat, with a very few white tips, and white gloves … I say, Lil, do look at those gentlemen riding in front of us, and see what a variety of legs they have. Has it ever occurred to you what a deal of character there is in legs?’ ‘No, I cannot say it has.’ ‘Well, for instance, take that gentleman in the middle, and you will see

what a well-shaped sturdy, emphatic leg he has, thick calf and nicely shaped ankle, and not too long, though the man is probably near six feet. You can rely on that man being straightforward, keen in business matters, a successful man in every way. On the other hand, take the one third from the right, and you will see what a well-shaped man he is until you come to his legs, they look as if they do not belong to him, as if they are not quite sure

what they are to do next, or as if the owner hasn’t much control over them … you can be quite sure of one thing, that man will be an utter failure in life.’ ‘Oh, Nell, how interesting! I shall straightaway make a study of legs.’ ‘Do, Lil, and it will probably help you some day in the choice of a husband.’ MRS MADDOCKS IN THE NSW CYCLING GAZETTE OF 13 FEBRUARY 1897

William Henry Corkhill (1846–1936) Man with a Bicycle c. 1895

Tom Roberts (1856–1931) Sketch for Opening of Federal Parliament, 1901

SUDDENLY GUNS BOOMED AND AUSTRALIA WAS BORN

Federation occasions, 1901

The Australian colonies became one nation on New Year’s Day of 1901 with an official ceremony in Sydney starring the ‘wan and puny’ Lord Hopetoun, the Governor-General. Then on 9 May and in Melbourne there was the symbolically vital first meeting of the federal parliament, attended by the Duke and Duchess of York. The latter event and some other great events of the Melbourne week were staged in the enormous Exhibition Building—so very enormous that one writer credited it with its own ‘suburbs’. You can see those suburbs, in the far distance, in Tom Roberts’ painted sketch and then his official depiction of the 9 May event. Some of the coverage of Federation events was refreshingly curmudgeonly. The Bulletin, keen for Australia to be a fresh new nation in its own right, found Federation sentiments and occasions altogether too English and Imperial.

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Pitt Street, Sydney 1901

A growling commentator watches the tawdry and magnificent parade, 1 January 1901 IT [the grand parade through Sydney streets and out to Centennial Park] was tawdry, it was unworthy, it was magnificent, it was irresistible. Or its surroundings were magnificent and irresistible. Not the bravery of gaudy flag-stuffs, or the trivialities of ornament … but the magnificent, irresistible people. They waited and watched by the hundred thousand—it almost seemed by the million. One knew, but one never knew, that there were so many people in Australia before … There must have been half a million people—some said more— pale city faces, brown bush

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faces, men and women and children, gathered to see the pageant pass, and (one hopes) to take home some spiritual element of kinship … [Alas, instead of the battling ‘men and women who really make Australia’] there were soldiers and soldiers and soldiers, emphasising the sadness that Australia, the land of peace, has become for British ends a land of war … And the people watched, lining the procession’s route in holiday clothes, filling windows, overflowing balconies, crowding the stands with intent and animated faces. They saw the procession move along—the citizen

soldiers, with many fine fellows among them, from the Australian states and from Maoriland; the stranger soldiery—the Scotch, sturdy with good brows and that air of shrewdness which is a Scotsman’s birthright, even when he has to enlist—the plucky English Tommies, with small heads and shallow brainpans, bred for slaughter, ignorant of personal responsibility, following the fetish ‘loyalty’ blindly, utensils of the privileged classes for the defence of whose prerogative they exist—the Indians, fine men, brave men, testifying to that English mastery which all

acknowledge, tamed like jungle beasts to obey their keeper and growl when bidden. The people gazed fascinated, and cheered—did they know what? … And so, with the blare of bands, through the packed streets the pageant passed, with the Governor-General at the tail looking so puny, so wan—as if in his own person he figured the wan and puny basis of the idea of monarchy which he represented. AN UNNAMED WRITER IN THE BULLETIN OF 5 JANUARY 1901

‘Gouli-Gouli’ attends Australia’s birth, 1 January 1901 AT LAST [in the parade] the Governor-General, Wally, and an aide. Lord Hopetoun looks distinctly better. His little face is visible from balconies, and his smile is no longer the tortured grin with which he entered a fortnight since … His Ex. has acquired the genuine automatic bow that never stops. A rapid rocking backward and forward, backward and forward, and as often as possible, a smile, but not so very often yet … [Later in Centennial Park] In the centre of the scene was a white pavilion with a gaudy royal standard floating over it. The pavilion is in a hollow, and round three sides of it the ground rises to a ridge, which forms a natural amphitheatre, along which were massed the people rank on rank. And yet such is the vastness of the Centennial Park that number was swallowed up, and the waiting populace, glistening whitely in the tremulous heat, looked scanty and patchy. Away to the west were little yellow dots, which later turned out to be the artillery. The white pavilion was lit up with the red robes of the visiting Chief Justices … As the troops swung past they wheeled around and

gradually formed a huge hollow square. The khaki faded into place, and then the dark-skinned troops of Hindustan rode past, then the blazing Life Guards, lancers with streaming pennons, and hussars that seemed to have stepped out of the picture books of the Soldiers of the Queen. It was all military. A sudden ripping crash, the salute had begun. The Royal Engineers drove past with

pontoons on their carts, and behind them trod closely men in red coats and roasting busbies, and more and more until the eye grew weary of marching soldiers. Suddenly guns boomed, grey smoke rolled in clouds across the park, there was a meagre cheer, and Australia was born.

Swearing-in Ceremony, Centennial Park, Sydney, Commonwealth Celebrations 1901

‘GOULI-GOULI’ IN THE BULLETIN OF 5 JANUARY 1901

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‘Owen Deed’ marvels at Sydney by day and by night, 1 January 1901 SYDNEY has been seen in many guises … but was never seen to such splendid advantage as on New Year’s morning, when the pageant came flowing from Bridge street into Pitt street, and the vast concourse greeted it with a roar such as has never disturbed the echoes of an Australian city since the days when the kangaroo browsed about the beautiful harbour and the bunyip quenched its thirst in the vicinity of the Queens’ Bridge. There was … affectionate good fellowship everywhere. The crowd had caught the spirit of the day … and little accidents that call up fierce words and provoke the lurid Australian adjective on ordinary occasions were forgiven with a smile. You trod on your neighbour’s most woeful corn in your effort to miss none of the glories of those magnificent Guards flashing keen rays from their polished cuirasses, and mumbled an anxious apology, expecting to be consigned to the nether depths with lingual fire and brimstone, but ‘It’s

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all right, old fellow; everything happens in a crowd,’ was the answer you got, and you felt with a glow of genuine philanthropy, here was a man and a brother indeed … Every inch of space was used to the best advantage: wherever man, woman or child could find room to perch, there he, she, or it was perched: wherever there was scope for flag, or banner or floral design, there was the flag throwing up its proud length to the sky, or the gay design adding its beautiful hues to the rainbow glories of a most spacious and beautiful day. I am not asked here to describe details; I want to give an impression of the whole show but I despair of conveying anything like an adequate picture of the scene: no art could do that, and all arts combined must fail. How to give best impression of Pitt street, for instance, when the gayer part of the noble line was streaming towards the G.P.O. with the glow and glitter of military, the proud movement of horses, the rippling of flag, banner

Town Hall at Night, Sydney 1901

and the wonderful shimmer of endless colour like a prismatic mirage filling the whole street with the sound of cheering, softened into quaint accord with the rapture of the bands—how? Close your eyes and imagine yourself at a theatre … Use your imaginative power to enlarge that miniature magnificence till it fills a spacious street … Sydney was a proud city, the people exulted, their rapture shone in their eyes … When night fell there was no sign of weariness in the crowd … [and] there were no charging bands of howling hoodlums … even pushes [gangs] from the Rocks seemed to have risen to the occasion, and the illuminations were reviewed in comfort by hundreds of thousands …

If Sydney by day had been glorious, Sydney lit by the glow of ten thousand illuminations was magnificent in the extreme. All the colour of the day remained; the crowd remained, too, and the tasteful and fanciful decorations in a vivid light warmed the whole city with a rosy glow that gave new beauties to all the fine designs, new colours to the flags, and new glory to the many arches. It was a city resplendent, and the man upon whom the sight does not leave a lasting effect must be an unimaginative wretch, for whom I beseech the pity of all good Australians who are not superior to the rapture of genuine sentiment. ‘OWEN DEED’ IN PUNCH OF 3 JANUARY 1901

George Rose (Firm), Melbourne Duke of York Celebrations, Melbourne. The Royal Procession Passing under the German Arch, Collins Street 1901

‘Shellback’ seethes at the look and feel of Melbourne, May 1901 MELBOURNE has been transformed into a huge madhouse, and its citizens into a crowd of gibbering lunatics. Never in its whole history has such a wild wave of lunacy swept with such blizzard force through its streets … never has the shrine of lickspittledom been knelt at by such a mass of hypnotised devotees. And in droves the pilgrims come; north, south, east and west may be seen long lines of the faithful,

hieing citywards, loaded with the golden offerings that appeal to the heart of the great god—Grovel. From far-across the seas huge ships have come to join in the saturnalia, their sides bristling with cannon, their decks filled with men, their usual occupation murder. From far and near creatures in all the gaudy hues of the rainbow, until Melbourne presents the appearance of a vast armed camp, and the unthinking

sight-seer, in the fullness of his grovel-stained heart, exclaims—‘How beautiful! Shall I ever look on its like again?’ The streets are dotted with arches, and the highways with gaudy, overgrown barber’s poles … Mottoes and legends adorn the arches and buildings, and may the Lord have mercy on the souls of those who penned them … But though Melbourne is decked out today in her

flags and banners, it is only the tawdry finery of the courtesan and prostitute, whose painted face and gaudy attire hide the blackened soul and diseased body. Behind and beneath all the glare and glitter stands the gaunt phantom of hunger, and the cry of the unemployed. ‘SHELLBACK’ IN THE TOCSIN OF 16 MAY 1901

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A Punch writer sees glory and then a crowd behaving like a can of worms, 9–11 May 1901 THE satirical wretch who persists in seeing humdrum man behind the broadest breast blazing with burnished gold … or an empty head beneath the bravest cocked hat and most beautiful plumes, is an enemy of his kind at such a time … We were deeply interested: we found here [in the official opening of the first federal parliament] something of the glory of the dawning of a new nation, our nation, and sympathy flowed within us. We saw the grand platform beneath the great dome ornate with many crowns, finely arranged and excellent in effect. We saw the Royal Duke speaking great words … and to the right of him and to the left, before and behind, we saw the high halls packed with silent, intensely interested crowds of responsible citizens. The gold on the broad breasts, the epaulettes, the gilt crowns, the expanse of humanity in the uniform of society, all seemed to belong to the picture … And yet only a small percentage actually saw and heard what was going on; the rest of the great assemblage sat away in the suburbs of the great building, taking everything in good faith, waiting in patience, and apparently just as much moved as the favoured magnates in the foremost rows. They listened to speeches of which they caught perhaps one word in twenty, and to music that was faint and

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far off, and, when all was done, arose and folded themselves in their wraps and stole away, still in deep seriousness of mind … [Two days later] I arrived in time [for the Military Tattoo inside the Exhibition Building] to find the Exhibition Building under siege. One half of Melbourne was inside the Exhibition, the other half was outside, and the latter half was conducting itself in a wild and whirling way, evidently with the intention of uprooting the building and moving it bodily. Imagining that official invitations and other badges would avail me, I pushed into the crowd storming the fort, and then, when I had gone too far to retreat, I had occasion to regret my hasty action. When a crowd of the proportions of this one wants to go somewhere, it wants to go there with a sort of blind, stupid insistence that reminds one of the perambulations of an avalanche. Melbourne crowds lack one instinct that is always present in a Continental, particularly a Parisian crowd, the instinct to arm itself. A Parisian crowd under the same circumstances would have taken paving stones and fence rails into its hands; the Melbourne crowd went bare-fisted to the attack, and consequently was not particularly formidable. You can’t knock down a building like the Exhibition with your knuckles … Have you ever collected a tin of worms for fish bait? If you have

you may have noted that the worms form themselves into a ball and revolve. That’s what the crowd seemed to do on Saturday night; it massed itself into a ball and revolved, abrading its outer rings horribly against fences and buildings. It broke through the outer guard and charged the Exhibition doors, and after much fighting and confusion and a babel that sounded like 50 parliaments inviting each other out into the back yard, a door was crashed in. The crowd really carried that door, but here happened an amazing thing. A guard stood there, a Spartan in a black coat, armed with an umbrella, and with this deadly weapon he attacked the crowd. ‘Go back!’ he cried, banging the nearest head with his gamp. ‘Back! back!’ Down came the gingham. The hero grew red, frothy, excited; he whirled his gamp like a Trojan. ‘Back! back!’ he yelled, hammering right and left, furiously flourishing his deadly weapon. The crowd gazed for a moment, open-mouthed, amazed, and then it actually faltered and backed away; the doors were clashed to again, bolted and barred, and the night had been won—the situation saved by one valiant gamp. AN UNNAM ED WRITER IN PUNCH OF 16 MAY 1901

Federation Edward VII Arch in Melbourne 1901

The Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York Talking to the Boer War Soldiers, Western Australia, July 1901

EVERY DAY YOU SEE OCCURRENCES THAT BRING TEARS TO YOUR EYES

Australians at the Boer War, 1899–1902

About 20,000 Australian men and about 80 Australian women took part, for the British Empire and for Britain, in the Boer War of October 1899 to May 1902. A patriotic song of the time, Sons of Australia (the cover of its sheet music claimed it was being ‘Sung in Both Hemispheres with Immense Success by Tom Costello’) explained Australia’s interest in this distant conflict: Did they think that England stood alone? Have they heard how to her side we’ve flown? Sons of Australia, strike for your Empire Grand. Fight as your mother taught you to—for the dear old land.

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ne historian of Australia’s part in the war, Craig Wilcox, thinks that it was in all sorts of ways a troubling war for thinking Australians. It was a war of

‘brutal conquest’ (the British Empire bent on crushing the Boer republics) and a war that by its spiteful, skirmishing nature failed to provide ‘ennobling battle’ for the Australians. Instead of ‘ennobling battle’ there were ignoble tasks for the Australians like the burnings of Boer homesteads. Lots of Australian soldiers agonised about their disillusionments in their letters home. We know this because families passed on their fighting loved ones’ letters to their local newspapers, which duly published them (even though their tone was often frankly unpatriotic), perhaps glad of this eyewitness reporting from unpaid war correspondents. One paid war correspondent at the Boer War was A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson, and his despatches, full of exquisite descriptions, were published in many Australian newspapers. After the Anglo-Australian Lieutenant Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant’s brother officer and best friend Captain Hunt was killed by Boers, Morant vowed that he’d avenge Hunt’s killing. Soon after and at Morant’s insistence some Boer prisoners were shot. Lieutenants Morant, Handcock, Picton and Witton were court martialled. Witton, a Victorian, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to prison for life, and Picton was found guilty of manslaughter and cashiered, but Morant and Picton were executed. Folklore and the famous feature film (starring Edward Woodward as Morant) have created an impression of an always brave and buoyant Morant, but Witton was there when an imprisoned Morant once ‘broke down completely and wept’ as he held out his hands for handcuffing, and was there to see Morant suffer the news of his death sentence.

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Gunner Sheedy sees the terrible way the Boers bury their dead, 1900 Orange River, March 3rd, 1900 My Dear Father, I received your kind and welcome letter, and was glad that you all were quite well. We are having a pretty rough time of it, but we must expect those things here. It is a great sight to see a battle field after a fight. It is a terrible sight to see the dead and wounded lying as thick as bees in a hive … It is worth while to come here, if for nothing else but to see some of the places after a big battle. It is marvellous the way the Boers get the hills and the towns trenched. They have all the hills built up with stone to protect them when fighting. They leave holes in the stone walls to fire through. It is terrible the way the Boers bury their dead. They leave heads and legs sticking out of the ground, and where they are thick they stack them up in heaps and cover them over with stones; and lots they never shift at all. Some of the places are rotten with dead Boers and we have to bury them or else we could not stand the smell … The country over here is much like New South Wales, some parts of it very rough and other parts miles of plains. In fact I have not seen a tree since I left Sydney, and I travelled about a thousand miles straight along the line … It is a grand sight to see a charge of mounted infantry across a big plain—about six or seven thousand of them in a line; but the Boers are always on top of a hill, and when the British get close enough the Boers open fire on them. Then you will hear the bullets whistling amongst them, and see some of their horses shot dead under them and more wounded, besides men killed and wounded. You never see danger once you get a start. The Boers cannot last much longer now. GUNNER M.J. SHEEDY IN A LETTER TO HIS FATHER JOHN IN THARWA, NEW SOUTH WALES, ON 3 MARCH 1900

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Felix McGlennon (1856–1943) Sons of Australia c. 1900

‘Banjo’ Paterson enjoys the shooting at human game with cannon, 1900 IT IS grey dawn. The stars are growing pale in the cold frosty sky, and away to the east a faint cheerless white light begins to spread over the plain. Away on all sides spreads the dimly seen stretch of veldt, in some places reaching to the limit of human sight, in others terminating abruptly in some towering rocky mound called a kopje. Hidden in under the shelter of one of these kopjes is a military camp, the only signs of life being rows of horses tied by the heads to picket pegs. With drooping heads they stand half-asleep, each horse facing his saddle, which is laid upon the ground in front of him. Against each saddle is what seems to be a small roll of blankets, but which in reality is the sleeping form of a soldier. A deathlike stillness reigns over everything … As the light grows more definite a ghostly figure flits about in each regimental camp rousing the sleepers. To some he applies his toe with no light force. He is the sergeant-major—the man on whose shoulders the whole of the hard work falls … ‘Turn out, lads! Turn out!’ he says. ‘Do you want to be there till you get sunstruck?’ (NB

the sun is as yet only indicated by a pale glow on the horizon.) … The men sit up as he passes along, and uncoil themselves out of their blankets. They have all gone to bed in their boots and clothes, so their toilet simply consists in rubbing their eyes … By this time the whole camp is astir, the cooks are bending over huge cooking pots, nose bags are put on the horses, and a steady sound of crunching grain rises from the 500 or so horses all at once ... [Later] So off the cavalry go [to get the brigade’s planned flank attack underway] riding leisurely through long dewy grass, the men smoking and yarning together, utterly careless of the fact that they are to be under fire in a few hours. Behind the fighting columns comes a long string of wagons, ambulances, and mess carts, reaching over a couple of miles of ground. And thus at walking pace, like some enormous funeral, the brigade moves on across the open veldt … [A number of mounted Boers are seen in the near distance.] General French is at the head of his column and he gives a sharp message … ‘Bring up the guns

at once!’ The cavalry open out and through the gap the guns come up at the gallop. There are many fine sights in the world, but it is the sight of a lifetime to see the Royal Horse Artillery gallop into action. With a rush and a clatter and a swing, the guns fly past behind the madly straining horses, while the drivers ply their whips, and the men on the limbers with clenched teeth hold on to their seats as the guns roll and sway with the pace they are making. ‘Action front!’ and round come the trained horses like machinery, and like lightning the men uncouple the limber and place the gun in position. The range is calculated and the order goes, ‘At 3000! Fuse fourteen! Ready! Fire number one gun!’ and with an exulting scream, like a living thing being released from prison, away goes the shell across to the little knot of galloping men. An absolute silence prevails as the shell whizzes away out of hearing, and then ‘bang!’

Garnet Garfield The Transvaal War between 1890 and 1900

It has burst right over the dust cloud that is travelling across the plain. It is a splendid shot, and a buzz of congratulation arises, and a wild feeling of exultation wakes in every man’s breast. This is something like sport, this shooting at human game with cannon over three thousand yards of country. ‘Hooray! Give ’em another!’ A.B. ‘BANJO’ PATERSON IN THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD OF 11 AUGUST 1900

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Trooper Maunsell wants to come home, 1901 YOU cannot imagine the pleasure with which I received your welcome letter; you do not know what a letter means to us here … Kitchener heliographed us a message the other day complimenting us on the excellent work we have done [but] the only message he can send to please us is to send us home. This soldiering is not what it is cracked up to be—one

campaign will satisfy the best soldier in the world; it has more than satisfied me. The greatest drawback out here is the cold which is something terrible. The water holes are frozen every morning and very often the ice does not melt all day and firewood is very scarce. I have seen some of the loveliest furniture, pianos, organs, etc—burnt for firewood and houses that

cost thousands blown up. There is no mistake, war is a cruel thing. Every day you will see occurrences that would bring tears to your eyes. You go up to a farm, it is full of women and children (I have seen such a thing as 25 women in one house) they are bundled out into wagons and the house burnt down or blown up. We must do it, for the women are bitterer

than the men; they feed and shelter them and do everything in their power to help them and it is only natural you know for blood is thicker than water. So we have to shift them and burn their houses. TROOPER G. MAUNSELL IN A LETTER WRITTEN ON 9 JULY 1901 TO HIS BROTHER IN QUEANBEYAN, NEW SOUTH WALES

Burning Farm Houses for Treachery c. 1902

George Witton sees ‘Breaker’ Morant turned deathly pale, 26 February 1902 WE WERE walking about the yard as usual [the prison yard in Pretoria] at 8 o’clock, Morant asking me the same question that he had asked me before, ‘What are they going to do with us? Do you think they will shoot us?’ I scouted the idea of it and tried to reassure him by saying that if they shot us they would require to go on shooting officers every day. A warder then came to Morant and informed him that he was required at the Governor’s office. He walked over and in a few minutes returned. His face was deathly pale; he looked as though his heart had already ceased to beat. I exclaimed, ‘Good God, Morant, what is the matter?’ ‘Shot tomorrow morning!’ was the reply … During the afternoon two warders were busily engaged in the workshop, not a chain away from our cells, making two rough coffins; we could hear them quite distinctly all the afternoon, and knew what they were doing. In the evening they [the coffins] could be seen in the prison yard, where they had been placed just outside the workshop door. At four o’clock [that afternoon] I was informed that I would leave for

England at five the following morning. At six [that evening] a hamper was sent in containing a nicely got-up dinner for four. We laid it out in my cell, but it was scarcely touched. After the awful events of the day we had no relish for a feast. It was the last meal that two of the company would partake of in this world. Morant remarked, ‘Not to be blasphemous, lads; but this is “The Last Supper.”’ … At five the next morning, 27 February … I was

taken away … At the prison gate I passed a squad of Cameron Highlanders waiting to be admitted. It was unnecessary to ask why or what they were there for. It was a heartbreaking sight … While waiting at the Pretoria Railway Station I distinctly heard in the clear morning air the report of the volley of the firing party, the death knell of my late comrades …

Hospital Ward Decorated with Flags. Boer War c. 1900

GEORGE R. WITTON IN HIS SCAPEGOATS OF THE EMPIRE (1907)

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In 1902 and after 16 years abroad establishing herself as an adored and feted operatic soprano, the woman who had left home as mere Nellie Mitchell came home to Melbourne as Madame Melba. She’d sung with Caruso and performed for royalty at the most famous of opera houses. In Melbourne, her home town, her visit stoked what ‘Peter Quince’ of Punch called ‘Melbamania’ in the bosoms of those who paid to see and hear her sing and of those who

could only wait around to catch glimpses of her out and about. For all sorts of reasons we no longer see and feel manias of the ‘Melbamania’ kind when an Australian does so well in the wider world. In 1902, though, Melba’s achievements seemed very special. She was an Australian who had triumphed in an especially rarefied and sophisticated branch of the arts, thus doing wonders for the self-esteem of the adolescent nation.

Dame Nellie Melba, Charles Mitchell and Kangaroo, Cave Hill Pet 1902

SING ON, MELBA, ENCHANTRESS, WHETHER WOMAN OR DEVIL!

Nellie Melba comes home to Melbourne, 1902

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he came home not just to tour but to see her ageing father, and spent a day visiting her father’s home and her childhood haunts at Lilydale, near Melbourne. One blushes to use the trite word ‘superstar’, but Madame Melba was, arguably, Australia’s first member of this elite species. The fervour she caused in 1902 seems to have been very like that hard-to-define fervour that used to be caused in Australia by visiting British royalty. Melba really was usually rather regal, and, fabulously rich (she loved money and boasted in her autobiography that from her five Melbourne and four Sydney concerts in 1902 ‘I netted the sum of £21,000 … a remarkable success in view of the drought’), tended to dress gorgeously and so was often spectacular to look at. Then too the sense of her being royal was assisted by the knowledge that she’d sung for and rubbed shoulders with Queen Victoria, the Tsar, the Kaiser, the King of Sweden and the Austrian Emperor and had been romantically embroiled with, among others, the pretender to the French throne. Then, for lovers of opera—an art form that generates extraordinary, reason-banishing passions in its devotees (this writer is one of them)—who believe that opera is the greatest artistic achievement of our species, Melba was a kind of goddess. She had triumphed brilliantly in this most important realm of the arts and seems to have

been blessed with a thrillingly lovely and agile voice that, recordings of her being so primitive, no one alive today has heard at its best. Lucky ‘Peter Quince’ and other Melburnians of 1902 to have heard her, live and in her sublime prime! Melba arrived at Spencer Street station in Melbourne a little after noon, having travelled from Albury in the railway carriage used by the Duke and Duchess of York while in Victoria. Thousands were there, including ‘photographers perched upon portable and miniature towers’. Melba disembarked and made her way to her waiting horse-drawn carriage along a path police made through the throng. ‘Peter Quince’ (‘I am not intensely musical’) of Punch had to suffer ‘the boredom of an hour’s waiting’ while supporting musicians preceded Nellie Melba’s first appearance of her Melbourne sojourn on the stage of the Melbourne Town Hall. Then Melba sang and he was transported (to East Gippsland, we discover) with delight. Punch’s senior music critic, ‘The Don’, was at the same concert, and, besotted, afterwards did a fine, literary job of describing Melba’s voice. Punch colour writer ‘Peter Quince’, doing his best to stay a little aloof from the ‘Melbamania’ that as we’ve just seen had already bewitched even him at a Melba concert, followed Melba on her visit to Lilydale.

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The Queen of Song is royally received in Melbourne

Presentation of Illuminated Address to Dame Nellie Melba at Public Reception at Cave Hill 1902

THE CROWD was cheering itself hoarse, and the central figure in this royal reception—the Queen Of Song—was bowing continually. To a friend standing by the carriage steps, she handed a bunch of violets. ‘Give us all some,’ a voice called out amidst a deafening clamour, and, evidently delighted by the suggestion, Madame Melba began to tear up the heap of flowers that filled the seat of the carriage, and to throw them to all sides. The melee

that ensued was indescribable. Men almost came to blows in disputing the right to possession of a daffodil, women looked unutterable things at one another over a few sadly damaged violets, while boys with a keen eye to business gathered all they could and tried to ‘to turn an honest brown’ by offering to sell their prizes as ‘Melba mementos’ and they had a brisk market … The journey through the city … was a triumphal progress … Half way up the

Block a band struck up ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ This was the signal for redoubled cheering, and Madame Melba rose to her feet to convey her thanks by a most expressive bow. ‘That’s what a woman can do,’ a prominent advocate of woman’s franchise remarked, as she stood on the kerbstone, with battle in her eye, but nobody thought of taking up her challenge, and the lady went her way in high spirits. AN UNNAMED WRITER IN THE ARGUS OF 22 SEP TEM BER 1902

‘Peter Quince’ is entranced by Melba the Enchantress THE LITTLE Signorina Sassoli [the act before Melba] played up on the harp exquisitely, and her lissome fingers creeping in and out of the strings, tumbling and squirming over each other like kittens at play, fascinated my eyes for a time … Then a hush, a burst of applause—and Melba! … [All other things] were sponged from sight and memory—there was nobody, nothing but Melba. I almost doubt if I should know her in the street, for I scarce had time to note the graceful poise of her head, the bright eyes, the rounded shoulders and the perfect figure, when she began to sing and time and scent and place were blotted out. Why did she sing to me? I was a perfect stranger to her, and yet she sang to me

alone, for me alone. Her voice could not have filled that great hall. It only reached to me—and stayed there. Intoxication is ever selfish, and I gave no thought to those unfortunates in the south gallery and under the balconies, to whom the diva’s performance was but a dumb show, the voiceless phantasmagoria of a beautiful dream. She sang as a mother might to a babe— and I was the enraptured babe … She only sang to me, and whilst the mind was soothed in a sweet intoxication, the errant twin-memory brought the recollection of a past sensation. I lay dreaming in a cool fern gully in Gippsland watching a tiny spring that bubbled out of the green earth and leapt over the ledge of rock that kept it

from the rivulet. As the drops of water leaped over the barrier some rose above the others and glistened with a brighter sparkle for an instant as they caught the sunray through the leaves. Then they joined their fellows and flowed on with murmuring music— on through time and space—gems that would sparkle again elsewhere and for the gaze of others, but for me thenceforward only a jewelled memory. Such as those drops were Melba’s notes … Sing on, Melba, Enchantress, whether Woman or Devil! Am I bewitched, or do I only dream? If this be magic, Enchantress, break not the spell! If this be dreaming, God grant I never wake! [Melba finishes singing.] The vision fades, the spell

is broken, the voice is mute … Yet, strange to say, there is no disappointment on the thousand faces that I look upon. There is a strange, rapt expression … With a shock and a tinge of disappointment I recognise the telltale truth upon their faces. My experience has been theirs. The voice that seemed only loud enough to reach my ears and touch my heart had gone to theirs. I had been living in a fool’s paradise of monopoly. [That voice’s] softest note had vibrated through the space in waves of wireless telephony and every ear and every heart heard and felt it, attuned as it was by nature and genius to reach the souls of all. ‘PETER QUINCE’ IN PUNCH OF 2 OCTOBER 1902

‘The Don’ finds Melba’s singing warm with the life of breathing womanhood THE SCENE in the Town Hall on Saturday night was of the sort that we style heroic and historic … It was the first triumph in her own country and among her own people of a great singer—of a picturesque and popular personage. Madame Melba, who had left us in humility, had come back victoriously as one of the world’s celebrities, arrayed in the shining raiment that her genius wove … Here it is proper to

point out that the merit of Madame Melba is not to be measured in any absurd Amazonian scale of mere physical proportion. She is not a vocal Sandow [the stage Strongman], she is not a muscular giantess, she is not a phenomenon as regard enormousness of voice … Those who go to a Melba concert in the belief that they are to hear … [and] see a vocal volcano in a state of active eruption, will

be disappointed … Her voice is of that peculiar brilliance of tone which is described as ‘fluty’ … It is, however, from its calibre—silver bright and clear—that Madame Melba’s voice derives its highest value, it is the rare calibre that invests it with its charm. The casket holding the voice appears to be a fine, artistic nature, at once gentle and resolute … her singing is at all times warm with the life of breathing

womanhood. The aesthetic side of her art is nowhere neglected for the mechanical … [but] … once or twice … Melba broke the bounds of restraint and used her full voice. Then the notes came from her with the flash of bright bared steel, and shot through the hall like jewelled arrows, leaving a shining track of vocal splendour. ‘THE DON’ IN PUNCH OF 2 OCTOBER 1902

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Melba sings to her father THE SECOND of the Melba concerts was, in the eyes of the diva, of far more importance than the first, for she sang, for the first time as Melba, to one whose opinion she valued far more than that of any of the Crowned Heads. It was to her father, Mr. David Mitchell, that she sang, carolling ‘Sweet Bird’ with all her marvellous

music and pouring forth her soul in the ballad of his choice, the old-fashioned ‘Coming Thro’ The Rye.’ There were moist eyes in the audience … Melba, in honour of the occasion, was more richly gowned than on Saturday night. Again it was a Princess robe, and again it showed every line and curve of her beautiful form, but this night it was a mother-of-pearl sequined robe, exquisitely embroidered with a rose design, each

petal of the flower formed of pink chiffon; this ran round the foot of the skirt and up the back of the long fluted train; the same lovely work elaborated the bodice, and the outline of the neck was softened with folds of pink tulle; diamonds were woven round the neck, on the bodice and in the hair. AN UNNAMED ‘FACT AND RUMOUR’ COLUMNIST IN PUNCH OF 2 OCTOBER 1902

Henry Pelham Gill (1855–1916) Portrait of Dame Nellie Melba 1893 below: The Arrival of Dame Nellie Melba in Processional Drive at Lilydale 1902

The diva has a day out ON SATURDAY the township of Lilydale was alive with busy workers, decorating their houses and places of business. Trade might be said to be at a standstill intermittently. I walked into a barber’s shop for a shave, and underwent the operation at the hands of a young man who divided his attention between a cigarette which he informed me he was burning as incense to the deity, and hurried rushes to the window to ‘see if she was coming’. In the stray intervals he shaved me in detached sections. Everybody was

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afflicted with Melbamania and … it would have been a very bad day for a man to have a fit in Lilydale, for he certainly would have been compelled to play it out on his own responsibility without assistance from doctor or chemist. At length … the murmur ran round—‘She’s coming!’ The schoolgirls, with their baskets of rose [petals] got ready, the populace crowded in upon the rotunda, the photographers bobbed up from unexpected places, and the members of committees posed looking as

uncomfortable as only persons posing can … Lo, the conquering heroine comes! Foresters, huntsmen, bandsmen, children strewing roses, and Melba! She seemed tired, as if she had grown too accustomed to adulation and fasting and prayer.

Although she smiled and bowed graciously, and took her addresses as if she liked them, there seemed to be a note of sadness in her eyes and in the lines of her mouth. ‘PETER QUINCE’ IN PUNCH OF 13 NOVEMBER 1902

Public Reception for Dame Nellie Melba at Cave Hill, Estate of Her Father David Mitchell 1902

A photographer puts one blot on the diva’s day out ONE OF THE most enjoyable features at the Lilydale reception given to Madame Melba last Saturday was the al fresco strawberry tea on Cave Hill, at the foot of which are the famous lime kilns doing their work silently, eternally belching forth a pungent kind of smoke. All the guests climbed the hill, and seated on the grass, admired the lovely

panoramic view and the green hills around, where no sign of drought was visible. Very soon a well-known figure appeared, robed in a macintosh over a long trailing gown of French muslin, patterned with a rose design in autumn tints; this was the great singer … The fresh, healthy-looking children of Lilydale, who, clad in white frocks, sashed with Melba’s colours,

formed an avenue for her reception, and scattered her path with rose petals, added much to the sylvan beauty of scene, and gave a sweet, picturesque appearance to the ceremony. But there was one blot on the whole day, and that was the persistence of one particular camera fiend, who haunted the singer’s footsteps unceasingly all day, and surely must have

snapped her often enough to supply every paper in Australia. So troublesome did he become that Melba made no secret of the annoyance he gave her, and exclaimed, ‘I do wish that Kodak man would go away; he makes me feel quite sick.’ ‘MINETTA’ IN HER ‘LADIES’ LETTER’ COLUMN IN PUNCH OF 13 NOVEMBER 1902

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W. Lister Lister (1859–1943) Canberra, 1912

NICE POSITION FOR A FEDERAL CEMETERY

The search for a site for the federal capital

Between 1899 (as Federation loomed) and 1909 when Canberra, near Queanbeyan in New South Wales, was chosen to be the federal capital site, there was a ‘Battle of the Sites’. The Constitution prescribed that the federal capital city was to be in New South Wales, albeit at least 100 miles (160 kilometres) from Sydney. During the ‘battle’ the praises of many places were sung, and federal politicians went out on tours of inspection (the press scoffed that these excursions were ‘picnics’) to see sites for themselves and to have their ears bashed by locals who exaggerated places’ charms. Eventually, in he first ‘picnic’ of all, by a party of senators in February 1902 (they went out in high, hot summer into a New thrilling exhaustive ballots in the House and then in South Wales made ghastly by the ongoing ‘Federation’ the Senate late in 1908, Yass/Canberra just pipped drought and the press called them ‘The Shrivelled Senators’), is the best known because of E.T. Luke’s famous photographs of some of its occasions. We’re lucky Dalgety at the post.

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that, to supplement Luke’s photographs, one of the party, Senator Colonel John Neild (he called the expedition a ‘pilgrimage’ and the senators ‘pilgrims’), wrote wittily and descriptively about some of it for the press. In the excerpts that follow we see a little of the way in which the gods presented a site meteorologically on the day it was inspected, did its cause terrible harm, or (in the case of lucky Canberra in 1906) a power of good. Opponents of bracingly chilly Dalgety always characterised it as a Siberian site where everyone would freeze to death.

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Edmund Thomas Luke (1864–1938) Senators at Albury 1902

The senators visit a nice position for a federal cemetery, 1902 WITH a temperature [at Albury] approximating to that of the Black Hole of Calcutta, Sir William Lyne, in heavy frock coat and silk hat, played Providence, or Fairy Godmother to the party … After a very hot and unpleasant journey from Melbourne, and an equally disagreeable night passed in the sleeping cars on a siding at the Albury station, a majority of the pilgrims started at 6.30 a.m. for a twelve mile drive along the river, and had a warm and dusty time of it … The morning progressed to a greater degree

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of unpleasantness as 11 o’clock was reached, when a lively duststorm enhanced the unhappiness of the pilgrims … Albury does not seem to ‘catch on’ with the pilgrims. ‘Nice position for a federal cemetery’ says one. ‘Hot as a stokehole’ says another; and, in view of the sirocco blowing from the west, and filling eyes, nose, ears, mouth, hair, and clothing with a surfeit of filth, and covering of every object a hundred yards distant with a curtain of yellow dust, pilgrims may be forgiven if they fail to recognize Albury as the Federal Mecca … Certainly the Fates have

been unkind to Albury in providing about as disgusting a day for the Senatorial inspection as it is in the heart of man to conceive … Smothered with a thick covering of real estate, the pilgrims returned to the station at about 1 o’clock. [Then] a start was made at 2 p.m. for Wagga … dust everywhere, shutting out the landscape on all sides. Heat sufficient to justify unneighbourly thoughts of anyone who seeks his comfort at your expense … Call it a picnic? Let scoffers come and try it for themselves! … Arriving [at Wagga Wagga] in a tornado of

dust, the pilgrims speedily entered the vehicles provided for them, and drove out to inspect [Wagga Wagga’s] ‘Promised Land.’ A few miles out of town they encountered a fierce bush fire. Jumping from their carriages, a number of Senators commenced to fight the flames … Senators, notably those from Queensland and Western Australia, put in excellent work beating out the rapidly-extending flames. SENATOR COLONEL JOHN NEILD IN THE TOWN AND COUNTRY JOURNAL OF 22 FEBRUARY 1902

Mahkoolma lives up to the menace of its name, 1906 GOULBURN. Sunday. AFTER breakfast, an 18-mile drive [from the railway junction at Bowning, near Yass] was begun, with Mahkoolma as the objective. The name invited all sorts of pronunciations, but the local farmers drawled it out into something like Muckoolema—a soft, sliding sound, which suggested the gradual sinking of a coachwheel or a boot into vicious, tenacious mud. The prophecy of that sound was fully justified for the first half of the journey. The coaches in which the legislators sat trundled over a made road, but when they approached the proposed federal territory they plunged at once into a swamp of distress. In passing over a patch of grey soil, the leading coach suddenly lurched and plunged, and, behold, it was stuck in the mud up to its axles. Members bundled out of the coach, and scrambled to the roadside, each carrying on his boots several pounds of New South Wales territory. In this emergency … two members [one of them once a coach-driver with Cobb and Co.] rushed to the rescue, the coach was levered up with fence rails, and sheets of bark were laid along the muddy surface to prevent another plunge into the

subsoil. After half an hour of pushing, tugging and levering, the coach came out amid triumphant cheering. The procession resumed its way, and for 300 yards all went merry … then another coach stuck. Thereafter progress was slow and wearisome. At every hill, at every treacherous-looking patch, at every rivulet, the drivers suggested that the passengers might get out and walk … In the last eight miles members tramped at least five … Finally, nearly four hours after starting, a long procession of empty coaches and marching legislators straggled into a small open plain, on which a luncheon-tent was erected. It was Mahkoolma … Apart from the depressing character of the journey, the nature of the country travelled through created an unfavourable impression. The district is … covered with dead and ring-barked timber … ‘Scratch Mahkoolma from the Federal City stakes,’ said a sporting member. ‘We were brought here as a joke,’ another member remarked. A member, in whose constituency another [proposed] site lies, came up. ‘We were talking of Mahkoolma as the federal city,’ he was told.

The Shrivelled Senators 1902

‘Speak reverentially of the dead,’ he remarked solemnly … Mahkoolma has the distinction that it is the first capital site to possess an authentic ghost, in which the district firmly believes. Many years ago there lived in the district a farming family named Conroy … One day a dismissed shepherd procured a shear blade and with it ended the lives of Conroy, Mrs. Conroy and two farm hands. Since then, it is asserted, numerous witnesses have seen old Conroy’s ghost wander along the road with dreadful wailing … Some members [doubted] the story on the grounds that no self-respecting ghost would walk on such a road as they had had to tramp; others looked uneasy, troubled by visions

of Conroy’s ghost wailing around Parliament-house during an all-night sitting. [The party returns to Bowning.] Made wiser by experience, the drivers of the coaches got through pools, puddles, and quagmires without sinking more than halfway to the axles. Driving and walking between acres of dead, desolate-looking timber, brought the party to Bowning in time to have dinner on the train … ‘Take us away quickly’ was the cry to the officials on the train; and immediately after dinner the train steamed away to Goulburn, to be run into a siding, where members slept peacefully all Saturday night. AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE ARGUS OF 13 AUGUST 1906

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The site at Canberra turns on the charm GOULBURN, Monday. THE 35 members … have driven today under a beautiful blue sky, and in an exhilarating atmosphere, to the Canberra and Molonglo districts … The special train ran from Goulburn to Queanbeyan during the early hours of this morning … It was a clear, frosty morning, with the bite of ice in the air. Nevertheless an heroic member of the Labour Party discovered a pump in the secluded part of the station, and there a row of hardy legislators took a bath by the simple process of standing up ‘in the altogether’ and being douched with water from fire buckets by energetic comrades … by half-past 8 o’clock the party had clambered into coaches, to make their drive to the Canberra site … It was an exhilarating drive. Besides the three big coaches, there was a long line of smaller vehicles, driven by residents of Queanbeyan. … [Queanbeyan’s Mayor] came in a light buggy with a natty pair of ponies; … The coaches trundled away from the station, crossing first the shallow Molonglo River, and then a streamlet, whose surface cracked in thin ice sheets as the wheels went through …

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Sam Goddard View of Canberra c. 1920

The coaches halted at the foot of Mount Ainslie, and members climbed some distance up its slope. To the southward, many miles away, stretched the blue masses of the Murrumbidgee Mountains, with great piles of snow whitening their flanks. Between two of these snowclad mountains runs the Cotter River, a perpetual stream of pure water capable of fulfilling the requirements of a great city … The members of the party sat upon logs on the hillside, and became enthusiastic about the possibilities of the site … Senator

Dobson selected a pretty wooded hill as the site of his future summer residence. Mr McWilliams asked anxiously where was the nearest trout fishing, and was reassured to learn that fine fighting trout could be got only a few miles away … Canberra has a church, a quaint old building, with a graveyard surrounding it; and a school, attended by 15 or 20 children. During the drive back the party halted at the school and several members called on [the local federal member] Mr Chapman to give the children a half holiday. ‘You’re

asking the Commonwealth Cabinet to encroach upon state rights’ the minister replied gravely. The difficulty was solved when Mr Ryrie MLA, undertook the negotiations, and the children, with their half holiday granted, gave three cheers for federation and scampered off. On the day before Mr Chapman had been less cautious. During a visit to the gaol at Goulburn he had suggested a half holiday for the inmates, but the governor shook his head. AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE ARGUS OF 14 AUGUST 1906

Elliot Johnson MP remembers Dalgety with a shudder SPECIAL appeals have been made to us to support Dalgety, on account of the healthy climate which it is alleged to enjoy. When, therefore, the Minister for Trade and Customs [and member for Dalgety and such a champion of the site, became ill] we all naturally thought that in seeking a change of air he would visit the healthiest place with which he was acquainted. As he had so persistently urged the claims of Dalgety on account of its salubrious climate, I at once concluded that he would go there to recuperate. But instead of doing so he got as far away from Dalgety as possible by visiting the northern portion of Queensland … Dalgety is an unspeakably dreary place … it is a blizzard-swept plain covered with granite boulders, and there is not a sign of vegetation within miles of it … [I’ve been there on] two or three occasions and I have no desire to go there again. [It is a place so exposed and windy that] a

coach and four travelling to Dalgety will sometimes be blown over by the force of the wind … I recollect travelling to Dalgety during a heat wave, in the middle of summer, when the temperature at Sydney registered 108 degrees. [But approaching Dalgety] we were obliged to make headway as best we could against a sleet-laden wind and when we arrived … we were so absolutely numbed with cold that we were almost unable to alight from the coach. We had at once to make our way into an open fire place large enough to accommodate a family, [with a fire] in which huge logs had to be

kept blazing in order that we might gradually thaw. This circumstance will give honorable members an idea of what Dalgety can be like in mid-summer—I leave it to them to picture what it must be like in the depth of winter … I have been told that an attempt was made at Dalgety to rear Polar bears. But the first couple of bears that were taken there got frozen; they could not stand the climate, and the experiment has not been repeated.

Edmund Thomas Luke (1864–1938) Senators Bathing in the Snowy River at Dalgety 1902

(WILLIAM) ELLIOT JOHNSON MP SPEAKING IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ON 23 SEPTEMBER 1908

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Cover of Eugen Sandow’s The Gospel of Strength According to Sandow (1902)

HIS MAGNIFICENT TORSO CAUSED A DEEP BREATH OF ADMIRATION TO BE DRAWN

Sandow the Magnificent performs in Melbourne, 1902

In September 1902 the Melbourne music critic ‘The Don’ went to hear Madame Melba. In his adoring report he said that she wasn’t ‘a vocal Sandow’ but instead had a flute-like voice that was ‘silver, bright and clear’. Today we need to be told who or what a Sandow was but ‘The Don’ didn’t even bother to explain the allusion. It was not only that the Prussian bodybuilder Eugen Sandow (some credit him with the very invention of bodybuilding) was already an international household name but also that he was in Australia at that very time, exciting audiences with his ‘muscle display performances’.

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art of his stage performance was the sudden flexing and shooting out of a spectacularly bemuscled right arm, and the strongman’s book sold to coincide with Sandow’s Australian tour contained a cleverly folded inclusion, which, when unfolded, turned out to be a lifesized photograph of that freakishly enormous arm. You too, the booklet urged, can have arms like this, if you subscribe to Sandow’s system.

Fold-out page from The Gospel of Strength According to Sandow (1902)

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Two hundred gentlemen see a private anatomical display SANDOW was received at the Town-hall yesterday by the Mayor of Melbourne … [and] subsequently a private anatomical display was given to the medical profession and a few invited to be present at the

Opera-house. About 200 gentlemen were present … Sandow appeared clad in a dressing gown, from which he stepped out with only leopard-skin trunks and sandals on. His magnificent torso caused a deep

A horse is led on stage WHEN THE curtain rose and revealed Sandow himself, there was a prolonged roar. With his clear skin glowing pink under the lights, Sandow stood on a revolving pedestal, clad only in his leopardskin trunks and sandals … Sandow’s development is not only wonderful, it is beautiful as well, though frequently the beauty was lost sight of as people stood open-mouthed to see standing up in sharp relief muscles that they did not know existed. The abdominal muscles and the serratus magnus especially caused a thrill of surprise to go through the audience. At each movement the pedestal revolved, showing the shape of the athlete from all sides … One of the most unusual feats of strength was the tearing of full packs of cards. One, two, and three packs were torn in halves in succession … The torn cards were then flung among the audience, and were eagerly seized upon as mementoes of the

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strong man’s first appearance … A horse was then led on the stage, and, hanging over its back with his feet in stirrups, Sandow manipulated all but the 300 lb. weight in a marvellous manner, considering the immense strain on his abdominal muscles. He concluded by lifting one of the attendants with one hand as he would lift a dumbbell, and pitching him into the saddle. Two men seated on his ankles were slowly raised in the air as he lay on his back, and as a final feat Sandow showed what he terms ‘The Tomb Of Hercules.’ Lying on his back, he raises his arms and legs to receive a platform on which the six attendants and the whole of the weights used in the performance are piled, a total of about 1600 lb. Each of the feats was enthusiastically cheered, and Sandow was recalled half-a-dozen times … AN UNNAMED WRITER IN THE ARGUS OF 8 SEPTEMBER 1902

breath of admiration to be drawn by the assemblage … Sandow commenced the display of his muscles by contracting those very rarely developed even among the most powerful men. The abdominal muscles rose like a succession of stony ridges, the serratus magnus muscle along the sides stood out like a row of pink shark’s teeth …

With each movement members of the audience felt his iron-like hardness. With a humorous glance at several stout city men present, he said, ‘I will now show you that in repose my muscles are soft as—as yours.’ To the surprise of all this was found to be true. AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE ARGUS OF 6 SEPTEMBER 1902

Programs Related to Eugen Sandow’s 1902–1903 Tour of Australia

Sandow’s audience gives an involuntary ‘Oh!’ FOR ONE moment the strong man stood with all his muscles relaxed, the suspicion of a smile haunting the corners of his clear blue eyes as his closely-cropped, regularly shaped head turned to take a survey of the tiers of spectators. His thick, well-developed limbs looked as if they were as soft and velvety as the rolls of fat and flesh upon a healthy baby. One twitch of his body effected a transformation. The muscles across his

abdomen and chest swelled until they resembled ropes that were piercing his flesh. The chest muscles rose and fell in bulbous masses that appeared at one moment to be soft and flabby, and the next as hard and firm as steel. The right arm shot out from the shoulder, and the mounds and knots of muscle which covered it from wrist to biceps altogether obliterated the symmetry. As the pedestal turned to disclose Sandow’s back and shoulders, an

involuntary ‘Oh!’ escaped from the spectators. A network of muscles, each of which appeared to be in the perfect control of the strong man’s will, traversed the trunk from the neck to the comparatively narrow waist, and formed such tremendous ridges on either side of the spinal column that one might have put his two hands in the cavity between them. Then there was a sound as if somebody had just opened the valves of a small steam boiler.

Sandow was inflating his chest. Two deep, longdrawn breaths puffed out the body until above the belt there was an escarpment like that below the ribs of a skeleton, and the breasts stood as convex as the sides of a barrel. By this effort Sandow had increased his chest measurement from 48 to 62 inches. As the curtain went down men cheered and cheered again. AN UNNAMED WRITER IN THE AGE OF 8 SEPTEMBER 1902

Fold-out page from The Gospel of Strength According to Sandow (1902)

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Image from Queensland Office of the Chief Protector of Aborigines’ Annual Report

RESCUED FROM UNUTTERABLE MISERY AND VICE

The Yarrabah Aboriginal Mission at Cairns, 1903 and 1910 One evening in August 1903, a party of Aboriginal children from the Yarrabah Mission gave a concert at the Shire Hall in Cairns. It was a fund-raising concert for the battling mission with its 227 residents. Sensitive twenty-first-century readers will wince to read about the sorts of things the children were required to perform and will wince, too, at the tone of the vivid report of the event by the accomplished newspaperman.

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arrabah was a Church of England mission and like many such missions in Queensland it was a structured, ordered place to which the government sought to ‘remove’ Aboriginal people allegedly for their own good. In his 1909 Annual Report the Chief Protector of Aborigines for Queensland discusses how in the preceding year ‘many [children and young women] were rescued from surroundings of unutterable misery and vice, and sent to the mission stations and reserves’. ‘Incorrigibles’ too had been sent to missions and so, for example, ‘Maud Anderson, an incorrigible, and Moira Dawson, for laziness, refusing to work, and not being capable of looking after herself, both of Brisbane, and Dinah, a venereal case, from Port Douglas, were all sent

to Yarrabah’. In the same report the Chief Protector says that

Experience has shown that the most effective way of dealing with the troublesome native is to remove him from his district to a reserve. The reason is obvious, he is removed from the baleful effect of association with the white loafer, and bad character, the idleness and profligacy which is so frequently a feature of camp life … the worst cattle-spearers, tribal fighters and troublesome characters, when removed … to the reserve, often settle down and become the steadiest and most reliable men there.

‘E.S.H.’, a clergyman from Victoria, visited Yarrabah, probably in 1910. From the tone of his little booklet about his visit he was sincere and decent, although he does describe the mission’s Aboriginal people as ‘raw material’ for good works to be wrought with.

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A black choir shakes the rafters with ‘Rule Britannia’ IT IS safe to say that even Melba or Dolores could not have been better received or more heartily applauded than were the little ‘pics’ of Yarrabah Mission Station on Wednesday night. Throughout the entertainment the boys were dressed in white and red and the girls in white and the effect of the black skins, the glistening white teeth and the white and red of the costumes was to produce a picture which will not readily be forgotten by those fortunate enough to witness it … It is a moot point who enjoyed the performance the most—the audience or the performers. The little black babies dressed in red and white fairly revelled in their work … There was not an approach to stage fright

among the little chaps, some of whom could not have been more than six years of age. They held back their heads while their eyes fairly sparkled with the fun of the thing, as [singing ‘Rule Britannia’ again and again] they voiced the good old British sentiment in a manner that fairly shook the rafters … Who would ever have dreamed of hearing an Australian aboriginal choir rendering with feeling and precision such songs as ‘Turn Back Pharaoh’s Army,’ ‘Steal Away,’ ‘O’ Zion,’ and ‘The Christian’s Good Night’? … The Indian club drill by the senior boys, who were dressed in white trousers and singlets, with red cummerbunds, was in every way a meritorious performance … The senior girls …

sang ‘I want to be a small ‘pic’, black as the ace happy Christian.’ Wilfred of spades, came on to the Douglas, a small half-caste stage attired as a bride. … boy, recited Kendall’s ‘The When the laughter and last of his Tribe’* and ‘Did applause had died away, you Ever.’ In the first he which was not for fully five was especially good, and minutes after the curtain many an older European had fallen … [to conclude] lad in the highest classes The children sang a pretty of our State Schools could lullabye, the choir rendered have learnt a lot from him the Benediction, and then in the way of elocution … the whole strength came on Ten of the small boys to the stage and gave ‘God sang ‘Ten Little Nigger save the King’ in a way to Boys’ and simply broke be remembered. the audience up with the denouement of the AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN well-known story. As the CAIRNS’ MORNING POST OF catastrophe happened to 14 AUGUST 1903 each, a small nigger boy stole off the stage, until *Henry Kendall’s The Last the ‘One little nigger boy’ of His Tribe is a melancholy was left to render as a poem about a lonely old solo the concluding verses. Aboriginal man who is, litWhen he reached ‘This lit- erally, the only remaining tle nigger boy got a wife’ a member of a tribe.

Charles Maurice Yonge (b. 1899) Aboriginal Children at Yarrabah, Queensland 1928 or 1929

‘E.S.H.’ spends a day or two among the raw material at Yarrabah Mission, c. 1910 I WAS very glad to seize an opportunity of seeing how the Church could civilize and teach this raw material [the Aboriginal people of Yarrabah] … After the feast we all went to church. Matins ushers in each morning at Yarrabah, and Evensong closes the day’s work. At 7 a.m and 7 p.m. all the settlement meet in the little white church by the sea dedicated to St. Alban—on one side the lads and young men, on the other the girls and unmarried women … the nave is full of the greateyed infants who solemnly squat on the floor in rows with folded arms and reverently await the beginning of the service. It was a pathetic introduction to Yarrabah. Around us the forest, and the sad sound of the waves on the beach, and inside the congregation singing lustily ‘Full Choral Evensong’ in the high-pitched voices of our Australian aboriginals. The choir lads were surpliced but with no other vestments save their loincloths, the server alone possessing a scarlet cassock that suited admirably

Image from Queensland Office of the Chief Protector of Aborigines’ Annual Report

his bronze skin. During Evensong the Missioner, as the custom is here … in homely Saxon upbraided some of the younger married women, whose husbands were away in the Mission ketch at beche-demer fishing, for ‘gossiping under the mango trees and making the place untidy with the shells of the “wirroolls” they were eating’ … [Two days later.] After an early lunch some forty of the elder lads formed an escort, and we set off for a long walk through the jungle [to some settlements]. The black and bronze skins of the escort stretched far ahead as we wound in single file through some lovely pieces of jungle … Every now and again one or other

of my special retainers would dart off and return with a handful of bright blue quandongs, or else with wild ginger, or some large plums most beautiful to look at but fearful in their astringency to eat. Great was the joy at the discovery of some ‘Jumboons’ or huge white grubs in the decayed wattle trees … Now and again we would rest in some glade or clearing in the jungle whilst the lads would deck themselves with palms and flowers, or weave ferns into graceful garments, and dance their native dances. It was indeed picturesque to see them winding through the forest in troops, singing the old refrains of their native “corroborees” and

brandishing their mimic spears in imitation of the older warriors … But playtime had to end, and on we went … Reeves Creek was the last place visited, and there we found amongst others [Aborigines] Hubert and Rosie, who had just been married [in a Christian ceremony and with Rosie wearing a white wedding dress]. I promised them the proverbial flitch of bacon if the Missioner could report next year that no angry word had passed between them. Certainly a better-looking and more bashful young couple would be hard to find anywhere in Australia. ‘E.S.H.’ IN HIS BOOKLET A DAY OR TWO AT YARRABAH (c. 1911)

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The Skirted Bathers of Bondi Beach 1907

WILL WE WEAR SKIRTS? NO!

Modesty at the beach, 20 October 1907 British Victorian prudery kept Australians off their own alluring beaches and out of their irresistibly gorgeous surf until late in the nineteenth century. But as soon as a few pioneering bathers had challenged the appropriateness of this imported prudery to this sun-kissed, wonderfully beach-blessed new land the hedonistic stampede down to the golden beaches and into the sapphire seas began.

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owever, the new hedonism clashed with the old, lingering outrage at perceived indecency, and by 1907 the popular desire to frolic and bask in the sea and on the beach while in swimsuits was still causing some outrage. Some of the outrage surviving in Sydney in October 1907 seems to have belonged to the mayors of Waverley, Randwick and Manly. They were rumoured to be about to introduce a new ordinance that would force some extra modesty upon male bathers. The existing ordinance already insisted on ‘a costume which shall, wet or dry, cover the body from the neck to the knee and be of such material as not to disclose the colour of the skin [by becoming transparent when wet]’. But now the mayors (ridiculed by the press as men in league with ‘Mrs Grundy’, the folkloric high priestess of wowserism) seemed to want even more forced decency than this. At some point in the debate one of the mayors seems to have said (although later all mayors denied ever using the word) that men bathing and sunbathing on the beaches were going to have to wear a swimsuit that incorporated a kind of ‘skirt’. It would be a second layer atop the swimsuit already worn and would come down, from the waist to somewhere on the thigh, to conceal the sometimes obscenely protruding parts of a man in a swimsuit and especially in a wet, clinging one. Indignant male bathers decided to fight the idea with ridicule.

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A reporter joins the largest crowd ever to gather at Bondi Beach THE anti-skirt agitation reached a climax yesterday morning, when demonstrations were held on the Manly, Bondi and Coogee beaches. To say that the costumes were grotesque would not convey an adequate idea of the ludicrous and amusing ‘get ups’ of the processionists. At Bondi the largest demonstration was held, and never before in the annals of the beach had such a large crowd congregated … Hundreds of bathers were on the beach in their neck-to-knee costumes … The sun was shining brightly and thousands were present on the beach. About 10.30 a.m. a stir was noticeable in the vicinity of the dressing sheds, and presently, accompanied by a cheer, a variously clad brigade issued forth, as the surf-bathers’ protest against the objectionable ordinances and regulations. Dozens of camera fiends at once rushed to the scene, but the ‘heroes of the hour’ were surrounded by a large crowd of cheering surf-bathers. The central figure was a tall youth in a long red muslin dress, the material being so extremely thin

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that his lanky form could be plainly seem. This was intended to illustrate how useless the skirt is. The tall youth proceeded to the water’s edge, and, holding up his skirt, allowed a breaking wave to wet his feet. Immediately this event occurred the most weird and blood-curdling cries rent the air, and a small army of skirted life-savers rushed to the scene and rescued the ‘maiden’ in trouble. The procession then again formed in line, and with its banners proceeded slowly along the beach. Two banners were borne, one surmounted by a large empty jam tin, supposed to represent the Mayor’s head, and the other by a dead bird (decidedly so) to represent the wakefulness of the aldermen. Among the costumes worn were long skirts of many colours, evening dress costumes, picture hats, petticoats, and various other undergarments. There was also a costume skirt as worn by the Gladiators in the days of Nero, but it is safe to say that the Gladiators had not to swim in such costumes.

Costumes that Offended Mrs Grundy

From a picturesque point of view, however, this costume took the proverbial ‘bun’. It was of a light blue, rather heavy material, embroidered with gold braid, and the camera men snapped away at it for all they were worth. Skirts, with crinolines, bearing advertisements, were in evidence, and many and various were the humorous items. One of these was a Maori with a seaweed skirt and knobkerry to knock the head of any mayor or alderman who ventured on to the beach … Others were attired in skirts of various lengths and colours, stockings of various hues, and hats of every description … some of the trimmings were very fine. As the procession moved along the beach questions were asked by the leaders and replied to in chorus by their crowd of followers. Here are some of them: ‘Will we wear skirts?’—No! ‘Are we downhearted?’—No! (This was quite true.)

‘Are we old women?’—No! ‘Will we be old women?’—No! ‘Are the aldermen old women?’—Yes! ‘What shall we do with the old women aldermen?’—Chuck ’em out! During the morning the Bondi Life-saving Club gave a display of life-saving in the breakers. Four squads were at work at once, with a different man supposed to be in difficulties, and when they landed their subjects on the beach and went through their drill for restoring the apparently drowned they were given a great reception. The crowd cheered them again and again, and remarks were made (like) ‘Fancy a man trying to save life like that in a skirt! It’s absurd. Why, they went out between 300 yards and a quarter of a mile.’ AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE AUSTRALIAN STAR OF 21 OCTOBER 1907

Screams of laughter are heard at Manly Beach Some Suggestions at Bondi

A grotesque pageant unfolds at Bondi Beach ‘THERE was never such a in cases where their length crowd on this beach [Bondi rendered them liable to trail Beach] before,’ many a on the beach, the wearers frequenter of this portion had train-bearers. The proof the ocean foreshores cession was musical, but remarked. And what had its repertoire was conspicthe unusually large crowd uously limited. The recalcicome out to see? It had been trant surf bathers playfully rumoured that surf bathers declared in song their deterwere going to demonstrate mination to hang a certain their antagonism to the municipal dignitary, who dress proposals … The pag- took a prominent part in the eant may not have been as proposal to unsex the male gorgeous as a Venetian car- bather, on ‘a sour apple tree’ nival, but it was decidedly … They were a good natured grotesque … The material crowd, full of harmless [of the skirts worn] seemed fun, their chief aim being to be a matter of no impor- to accentuate the fact that tance. The flimsy print or they weren’t going to wear the substantial piece of jute skirts when having their served the same purposes. plunge in … the surf. … They contributed to the bur‘Fancy forcing this crowd lesque of the proposal to put into skirts!’ remarked a men in skirts who patronise gentleman who had long the surf. The ‘skirts’ worn since passed the heyday of by some of the masquer- youth. ‘Why, you might as aders were conspicuously well try to stop those breakancient, and had evidently ers from rolling.’ been rescued from the domestic scrap heap. Some AN UNNAMED REPORTER of them were short, and IN THE DAILY TELEGRAPH some of them were long, and OF 21 OCTOBER 1907

OUR pictures in this issue were taken at Bondi and Manly beaches. At Bondi there were many quaint costumes. One of the most effective was a black and white draught-board garment or set of garments worn by a comedian who had a skirt to the knees, with a sailor turn-down cape and knickers with frills upon them. Another was similar to the garb worn by the Roman centurions and it was decidedly handsome, although, like others in which the skirt was noticed, it is an effectual bar to good swimming, and was, indeed, dangerous to wear in the water … Another skirted breaker-shooter had a yellow-striped bodice, which gave him a figure like a bale of straw with a string round the middle of it, and

another sported a diaphanous trailing red skirt, which occasioned him a good deal of trouble in the water, and was soon torn off. One wore a sugar-bag suit with ‘pig face’ [floral] trimmings. At Manly a number of bathers obeyed the bylaws to the letter. Every man and youth wore, in addition to his costume, a skirt. Garments belonging to sisters and wives had been commandeered, and with these costumes the band paraded along the beach. Screams of laughter greeted their approach. Impeded at every stroke the ‘skirt brigade’ floundered about the breakers in utter helplessness. AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE SYDNEY MAIL OF 23 OCTOBER 1907

How the Manly Beach Bathers Obeyed the Ordinance

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Heat-Wave in Victoria in The West Australian, 21 January 1908

MURDEROUS HEAT, THEN RAINDROPS BEAT THEIR DRUMS OF HOPE ON THE ROOF

A heatwave in 1908 and a (timeless) breaking of a drought

We may imagine that globally warmed Australian summers have never been hotter than they are now, but in January 1908 south-eastern Australia was baked by terrible heat. Farmers gave up trying to do their harvesting by day (some horses and working oxen dropped dead) and did it by moonlight instead. Melbourne’s heat was especially terrible. The general cemetery sometimes couldn’t cope with the traffic of those dead from heatstroke and undertakers had their applications for burials denied and postponed. The tarmac of Melbourne’s roads boiled into a ‘bubbling mass’. An authoritative public thermometer at Gaunt’s in Melbourne sometimes registered 110°F (43°C) in the shade. Thousands of Melbourne and Sydney citizens, stifled indoors, tried to sleep outdoors on verandahs, lawns and footpaths and in public parks and on beaches. Domestic refrigeration and domestic air-conditioning didn’t become available until the late 1920s (and even then at first only for the rich).

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he welcoming of rains that end heatwaves and droughts is a recurring Australian theme and this collection bends its eyewitness rules a little to give a guernsey to Bernard O’Reilly’s moving description of rain’s arrival on his battling family’s homestead roof. His description isn’t, strictly, of his own firsthand experience of just one such welcome arrival but a distillation of his and his family’s end-of-drought stories.

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‘Johanna’ feels Melbourne’s air still burning at midnight, January 1908 MY DEAR YARRIE, The weather is the only topic and the universal grief. Such heat has never been known within the memory of woman, and new babies and old grandmothers sail off every hour for the great Beyond [blown by] a draught of fire-hot wind. And the whole world is walking about without a waistcoat and with a minimum of underclothing. The girls … have reduced their linings to a negligible quantity, and stride the seething pavements looking like peripatetic statues

of the slightly-draped species. To see a flock of slim, sweet girls, with supple garments closely grasping their curves, marching in the gale and the blaring sunlight is a picturesque spectacle … At midnight the air burns and in the seaside suburb where I have taken refuge the nights are of the Walpurgis variety. [Walpurgis night is by legend the night when the witches meet to fly to and fro.] Strange figures flit by in eerie fashion, speeding like ghosts along. They are respectable citizens, clad

Harold J. Graham (1858–1929) Dry Weather in Melbourne Suburbs, No Water in the Houses 1882

in flapping pyjama suits, scorching along on a lampless bicycle in the hope of meeting a breeze. On the sands are dozens of other respectabilities of both sexes, stretched with their

feet to the sea, and a bright red moon grins down on the simmering scene. ‘JOHANNA’ IN HER ‘MELBOURNE CHATTER’ COLUMN FOR THE BULLETIN OF 23 JANUARY 1908

‘Edyson’ sees the terror spread, January 1908 THE HOT spell that terminated favorably on the night of January 20 was the most formidable burst of weather Melbourne has experienced in the memory of the middle-aged inhabitant … ice had jumped from 2s to 12s per cwt, and then vanished into thin air. There was a moment of imminent and deadly peril when it was thought the breweries would fail to keep pace with an almost unanimous thundering demand for beer. Possibly it was the result of each man’s eagerness to get his share of what remained, but certainly

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Melbourne on the Saturday night at 11 o’clock was the tightest city of its size on the face of the earth … pallid and mirthless inebriety was in amazing evidence. Between Bourke-street and the station I did not encounter three men who gave reliable indications of sobriety. At this time the dire forebodings of calamity cast a thick heap of gloom over the city, which reeked with the smoke of bush fires and the taint of the pit, for the murderous heat of the days had stewed the council’s famous macadam roads into a bubbling mass … Strange and

fearsome insects streamed from the warehouse cellars and the feedhouse kitchens, and fled excitedly across the pavement—swarms of them, with their tails hoisted in the air. They suggested a spread of the terror even to the creeping things … Men, women and children rolled in the sea. Melbourne, more prudent and circumspect than Sydney, had barred mixed bathing, but … the bathing could not have been more mixed or thicker than it was during those five nights. Neck-toknee regulations shrivelled before the popular need.

Men and women bathed in any old thing, or in nothing. Between midnight and daylight on Saturday and Sunday bathing in the altogether was frequent and free within five minutes walk of St. Kilda churches. … Melbourne had sunk its Scotchbyterian respectability, forgotten it in the face of great common suffering and overwhelming need. Heat levels all, and the touch of nature that makes the whole world kin is 112 in the shade. ‘EDYSON’ IN THE BULLETIN OF 30 JANUARY 1908

Bernard O’Reilly sees and smells that rain is coming at last RAIN WAS coming! Dad came back from Merriman way to say that a little spring up by the baby’s grave was suddenly showing moisture … No man who had battled against other droughts could mistake that sign; still, there was a disinclination to believe, for the scourge of 1902 was not as other droughts; there was a hopelessness which had entered the hearts of the people—a feeling that rain would never fall again. But evening brought other signs: the ants began carrying their eggs to higher levels—long armies of them moved with military precision, for Great Nature had given the evacuation order and warned them that their nests would soon be flooded with storm water … Before evening the sun showed a great white halo, and to the west, where the sky was lightly mottled with mackerel cloud, there were, here and there, irregular patches which caught the full colours of the spectrum: it is a fairly rare phenomenon and is more delicately beautiful than the blatantly conventional splendour of the rainbow … With soft warm dusk came the long-forgotten voice of a rain frog from the withered greenery of the acacias. ‘Raain!’ he said in his high drawn-out voice, ‘Raain! Raain!’

‘Listen to him,’ said Dad, with a note in his voice which held more meaning than a chapter of words, and they listened as they might have listened to the voice of Melba … Rain was coming! A fresh damp wind blew from the coast carrying the smell of rain. What is the smell of rain? An indefinable something which only those who had thirsted and longed and prayed for rain could recognise—not a sixth sense, but the ordinary sense of smell tuned to hair fineness by months, perhaps years, of hopelessness, of sun-cracked earth and brazen sky; sheep and cattle that shrank and staggered and died; horses, dear old favourites, which came to the gate and looked pleadingly for fodder and there was none … Rain was coming … A thick haze spread itself across the landscape from the east, subduing and mellowing the last of the sunlight. Then clouds appeared, great golden fellows blown up like giant balloons, and poised themselves high above the dark bulk of the Blue Mountains. For a while they stood in all their dignity like actors of the old school pausing after an effective entry, then they bent towards us, cascading over the mountain slope to the valleys; they came heavy with moisture

and trailing long purple streamers of rain across the stricken country side … Dad stripped down to his drawers and went out down the paddock to meet the rain; he loved the feel of cold rain on his bare body, and went out like that into all rain that came our way, even fierce thunderstorms. Presently he’d have had enough, and come in trailing water along the verandah, with high colour on his cheek bones, rain dripping out of his hair and beard and glistening in drops on his shoulders. ‘By dad that was good,’ he’d say …. Who can tell of the ecstasy in that moment when the first drops of rain beat their drums of hope on the roof? One minute of rain can blot out the stark tragedy of a year of drought, and a man’s

J.A. Commins In Drought Time, 1897

soul, seared to the core by months of helplessness leaps into wild, joyful, new life even before rain quickens the shrivelled roots of his blackened grass. Even men who have lost every hoof, glow with a new-born ambition and say once again those words of hope and courage which every old settler has uttered: ‘We can start again.’ BERNARD O’REILLY IN HIS GREEN MOUNTAINS AND CULLENBENBONG (1949)

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Frank H. Broomhall The Long Road, No. 1 Rabbit Proof Fence, Western Australia, 1926

ONE HAS TO BE SINGULARLY EQUIPPED MENTALLY TO STAND IT

Lonely patrols of the rabbit-proof fences

When Western Australia’s Number One and Number Two Rabbit-proof Fences were built they became not only the world’s longest fences but also, surely, the world’s loneliest workplaces. The fences (Number One was begun in 1901 and eventually stretched for 1,834 kilometres, and Number Two was begun in 1902 and grew to be 1,166 kilometres) required constant inspection and repair by patrolmen. Often the men worked alone, save for the mixed blessing of the company of camels. The men found the solitude (in the immensity of the landscape) and the silence astonishing and eerie.

Upfield felt that ‘one has to be singularly equipped mentally to stand it [the loneliness]’ and that he knew he was about at the end of his tether when he found himself taking the roles of two people in an argument. Early in 1908 Geoffrey n summer’, former patrolman Arthur Upfield remem- Dell, a writer for The West Australian, went to inspect bered in 1949 of the years 1928 to 1931 when he and to write about the Number Two Rabbit-proof Fence. patrolled, alone, 200 miles (320 kilometres) of the His party, out in the bush for several days, included Alex Crawford (the head of the Rabbit Department), the Number Once Fence, unnamed Chief Inspector of the fence and some senior surveyors. Dell was moved to pity and crankiness by the wind dies down for weeks together, and it the working conditions and plight of a particular boundis so silent by day and by night that often the ary rider doomed by overwork and distance to seldom patrol-man will ring a camel bell or beat a tin get home to see his wife and children in a town, Wagin, just to relieve what appears to be the pressure on 80 kilometres from his remote and lonely workplace. his eardrums.

‘I

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Geoffrey Dell sees a hunted, driven look in Edward Farr’s eyes MR SURVEYOR RAY, tossing a fragment of damper to a foraging wagtail [asked Mr Crawford], ‘hasn’t your boundary rider a bit too much to do? Poor beggar, I feel sorry for him every time he goes down past here.’ ‘I don’t know’ frankly confessed Mr Alex. Crawford, the head of the Rabbit Department. ‘I don’t think he has too much to do. He has 129 miles of fence to ride, and this is a bit long, but when his “length” is reduced he will have to ride it in less time.’… Twenty miles further up the fence the next day, we were camped for the midday spell when a man trundling a bicycle came up the blistering, dazzling sandy track from the north. It was Edward Farr, the boundary rider. Tall and gaunt, he was clad in dungaree trousers, and through the unbuttoned opening in his shirt could be seen a river of perspiration coursing down his breast. The front of his trouser legs disclosed striking evidence

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Surveyor Canning and Party on the Survey Trip to Mark Out the Line of the Rabbit-proof Fence, Western Australia c. 1901

of the sweat, drip, drip, dripping from eye brows and chin, on to his knees, as he strode along pushing his heavily-laden machine. To say he was sunburnt, and let it go at that, is to miss an exceptional opportunity of justifiably indulging in superlatives. But the most striking feature of the appearance of Edward Farr, as we first saw him in that sweltering noonday sun, was the hunted, driven look in his blue eyes. Gratefully he ate and drank, after which, in response to queries by his chief, he talked. He had come that morning from the 31-mile and that night he would sleep at the 86-mile—if no repairs to the fence were needed

by the way. Yes, seeing that much of the route lay through sandplain, and much more of it uphill, and that in such circumstances he had to walk and push his bicycle, 55 miles was a fairly long, and hot day’s journey. But then he had to do it in order to traverse his length of 129 miles in the stipulated time of four and a-half days. Precisely the same period was allowed for the return journey. Then, having accomplished 258 miles of walking and riding in nine days, he was free to take one day’s spell as a modified equivalent of the Christian’s Sunday. [He explained that] yes, he would like to be a Christian, and enjoy a rest

every seventh day, instead of every tenth. But it wasn’t every tenth day that came to him as a day of reprieve. In the winter months the track would bog a duck, and, in a consequence, at that particular period of the year he, wet and cold, was sometimes eleven or even twelve days in getting through. Nor were these delays confined to the rainy season, for the summer fires often put him back two or three days by taking out half a mile of fence-posts. ‘But’ put in Mr Crawford incredulously, ‘you know that you are expected only to put in one, or at most, two or three posts—that in the event of more extensive damage at any one

point you are empowered to contract with the nearest settler to carry out the repairs?’ ‘I know it now,’ came the convincing reply, ‘but I was never so instructed by the inspector until a few days ago, and, hitherto, I have effected all my own repairs, no matter what the extent of the damage. Only a fortnight ago, I cut, trimmed, and put in 46 new posts, burnt out by a fire on the 44-mile sandplain.’ … ‘Wouldn’t it be more convenient if you had a sulky…?’ asked ‘the outsider’ [the reporter, Geoffrey Dell]? The man’s eyes, in so far as they were capable of expressing joyful emotion, lit up with hope. ‘In many ways it would be. Lord, it would mean a different life for me.’ Then the hope died out again and the old hunted look returned, and the sweating, sweated servant of the Rabbit Department, resuming the doleful strain that, with him apparently represented the normal, explained that there was poison along the road; that, in consequence, horse feed would have to be carried, and that this would prove too heavy an item of maintenance. ‘Moreover’, he added in the same dejected strain, ‘for six months of the year most of our water tanks are dry and so one would have to carry water for the horse … [and so] I’m doubtful that the horse

could make the journeys week in and week out.’ Spirit of humanity! Think of it you people who insist on factory inspectors, and in other ways do your best to ameliorate the conditions of the helpless among the workers in the city. Here was a man in the employ of the State gravely telling his acquiescing chief that his daily physical task—exclusive of cutting and setting up fence posts—was beyond the endurance of a horse! … In answer to further questions, this long, lank Australian bushman of more heart than a horse, said it was a particularly bad track for tyre punctures, and that, however far he

might be from water where the puncture occurred, that was the distance he had to plod before he could locate the [air’s] escape and make the necessary repairs. Mr Crawford readily promised to furnish him with a spare inner tube and with spare spokes and a spoke key. It was a new bicycle, only recently sent up, and the Chief Inspector savagely made an entry in his pocket book … that the agents had forwarded a machine fitted with lowturned racing handles—for the use of a six foot man on a rough, hilly bush track! ‘It hurts my knees and hurts my back,’ remarked the rider, ‘and I often have to get off and walk

[because riding is much less comfortable.]’ Presently he bade us adieu and trundled out on to the track his 26 in wheeled bicycle with the ludicrous racing handles. The gradient going south was little above the level, so, notwithstanding the loose surface sand, he bestrode the saddle, and with a mighty thrust of the leg set the laden mankilling engine in painful motion. As with his shadow almost vertically beneath him and a nimbus of flies around his head he toiled along the heavy track he was a spectacle to set Olympus weeping. GEOFFREY DELL IN THE WEST AUSTRALIAN OF 21 MARCH 1908

Motor Lorry Loaded with 1,760 Pairs of Rabbits, Drawn from Depot 30 Miles from Nearest Railway Station c. 1918

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Arthur Upfield sees a rabbit migration begin

Lafayette Studios (Firm) Portrait of Arthur Upfield

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WHEN THEY [rabbits] do decide to ‘shift camp’ because they have eaten out the country, nothing will stop them excepting a wide river, a very high mountain range, or wire netting. As there are neither rivers nor mountains [in Western Australia] to bar our rabbits, there is left only wire netting built into fences … A [rabbit] migration begins at any moment. I saw one begin. I saw the bush rabbits sitting up and scenting the air. It was early one morning. It was impossible to count the rabbits within sight. They could scent the rain which had fallen fifty, a hundred miles away. In the late afternoon they began the migration. During the evening I watched them leaving—all making to the north-east. They passed my stockman’s hut in ragged array but with a kind of irresistible momentum as awe-inspiring as an avalanche … In those faraway days conditions were very tough, especially through the summer. For administrative purposes the Number One Fence was divided—from Lake Nabberu northwards, with headquarters at Jigalong, and southwards with headquarters at Burracoppin … On the southern section the conditions were slightly

easier but there men travelled alone, and were not likely to see another human being for a fortnight at a stretch. One has to be singularly equipped mentally to stand that for long … The men had to deal with fractious camels harnessed tandem-wise on a heavy dray having a high canopy which provided a house on wheels … [and] with the summer shade temperatures ranging between 100° and 115°, the watering places many miles distant, and very few travellers chancing prosecution for using the Government track beside the fence. A broken leg or a torn arm, or an axe cut or a snake bite, was something not to be thought of … The country traversed by the great Number One Fence is most varied. Beginning at the Southern Ocean near Hopetoun, it rises from the sea up the face of a steep rock, and thence passes over the coast sand dunes and across the vast and empty sand-plains on which the bush is barely a foot high. Here the country is gently undulating and there is no protection from the winds screaming hotly down from the north and hissing coldly from the south. Only the eagles know about the rabbits and the foxes lurking in the low bush which will tear a man’s boots and leggings to shreds in less than a week’s march. The real shrub begins sixty or seventy miles from

the sea, first in patches and belts, low and gradually becoming higher and more robust. There are no settlements in sight of the fence … At about 100 miles from the coast the fence enters the southern extremity of the wheatlands, passing close to several huge granite rocks, acres in extent and rising several hundred feet. At the foot of these great rocks—smaller editions of Ayers Rock—the land is richer and supports acacias, creating a parkland aspect and a glory of daffodil yellow in springtime. The rain forms crystal pools on the summit of these rocks, and one wonders how it is that after the long hot summer, when not a drop of moisture remains on the rock, a few days after the water pools are formed they teem with tadpoles … [From Burracoppin] with exceptionally few angles the fence proceeds towards the far-distant northern coast. From the railway it passes up a long slope to enter a section of broken country before reaching the southern wheatlands of Lake Campion … Both the camels and I were always happy to get away from these open wheatlands and the wheat traffic and enter the real salmon-gum forest of Lake Campion. When I first passed through this magnificent forest of great gums with salmon-tinted trunks, and the smaller wattles flaming

yellow in the spring, it presented to us a paradise. No matter how high the wind, how bitter cold in winter and shrivelling hot in summer, this forest provided shelter and shade. I was dismayed some two years afterwards on hearing the devil’s noise of the axe, and during the months which followed, spaces grew in the forest, and the trees crashed down, and the heat and cold entered and destroyed that which we loved. And today after all that destruction, the farms have been abandoned for lack of the rain which the trees brought, and no one can ever stand the salmon gums up again. Sixty-five miles north of Burracoppin the fence departs from the forest to enter a desert of sand-plain having belts of jam-scrub laid upon low and completely useless desert bush, with here and there tortured swamp gums marking the course of a shallow creek. I name this a desert, despite correction from geographers, because no living thing exists excepting iguanas and flies and the bell bird which will trick you to thinking that a belled bullock is leading a team to camp. Even the crows won’t stay inside this eighty-mile desert, for they would certainly starve to death. At each crossing a small party of crows would accompany us, camping at night nearby, cleaning up the dinner and breakfast

refuse, and then hurrying along to catch up with us and remain with us all day as though fearful of being left behind. The sand-plains give way to more robust scrub of mulga and pine. In summer the wind dies down for weeks together, and it is so silent by day and by night that often the patrolman will ring a camel bell or beat a tin just to relieve what appears to be pressure on his eardrums … Then on to Dromedary Hill and the small homestead which once was the northern terminus of my section. This hill of three hundred-odd feet stands in the centre of a circular plain, and if the winter rains have fallen at the right time, the entire surface of the little mountain is massed with buttercups, forming a great golden nugget upon the grey-green floor of the plain. And all about the plain, flowing to the lips of the breakaway, carpeting the square miles beneath the mulgas, are the everlasting daisies growing in huge patches of white and of yellow and of mauve. The hot summer winds come to tear the daisies away and lay bare the diamonds littering the earth—specks of mica. ARTHUR UPFIELD IN HIS ESSAY THE VERMIN FENCES OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA (1949) IN WALKABOUT MAGAZINE, 1 MAY 1949

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Clinging Room Only on the Watson’s Bay Tram, Off to Observe the American Fleet, Sydney, 1908

SQUARE-FACED, PALE YOUNG MEN WITH ACCENTS LIKE BANJOS The USA’s Great White Fleet visits Sydney, 1908

On the morning of 20 August 1908 a fleet of 16 showy US warships resplendent in white paint (but carrying thousands of gallons of grey paint just in case war broke out while they were away from home and they had to dress appropriately in a hurry) entered Sydney harbour with something between a glide and a swagger.

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n estimated 600,000 people (Sydney’s population was swollen by a great influx of country cousins) lined the cliffs and the roofs. The Town and Country Journal deployed 20 photographers around the Heads and the harbour and thought the host of folk so impossible to measure in numbers that it was better to describe them by the ‘acre’ of humanity. One publication was sure this was ‘the greatest spectacle yet witnessed in the history of Australia’ and it may even be that if we had a precise way of measuring

degrees of spectacle we’d find that it still is ‘the greatest’ seen in this country. It juxtaposed the natural wonder of the world’s loveliest harbour with this man-made wonder, this fleet of behemoths, the pride and joy of navy-mad US President Theodore Roosevelt. It had left its port in Virginia on 16 December the previous year, sailing away to circumnavigate the world in a display of US might, diplomacy and technological virtuosity. Sydney had spruced itself up and the fleet was in Sydney for a whole Fleet Week before leaving on 27 August for Melbourne. The presence of 12,793 exotic US officers and men transformed an excited Sydney. Roman J. Miller was a sailor with the fleet and wrote about its peregrinations, including the tempestuous seas encountered by the ships as they churned their way towards an expectant Sydney. The sleek, modern fleet’s presence in Sydney generated lots of local agonising about the few, embarrassingly ancient hulks meant to defend Australia.

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Little Ted has an uncomfortable voyage THE WEATHER after our departure from Auckland [bound for Sydney] became colder and colder and more disagreeable every hour … The sea rose higher and higher and became more violent with every knot we made, until, August 19, the climax was reached. The ship pitched and rolled and rocked heavily … Some [boys] were seen grasping a stanchion or pillar, anything affording a support … A shout and roar of laughter greeted one of the mess attendants as he fell down a ladder with a pot of hot beans, and then landed in the midst of them to the very serious damage of his clean uniform. Little Teddy, the bear cub [the ship’s mascot] attempting to sleep on the main deck would slide to and fro, awaking with a growl, and snapping right and left, evidently believing that some one was teasing him … Through such seas we swept on, the powerful engines of the Vermont driving the ship’s prow into the heavy

Souvenir Medal to Commemorate the Visit of the American Fleet to Australia in 1908

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sea with crushing force [and] in the early morning of August 20 there appeared at intervals off our port bow a blinding light thrown from the famous Maquere [Macquarie] Lighthouse … and as the curtain of mist rose before us, we could see the people massed blackly along the rocky cliffs for twenty miles from Sydney … Adventurous spirits picked out eagle eyries on the cliffs, where they perched, as it were, between heaven and sea … Several large black fish of the whale species off our starboard bow seemed to join in the general jubilation, blowing streams of water high in the air. ROMAN J. MILLER IN HIS AROUND THE WORLD WITH THE BATTLESHIPS (1909)

Sydney dresses its chimney tops SYDNEY’S chimney tops have never had such a curious dressing as they had last Thursday, when the Fleet came in. There were thousands who had to stay home and cook the dinner, and thousands more who were crowded off the trams and wouldn’t face a walk to South Head or anywhere else; so when 11 o’clock arrived they started to climb, and by 11.30 there weren’t many roofs on the harbor slopes of the city that didn’t have something crawling

over them. Hotels like the Metropole, with capacious roof-gardens overlooking the harbor, had fixed up terraces of seats; and from there you could see cooks, in their white caps, letting the roast duck takes its chance, and clambering up on to chimneys, and sniffing down now and then to smell if the mutton was burning. THE ‘SOCIETY’ COLUMNIST IN THE BULLETIN OF 27 AUGUST 1908

Alderman Thompson can’t see Queen Victoria’s face for filth AT A Town-hall meeting yesterday in connection with the arrangements for the reception of the United States fleet, Alderman Lindsay Thompson asked that the Federal Government should have the statuary in front of the General Post Office washed before the visitors arrived. ‘Over the central entrance in Martinplace,’ he said, ‘there is a

representation of our late Queen; it is cut in white marble, but is so filthily dirty that you cannot tell whether it is marble or Queen Victoria or what it is. Let us show the Americans that we have some white marble as well as white Australians.’ AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE DAILY TELEGRAPH OF 3 JULY 1908

Alfred Cutler The Great White Fleet in Sydney Harbour as Seen from Cremorne Point, 1908

Young men with accents like banjos FOR A WEEK the halls of the local mighty have been filled with square-faced, pale and for the most part, young men, with accents like banjos. The observer has had a fine chance to learn what Uncle Samuel’s naval officer is like, and compare his manners and habits with those of other navigators of similar rank who have sailed through the [Sydney] Heads in the memory of living woman. What a totally different person the United States ‘loo-tenant’ is, for instance, from the British ‘lef-tenant’! … The United States mariner of the same age is socially quite boyish by comparison. He is frankly delighted with himself, his uniform, his ship, and his

native land. With charming naïveté he will tell you all the things he has done, is able to do, and hopes to do in the fighting line, where his British prototype would remain confusedly silent— staggered at your indecent conduct in discussing such a topic with him. The commissioned U.S.A. salt is as friendly as a child … Three times has Providence condescended to stage-manage the arrival of the Fleet. At San Francisco, at Auckland and at Sydney the monstrous host advanced almost unseen until by the sudden lifting of the mist-curtain they were discovered just ‘up stage’ and moving in effortless majestic silence as if each battleship were propelled

as is the swan—merely by a pair of webbed feet. Then ‘mast after mast as a tower went past’ and in ten minutes after the Connecticut had dropped its anchors, sailors were washing its clifflike face, and its Admiral was scurrying over to our Flagship to tell the other Admiral that he was just tickled to death at the sight of him and the Harbor … I crouched against a pillar at St. Mary’s Cathedral last Sunday and watched the Yankee sailors stream in. Enough were admitted to fill the building, and then all doors were hermetically sealed, and the most elevated possible brand of High Mass was presented. Unquestionably the Cardinal and his henchmen

know how to stage these pageants … U.S. admirals and their followers filled the front stalls, looking like a perchful of newly-plumaged macaws. Behind them came the U.S. junior officers, and then, in a solid, imposing phalanx, more bluejackets than I have ever before seen in a place of worship. The groupings of the colours about the altar— the scarlet of the Cardinal’s mighty robe and train, the purple of the bishops’ frocks and the stray pinks and blues and greens would have caused [showbusiness entrepreneur] J.C. Williamson to writhe with envy. ‘AKENEHI’ IN HER ‘A WOMAN’S LETTER’ IN THE BULLETIN OF 25 AUGUST 1908

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‘P’ is shamed by the pride of the Australian squadron I WENT round per boot the other night to Macquarie Point [on Sydney Harbour], to revive a flickering intellect by the glow of the harbor illuminations. Towards the opposite shore the stalwart hulls of Uncle Sam’s ironclads were pencilled in lines of fire upon the ebon canvas of the sloping rearground. Above them, the electric-bulbed yards on the masts gleamed through the night—suggesting mammoth golden crosses upraised on colossal jewelled altars in a Cathedral of Dreams. The incense of the outer ocean came fragrantly on the soft nor’-easter. The stars rocked peacefully in the gentle harbor swell … Behind, the city droned happily, and somewhere afar off a band sang mysteriously that indeed the time was good. Standing there, taking it all in, thinking it all

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beautiful and peaceful and friendly-like, my tired brain dozed for a moment. Then I nearly toppled into the harbor with sudden fright. Where formerly had been darkness there had appeared an Awful Thing—a huge, ungainly Coffin, brass-nailed and cheaply-black, like the shell of a pauper giant. I shivered and turned to a bystanding British sailor damned!’ said he. ‘That’s for enlightenment. the Pa’hf’l just been ‘Oh, man of the sea,’ ’luminated.’ cried I, ‘thou hast seen It was indeed the many things in the vasty Flagship of the Australian deep and heard of many squadron [the Powerful], more. Tell me, then, the but its lines of electric bulbs whyness of yon grim, along the deck, down the ghastly, eerie Thing. Do I cutwater and stern, and see visions? Have I a rat? along the water line made Is it a Warning from the such a perfect simulacrum Unseen? Unfold to me the of a brass-nailed bone-box meaning of the Enormous that I had to fly like blazes Casket of the Mouldering from the scene. Dead ’mid this scene of light.’ ‘P’ IN THE ‘SOCIETY’ The sailor eyed me conCOLUMN IN THE BULLETIN temptuously. ‘Casket be OF 3 SEPTEMBER 1908

Louis L. Howarde (composer) and Alan M. Rattray (lyricist) The Sons of Uncle Sam c. 1908 opposite: ‘What a Time We Are Having!’, detail of cover of The Bulletin, 20 August 1908

Norman Lindsay (1879–1969) Tommy Burns versus Jack Johnson, World Heavyweight Boxing Championship, Rushcutters Bay, Sydney, Saturday, 26 December, 1908

THE SUPREMACY OF THE WHITE RACE GOES TO THE DEVIL

Jack Johnson humiliates Tommy Burns, Boxing Day 1908 Entrepreneur Hugh D. ‘Huge Deal’ McIntosh used not just purple but royal purple prose to promote a boxing match in Sydney on Boxing Day in 1908. He spruiked that it was ‘The World’s Heavyweight Championship between Tommy Burns the World Champion and Jack Johnson the Colored Champion’ and was the ‘First Time in the World’s Fistanic History that the Champion Representatives of the White and Black Races have met for Racial and Individual Supremacy ’. Johnson was a black American and Tommy Burns a white Canadian.

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t’s possible to despise boxing (and to wince at the racism of early twentieth-century Australia that shows in the event and in contemporary writing about it) but to find this occasion fascinating. Sydney was enthralled and, on the day, and in addition to the crowd of 20,000 (only two of them women) that got inside the primitive Stadium that its owner McIntosh called ‘the largest openair hippodrome in the world’, another vast congregation (variously estimated at between 35,000 and 50,000) went to the neighbourhood of the Stadium to enjoy the fistanic ambience. For aficionados of fine sports writing some of the journalists’ reports of the occasion are superb. They put those who couldn’t be there virtually at ringside, with sights and sounds (‘Arawa’ of The Daily Telegraph reported that Johnson’s punches to poor Burns’ stomach ‘sounded like a well-kicked football banging against a wall—whoomph!’) and fine details galore.

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The crowd sees the supremacy of the white race go to the devil SYDNEY Stadium is not a place of beauty, but filled to the brim with 20,000 people, it makes an impressive sight, even to the man who has no interest in the booking office … The sky was threatening, and in the dark clouds the augurs read an omen of disaster, for that huge crowd was aggressively white in its sympathy. It had not come to see a fight so much as witness a black aspirant for the championship of the world beaten to his knees and counted out … Johnson suddenly appeared in the passage, and climbing into the ring went to his corner. There was a faint cheer, and the colored giant bowed again and again. He didn’t get much homage, but made a lot of what he did get. Then Burns appeared, and was nearly blown out of the Stadium by the crash of applause that thundered from 20,000 throats, for by this time there was not a vacant seat in the great enclosure. Looking round from the ringside over the

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waves of faces that weltered away to the iron walls of the enclosure, the writer suddenly realised what an awful lot of meat it takes to make up 20,000 people. Johnson was not depressed by the tremendous ovation his rival received. Expectorating with unerring accuracy between the heads of one of his seconds and a pressman on to a vacant space about the size of a handkerchief, he leaned over and inquired of a menial had he got ‘that bet on’? The varlet had, and Johnson seemed relieved … At the gong [at the end of the first round] Burns [who had been knocked down] went to his corner in a very bad way, and his attendants rubbed him with champagne. Johnson sat cool and unruffled, laughing and talking. ‘Water’ he roared with a grin, and taking a mouthful that would have been a decent drink for an elephant, he gargled his throat, ejected the fluid where a fair quantity splashed over the furious pressmen, and sat up to have a look at the crowd …

Then [from the beginning of the fifth round] commenced a most beastly exhibition of rubbing it into a man who was fighting a game battle but was altogether overmatched. The coloured man was quite unruffled and determined to impress the fact on this crowd of white trash whose champion he was beating. Looking down at a photographer who was snapping between the ropes, he remarked as he went by ‘Did you get that? Anyhow, I’ll give you a good picture’; and with that he suddenly sprang in on Burns, smote him in the stomach with the left, smashed him on the jaw with the right, and hurled him against the ropes. Frequently he would hold Burns helpless against him while he exchanged gibes with the crowd, grinning as he did so … After 11 rounds of this Burns was in a horrible plight. His face was all puffed up on one

Portrait of Jack Johnson c. 1908

Kerry Photo (Firm) Tommy Burns, Ready for a Left Shift c. 1908

Charles Henry Kerry (1858–1928) Burns–Johnson Boxing Contest, Sydney, 26 December 1908

side, his jaw hung down as if it were broken, and the blood oozed from his battered mouth. Outgeneralled, over-reached, overmatched in strength, insulted and treated like a helpless mouse by a great black cat, he came up heroically to take his punishment … Every time the sinking champion went to his corner his attendant combed his hair. He might lose the championship, the supremacy of the white race might go to the Devil, Burns himself might be slowly battered to pieces or suddenly killed outright, but at least he should die with his hair properly parted … That left side of his [Burns’] face puffed out

further, and the sag in his mouth firmly convinced people that the jaw was broken. Johnson also apparently thought so, and in accordance with the charming spirit he had shown through the fight, aimed for it every time, as he followed Burns up with sudden ferocious rushes. It was during one of these rushes [in the fourteenth round] that Johnson … struck the champion twice on the apparently injured spot, and knocked him down with such force that he rolled over twice … As [referee] McIntosh counted, he waved time with his right hand, forefinger extended, just as Nathan [the orchestral

conductor] does. ‘One-two’ right on to eight, when Burns scrambled up and staggered towards Johnson. Johnson bounded from his corner like a panther … He was just swinging his right for that battered, swollen cheek again when the Superintendent of Police soared up the ropes and waved his crop aloft. ‘Stop, Johnson!’ bellowed McIntosh in a voice fit to wake the dead, and Johnson’s arm swung back as the attendants swarmed into the ring. Johnson hurried to the centre, and McIntosh, pointing to him, roared ‘I declare Johnson winner on points!’ As McIntosh’s voice rebounded from the walls of the Stadium that mighty

concourse remained silent. Johnson waved his hands to the crowd that did not cheer him. A few straggling voices were raised, but they were mere flecks of sound in an ocean of silence … the victory, fairly won as it was, was wholly unpopular. That crowd was white to the core. It had given the brown man a fair deal, and didn’t feel called upon to do more. It put its hat on and streamed out. In 12 minutes from the paying over of the cheques the stadium was empty. THE UNNAMED ‘SPORTING NOTIONS’ COLUMNIST IN THE BULLETIN OF 31 DECEMBER 1908

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Sydney becomes the City of Stoush A Song of Stoush It is Dawn! Black Night has fled, and from the East cometh up the Day. In blue and gold is he garbed, and under his feet is the silver-and-purple Pacific— Day glanceth Westward, and his eye flasheth upon the city—even the great and joyous City of Stoush! With a finger of light he pointeth, with a pencil of bright flame he showeth the high altar of the god. Brothers, behold the Stadium! Pip-pip! Toot! Toot! Br-r-r-r-umff! Ting-ting-a-ling-ting-ting-TING! Burroo-oo-Burroo-oo-WHOOSH! Whirr-whirr-OO-O-O-OM-MOO-OO-OO-ooom-m-m! In the morning, in the fair and pleasant morning, see them going forth upon their way! Hear the marching of many feet, and the rolling of many wheels, and the complaining of the bells and horns! Behold the pilgrims to the shrine of Stoush and chariots and horses thereof! Many go with them for to be a guide and sustainer unto them, And Three there be, mightier than all—yea four Most Necessary unto the Pilgrims— The Peeler, the Spieler and the Peanut Man, with the Seller of the savory Saveloy. On whom be Pease! Hearken unto the murmur of the multitude and to the prayers of the good Pilgrims— ‘I tell yer ’e’ll RAT im!’ ‘Garn boil yerself!’

‘How can he [Johnson] win after that? Champagne and gaiety and late hours!’ ‘Nobody can give away two stone in his own class!’— Brethren, let us join in the Procession! How many people can we see? A thousand score and a quarter-score thousand! And still they come! Hark! The band!—What is it playing? It is playing The Stoush March (side-step), Hymn to Stoush, The Solar Plexus Waltz, and the Punchanyello! (overture). …. ‘Hooray! Hooray! Hoo-blankety-ray! Wow! Whoop! Little Tommy! Tom, boy—TOMMY! Hoo-oo-ra-a-ay!’ They are ovating the White Champion. A song of Stoush and the place of Stoush—of the Stadium and the ’stablishing of Unparalleled Biff: … A song of Homeric hittings—and Virgilian evadings. A song of equal quickness, and superior weight and strength and skill. A song of fourteen Rounds, endured after the White Champion had been ‘severely shaken in the First Round.’ A song of 25,000 men, two women, £26,000 [prize money], and 26,000,000 peanuts! also of 260 policemen, 2600 vehicles and 260,000 reasons why the Result was the Result! Yet though the Black Triumph over the White, It shall be even as the Triumph of Night over day; visible but not abiding … Even now the Coming Champion is shaping somewhere – Possibly in Australia! O.C. CABOT IN THE BULLETIN OF 31 DECEMBER 1908

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Fight for the World’s Championship, Tommy Burns and Jack Johnson, in the Ring at the Stadium, Rushcutters Bay, N.S.W., Saturday, December 26, 1908

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Harry Houdini in Melbourne, Vic. c. 1910

A DASH OF SENSATIONALISM

Harry Houdini sinks and then soars in Melbourne, 1910 The aviator, magician and escapologist Harry Houdini (1874–1926), very famous already, came on a tour of Australia in 1910. The previous year he’d bought an aeroplane and hired a full-time mechanic and, on 26 November of that year, 1909, in Germany made his first successful flight. Beguiled by flying and keen to do some between his Australian tour’s breadand-butter magic/escapology performances, he brought his French Voisin biplane and his mechanic Antonio Brassac to Australia with him.

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hough performing nightly in a theatre in Melbourne Houdini had a tradition wherever he toured of making a public performance of an apparently death-defying escape after diving, heavily shackled (one of his many stage titles was ‘The Handcuff King’) into deep waters. His well-advertised plunge into Melbourne’s murky Yarra (where the murk worked like a stage curtain to conceal the magical process by which he undid his bonds) was watched by an estimated 20,000 milling, jostling souls. There are

folkloric stories about the event. One is that during the two minutes Houdini was submerged an entrepreneurial undertaker, all in black, pressed his business card into the hand of a Houdini aide waiting on the bridge, saying, ‘Just in case he doesn’t come up.’ Another is that Houdini, while he was underwater and wriggling in the Yarra’s mud, dislodged a corpse that then tried to float to the surface with him. This was why, folklore had it, the police had to collect a weak and trembling Houdini in their boat, when, usually, he completed these stunts by swimming strongly to shore. A month later he made three short but daring and dashing flights in his aeroplane (emblazoned with his famous name) at Diggers Rest (near Melton) in Victoria. Two of the three were totally successful and became the first successful powered flights in Australia.

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Harry Houdini in Melbourne, Vic. c. 1910

Houdini disappears into the murk of the Yarra A DASH of sensationalism, combined with a free exhibition, accounted for the great assemblage at Queen’s Bridge yesterday to witness Houdini, the Operahouse performer, manacled from the waist to the neck, dive into the Yarra … The event was announced for half past 1 o’clock, and at that time many thousands swarmed on the west side of the bridge, and took up positions of vantage for a considerable distance along the river wharves. In the crush there were many falls of men, women and children, but no injury resulted to anyone. Well up to time, Houdini, clad in a bright blue bathing costume, stood on the parapet of the bridge facing the shipping. First, his

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attendant passed a chain around his neck, and fastened it with a padlock just under the chin, so that it could not be pulled over his head. At the ends of the chain were handcuffs … and these were snapped around his arms. His wrists were next held behind his back with a padlock, and another chain ran to the one about the back of his neck, to which it was joined by a third padlock. Several of the bystanders tested the locks and pronounced them to be secure. Houdini is an adept at diving. Throwing himself well forward from the bridge, he took a beautiful header, cutting the water clean and with the least possible splash. He was lost to sight after entering the

Harry Houdini in Melbourne, Vic. c. 1910

murky water of the Yarra, which at this spot is 10ft. 8 in. deep at low tide … The crowd watched intently, and after he had been underwater for a few seconds, Houdini reappeared, holding the chains above his head. His feat was rewarded with great cheering. He was taken

into the police boat and back to the Opera-house, having, as he stated, enjoyed himself very much, notwithstanding that he had to work in mud up to his armpits to free himself of his chains. AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE ARGUS OF 18 FEBRUARY 1910

The great machine leaps into the air ‘UN, DEUX, TROIS,’ counted Brassac [Houdini’s ‘mechanician’] as he twisted the 8 ft. propeller to start the engine. ‘G-r-r-r-r,’ went the propeller as it bit madly through the air. A quick touch by the aviator to the engine-clutch at his side set the machine rolling, and Houdini was off at a speed which quickly rose to above over 30 miles an hour. When he had travelled 40 or 50 yards he released the elevating planes, and the great machine leapt into the air as a bird springs into flight … He was only trying his wings, and went to no great height. Sweeping around in a comparatively narrow circle, he was back to earth within a minute. The biplane … looked like a huge white bird as it sailed gracefully round. The resemblance was heightened by the appearance of the forewheels, which looked like talons tucked up for flight, while the elevating planes and guardwheel thrust out in front gave the rough impression of a beak. The descent was perfect … Houdini brought the bi-plane to earth with scarcely a jar. The second flight was made with a confidence heightened by the first success … but [he] made a slight mistake on landing … [and] on this occasion the plane ran along the

ground on its nose, with the tail-plane in the air, for some little distance. Houdini moved in his seat, half ready to throw himself clear of the murderous metal propeller which screamed hoarsely behind him … With a sub-conscious movement he straightened the planes, and the machine, on ‘all fours,’ was quickly pulled up by his assistants. The third flight lasted 3½ minutes and was unmarred by any fault. Houdini swept boldly away from the flying field, confident of his control of the plane, and passing over rocky rises and stone fences, described a great circle, which was, at the lowest estimate, well over two miles. The machine, in rounding curves, leaned over, as one sees a seagull lean sideways to the wind, but the aviator felt that he was no longer a ‘fledgling,’ and, the curve negotiated, straightened the plane with a turn of the wheel. The descent was faultless and the plane came to a rest within 20 ft. of the starting point, where the little knot of witnesses were standing. The greatest altitude, set down by the witnesses as 100 ft., was reached in a manner prompted by a lifelong association of ideas. Houdini was sailing at a height of some 70 or 80 feet,

Harry Houdini’s Voisin Biplane 1911

when he glanced down and saw a pile of rocks beneath him. His own words tell of the incident:—‘Gee! I thought, here’s trouble, and I sent her up a bit. Then I laughed at myself and started to come down.’ On his return to Melbourne by motor-car Houdini talked of his flights unaffectedly but with the elation of a successful enthusiast. ‘Yes,

I’ve done it,’ he said. ‘When I went up that first time I thought for a minute that I was in a tree, then I knew I was flying … Freedom and exhilaration, that’s what it is. O! she’s great. I know what it is to fly in real earnest. She’s like a swan. She’s a dandy. I can fly now.’ AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE ARGUS OF 19 MARCH 1910

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In his book The Broken Years Bill Gammage insists that ‘There never was a greater tragedy than the First World War. It engulfed an age, and conditioned the times that followed. It contaminated every ideal for which it was waged, it threw up waste and horror worse than all the evils it sought to avert, and it left legends of staunchness and savagery equal to any which have bewildered men about their purpose on earth.’

James P. Campbell Writing in the Trenches 1915

THE MEN BEHAVED LIKE HEROES

Australians go to the Great War, 1914–1918

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he statistics of the Great War are too bewildering to convey much of the ghastliness of the war (they’re like those bewildering statistics of astronomy about lightyear distances), but a few need to be recited. By some calculations the war created 35 million dead and wounded, including ten million combatants and seven million civilians killed outright. For Australia, 416,809 men enlisted (about 13 per cent of the white male population) and 331,000 of them sailed overseas to be ‘six-bob a day tourists’ and to fight. They were all volunteers, driven by all sorts of mixtures of noble and naive motives. There, at the war, 61,720 were killed and 155,000 were wounded, and we have no figures for men who came home physically intact but tragically changed. So very many Australians were caught up in the war that at the time it touched almost every Australian home and family in some lasting way. Today that war and what it did to Australia and Australians is still strangely present in Australian life. Australians love to believe that the Australian soldiers who went to the Great War looked, sounded and behaved like an impressively distinctive race. John Masefield, the English poet (he became Poet Laureate in 1930), augmented this legend with a foreword he wrote for an Australian soldier’s Great War memoirs. When war broke out in 1914, the Anglo-Australian Frederick Septimus Kelly, a musician and athlete, enlisted in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve to be with his friends. Those friends included the young poet Rupert Brooke, once dubbed ‘The Handsomest Man in England’. Kelly and Brooke were serving in the Aegean together in April 1915 in the days leading up to the assault on Gallipoli. On 20 April Kelly was able to record in his diary

‘a jolly evening’ with Brooke and others, but suddenly Brooke became ill and he died on 23 April. Kelly took part in Brooke’s urgently arranged but elegantly imagined and lovingly executed funeral and burial. Kelly was wounded twice in the slaughter at Gallipoli, only to die on the Western Front in November 1916. While on Gallipoli, General John Monash wrote many wonderfully descriptive letters home to his wife and his daughter in Australia. One newspaper felt that ‘a sob seemed to shake the nation’ as Australia observed the first Anzac Day in Australia in April 1916. Most attempts at jingoistic optimism about the war were sobered and eclipsed by grief. The wounded (home from Gallipoli) and the widowed were greatly in evidence. War weariness was setting in already and recruitment was flagging. With referendums, Prime Minister Billy Hughes twice tried, failing both times, to force men into uniform with conscription. The men of the AIF are now especially hallowed in VillersBretonneux in France, and the Australian War Memorial in France is nearby. The soldier whose remains were interred in Canberra’s Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier in 1993 was someone killed near Villers-Bretonneux. The reclaimed village was, for the Australians when they first liberated it in 1918, a place of great sadness and wonder but also a place of what E. J. Rule called (using the word as the title of his chapter in his memoirs about this time) ‘pillage’. The Germans had pillaged the town (hastily evacuated by the villagers as the Germans approached) and now, the villagers having fled, the Australians pillaged lots of what was left, including the forgivable pillaging of clean, women’s clothing to wear to give them some respite from their lice-infested filthy uniforms.

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May Gibbs (1877–1969) We Are the Gumnut Corps, We’re Going to the War c. 1916

John Masefield sees a new kind of man DURING the war the English suddenly became aware of a new kind of man, unlike any usually seen here. These strangers were not Europeans: they were not Americans. They seemed to be of one race, for all of them had something of the same bearing, and something of the same look of humorous, swift decision. On the whole, they were taller, broader, better looking, and more graceful in their movements than other races. Yet, in spite of so much power and beauty, they were very friendly people, easy to get on with, most helpful, kind and hospitable. Though they were

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all in uniform, like the rest of Europe, they were remarkable, in that their uniform was based upon sense, not upon nonsense. Instead of an idiotic cap, that provided no shade to the eyes, nor screen for the back of the neck, that would not stay on in a wind, nor help disguise the wearer from air observation, these men wore comfortable soft felt slouch hats, that protected in all weathers and at all times looked well. Instead of idiotic clothes designed for appearance on a parade ground, these men wore clothes in which they could do the hardest of hard work and then fight

for their lives. Instead of bright buttons and badges ‘without which,’ as a general once said to me, ‘no discipline could be maintained,’ these men carried in their equipment nothing that added to the worries of war. When people asked, who are these fellows, nobody, at first, knew … For themselves, they were a very modest company, whom sometimes one could hear singing (to the tune of ‘The Church’s One Foundation’):

What ----- good are we? And when we get to Ber-lin The Kaiser he will say, ‘Hoch, Hoch! Mein Gott, what a ----odd lot To get six bob a day!’ Since that time the Australian Army has become famous all over the world as the finest army engaged in the Great War. JOHN MASEFIELD IN HIS FOREWORD TO CAPTAIN E.J. RULE’S JACKA’S MOB (1933)

We are the Anzac Army, The A.N.Z.A.C., We cannot shoot, we don’t salute,

Trooper Bluegum sees his sweetheart’s portrait smile with approval Letter 1 Sydney, September 17, 1914 My Dearest Jean, h: startling news potent with I’ve got news for you, Honeybunc … Aye, your own heart will grave possibilities for us both King! I write it proudly: I have told you. I’m a soldier of the st ... could do nothing other than enli t their fingers at me and poin to nds frie I don’t want my all, darling, I don’t want you say, ‘Why don’t you go?’ Most of e, wondering if I will play to lift your lovely blue eyes to min know that when the Empire the man. I want you to feel and called, your MA N answered … dearest one. I fought the I thought the whole thing out, go out to battle for Empire, whole thing out, and felt I could and ease and comfort and leaving behind home and friends heir to. But I was not quite all the good things that flesh is you. Then I looked up at the sure, my darling, if I could leave one I love. Near by— curiously wall and saw your picture—the Majesty, King George V. apposite—was the picture of His itself into King or Love … Somehow the final tussle resolved first on one picture, then on And so I stood irresolute, gazing the other … wall and gazed at it, oh, I took your picture down from the one answer … You always so fondly … There could be only ld have sworn the picture were my inspiration … And I cou great decision. smiled approval when I made the

Photograph of Oliver Hogue

Trooper Bluegum Letter II, Rosebery Park Camp, September 21, 1914 Dearest Jean, It’s not so easy becoming a soldier of the King as it sounds in the papers. Australia is sending only the best. The medical examination is very severe … Quite a number of splendid countrymen—tall, athletic fellows—have been sent to the infantry and artillery; too heavy for Light Horsemen. The powers that be won’t have men over twelve stone in the mounted brigade. So I was glad for the nonce that I was only eleven stone. In the Medical Officer’s hut the man in front of me was a veritable Hercules; over six feet and with beautiful muscles rippling over his bare arms and shoulders. I quite envied him. But the doctor just jerked out in staccato accents, ‘Fine man, too heavy for Light Horse. Go to infantry. Next. Ah, you’re the type. Eleven stone? Good.’ So, you see, my darling, I was preferred on the score of my physical inferiority. Rather unique, wasn’t it?

TROOPER BLUEGUM (OLIVER HOGUE) IN HIS LOVE LETTERS OF AN ANZAC (1916)

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‘Tralas’ watches the girl he’s left behind until she’s out of sight I WELL remember her as she stood on the pier at Port Melbourne that Saturday afternoon when I left: fresh, beautiful and dry-eyed—aye! dry-eyed, though the glisten in those grey orbs told that tears were not very far away. Her talk was all cheerful while we waited for the boat to put out—not for the world would she make it harder for me by any outward display of the emotions which, I knew, were sorely trying her fortitude. Her ‘Goodbye, Bert. Good luck, and— God bless you: I’ll always write’, as the boat slowly swung out, was as good as a volume of promises to me. And, among the crowd on the pier, I could see only one figure as we gradually drew farther apart. Until we were right out of sight, I could see the brave flutter of her handkerchief, which might pardonably have been at her eyes. ‘TRALAS’ (SERVING IN PALESTINE) IN HIS ‘THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND’ IN THE KIA-ORA COO-EE OF 15 DECEMBER 1918

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those, like Keats, Shelley and Schubert, who are not suffered to deliver their full message, but there seems to be just the slenderest chance he may live. I saw him carried on to the deck and lowered down in one of the ship’s boats to be taken in a steam pinnace (from HMS Canopus) to a French hospital ship which is in the harbour. FRIDAY 23 April 1915 Hood Battalion, SS Grantully Castle, Skyros

Cover of The Kia-ora Coo-ee: Official Magazine of the Australian and New Zealand Forces in Egypt, Palestine, Salonica and Mesopotamia, 15 August 1918

F.S. Kelly buries his friend Rupert Brooke THURSDAY 22 April 1915 Hood Battalion, SS Grantully Castle, Skyros

Rupert Brooke, who was taken ill the night before last, was found to be seriously ill this morning, and when several doctors

came for a consultation in the afternoon they held out very small hope of his living. The pneumacoccus germ has poisoned his blood through a bad lip and his face is all swollen up … I have had a foreboding that he is one of

The events of today made a deep impression on me. Rupert Brooke died on board the French hospital ship at 4.45pm and, in view of the ship’s orders to sail at 5am the following morning, arrangements were at once made to bury him on the island he loved so well. I left the ship at 8.15pm with the Colonel, Secondin-Command (Myburgh) and about a dozen officers from this battalion, and a steam pinnace from HMS Dartmouth, containing General Paris, a few officers of the staff and SubLieutenants H.M. Farrer and L.A. Cherry, took us in tow to the French hospital ship. Here we took on the coffin and A.M. Asquith, who with W. Denis Browne had been attending Rupert, and a further boat, in which were about a dozen French officers who came to attend the burial, was added to the tow. Charles Lister had gone with W.

Denis Browne and a working party to dig a grave in the olive grove which had served as a Rendezvous for the 2nd Naval Brigade in the Divisional Field Day last Tuesday—when Rupert began to sicken. It was about a mile from the shore to the grove over very difficult stony ground and the petty officers who bore the coffin were obliged to go very slowly. We reached the grove at 10.45pm where in the light of a clouded halfmoon the burial service was read by the chaplain of the 1st Naval Brigade and a firing party under command of Sub-Lieutenant P.H. Shaw-Stewart accorded the body military honours. It was a most moving experience. The small olive grove in the narrow valley and the scent of the wild sage gave a strong classical tone which was so in harmony with the poet we were burying that to some of us the Christian ceremony seemed out of keeping. When all others had gone back to the boats, Lieutenant Commander Freyberg (Rupert’s Company Commander), Ock Asquith, Charles Lister, Denis Browne and I covered the grave with stones and as many pieces of marble as we could find. At the head and feet there were two wooden crosses with the name and the date of death and on the larger of them our Greek interpreter wrote the following inscription: ‘Here lies the servant of God sub-lieutenant

in the English navy who died for deliverance of Constantinople from The Turks.’ The body lies looking down the valley towards the harbour and, from behind, an olive tree bends itself over the grave as though sheltering it from the sun and rain. No more fitting resting place for a

poet could be found than this small grove, and it seems as though the gods had jealously snatched him away to enrich this scented island. For the whole day I was oppressed with the sense of loss, but when the officers and men had gone and when the last five of us, his friends, had covered his

grave with stones and took a last look in silence—then the sense of tragedy gave place to a sense of passionless beauty, engendered both by the poet and the place. F.S. KELLY IN HIS DIARY HELD BY THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA

Frederick Septimus Kelly (1881–1916) Diary Entry Dated Friday, 23 April 1915, in Diaries of Frederick Kelly, Oct. 1907–Nov. 1916

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On Gallipoli John Monash watches his men being humane and gentlemanly ANZAC, 30 MAY 1915 This morning we had another tough fight … Although worn out with five weeks of this trench warfare, the men behaved like heroes … They never flinch and never hesitate. We have got our battle procedure now thoroughly well organized. To a stranger it would probably look like a disturbed ant-heap with everybody running a different way, but the thing is really a triumph of organization. There are orderlies carrying messages, staffofficers with orders, lines of ammunition-carriers, water-carriers, bomb-carriers, stretcher-bearers, burial-parties, first-aid men, reserves, supports, signallers, telephonists, engineers, digging-parties,

sandbag-parties, periscopehands, pioneers, quartermaster’s parties, and reinforcing troops, running about all over the place, apparently in confusion, but yet everything works as smoothly as on a peace parade, although the air is thick with clamour and bullets and bursting … bombs and flares … Also they [the men] are humane and gentlemanly fighters. I saw a sight to-day which is to the eternal credit of Australian soldiers. After we had retaken the temporarily lost trenches, we found sixteen or seventeen Turks in a sap both ends of which we held. The men might have easily killed the lot. But they waited while an interpreter was sent for,

and the Turks were persuaded to surrender—all while the men’s blood was up, and they had seen their mates blown to bits by these very men. But this was not all. Scarcely had the Turks been disarmed and lined up to be searched, when our boys crowded around them with water bottles and biscuits which they devoured ravenously, and then gave them cigarettes, and all the while lines of stretcher bearers were carrying past our dead and wounded. Gallantry can surely touch no higher pinnacle. Had they set upon these beaten men and bayoneted them to death, no one could have greatly wondered after the death and torture they had spread among us …

ANZAC, 18 JUNE 1915 I thought you [his wife] would like a little bit of the Gallipoli Peninsula, or as much of it as we have so far conquered, so I am enclosing herewith a little twig and flower of broom, which grows wild in great profusion on the slopes of all the hills. Among wild flowers yellow predominates and many have a sweet scent. In the distance, in that forbidden land a mile or two away, still in the possession of the Turk, but some day to be trodden by us, are patches of green fields, clothed with bright scarlet patches of poppy. JOHN MONASH IN WAR LETTERS OF GENERAL MONASH (1935)

Drawn and haggard faces on the first Anzac Day A GREAT and impressive service to commemorate the first landing of Australian troops at Gallipoli was held in St. Paul’s Cathedral [Melbourne] yesterday forenoon. It was a service at which many sentiments crowded the hearts of worshippers. In the praise, in the prayers and in the sermon preached by

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Archbishop Clarke there was a note of strengthening, of hope and pride, but in the pews there were many women in the deep black of mourning, and gathered in the chancel and about the front of the church were the remnants of the first Australian regiments that landed on Anzac … There was hardly one

man of the 500 Anzacs who paraded for the service who did not bear the pathetic marks of wounds or illness. There were sightless men led by their comrades, men all hunched and with trembling limbs that could but shuffle along, men on crutches, men with empty sleeves or useless arms, and almost every face was

drawn and haggard, as if even 12 months had not yet effaced the terrible memories of Anzac. There were, too, men who had to be carried into the service. They were laid in invalids’ chairs at the steps of the chancel beneath the pulpit. AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE AGE OF 26 APRIL 1916

Tears are seen in a veteran’s eyes THE chief recruiting depot [on Anzac Day 1916] was in [Sydney’s] Martin Place. Many answered the call, but many still held back. At one point a Gallipoli man with one arm missing, failed in the task he had set himself—not a man responded. He was no orator; he relied on the arm that was missing. ‘Australia was there!’ he cried. ‘Look at me. I’ve lost an arm and can fight no more, but I tell you what boys—if I had my arm back I’d be over there again. Now I want someone to take my place—who will volunteer?’ No one answered. The call was made in vain. Tears came into the soldier’s eyes. ‘No one?’ he said again. No one. Yet many walked away with their heads down from the pathetic scene, thinking over his words. Perhaps one of them may have gone back later. AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD OF 26 APRIL 1916

B.E. Pike Must it Come to This? Enlist! c. 1915

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No-Conscription women sing ‘Banjo’ Paterson sees a ‘We Hate You Billy Hughes’ vision among the dust THE [Melbourne] procession and demonstration by the United Women’s No-Conscription Committee was a supreme success. An ideal day, between 4000 and 6000 women processionists where only 2000 had been hoped for, artistic tableaux and singing, a seething, sympathetic mass of onlookers along the route, a concourse of 80,000 people on Yarra Bank, earnest, thoughtful speeches, produced a demonstration of popular feeling such as has never before been witnessed in Australia … The procession, which started from the Guild Hall at the appointed time, was headed by Madge Gardiner, 8 years of age … dressed in white and carrying the dove of peace … [There were] eight lorries with tableaux representing ‘Free Australia’, ‘Happy Childhood’, ‘War and Peace’, ‘Peace’, ‘Food Exploiters’, ‘International’, ‘No’, ‘White Australia’, banners and sandwich boards inscribed with ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’, ‘Brotherhood’, ‘Sisterhood’, ‘Liberty of Conscience’, ‘Women Of The World, Unite’, ‘The Prime Minister’s Light Is Australia’s Darkness’, ‘We Follow Our Light’, ‘We Are Awake’, ‘It Is Easier To Make Chains Than To

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Break Them’, ‘Our Sons Are Our Own’ … Processionists carried ‘No’ and ‘Australia’ standards, coloured blue and white (Labour), red (Socialist), and purple, white and green (W.P.A.). The women of Wonthaggi were specially represent with a banner, ‘Wonthaggi Women Say “No”  ’ … Motor cars and vehicles were provided for hoaryheaded but free-souled women who were unable to walk. The children on lorries won the hearts of many, one old man remarking, ‘I was going to vote “Yes”, but when I look at those children I must vote “No”.’ Miss Boquest, as marshal, on a grey horse, kept the line in order, and at a given signal several dozen peace doves were liberated from the children’s lorries. As the procession reached Bourke Street, an attempt was made by about 30 soldiers to disorganize the procession, but Mr. F.J. Riley had gathered a group of as many men supporters, and the soldiers were quickly pushed back. One of the men picked up our little herald of peace to protect her from the soldiers, and she remained on his shoulder, with her white dove held aloft … It was noticeable that many of the returned

Oh the airman’s game is a showman’s game for we all of us watch him go With his roaring soaring aeroplane and his bombs for the blokes below … But he’s only a hero built to plan, turned out by the Army schools, And I sing of the rankless, thankless man who hustles the Army mules … For if you go where the Depots are as the dawn is breaking grey, By the waning light of the morning star as the dust cloud clears away, You’ll see a vision among the dust like a man and a mule combined— It’s the kind of thing you must take on trust for its outlines aren’t defined, A thing that whirls like a spinning top and props like a three-legged stool, And you find it’s a long-legged Queensland boy convincing an Army mule. And the rider sticks to the hybrid’s hide like paper sticks to a wall … It’s a rough-house game and a thankless game, and it isn’t a game for a fool, For an army’s fate and a nation’s fame may turn on an army mule. A.B. ‘BANJO’ PATERSON IN EGYPT WRITING IN THE KIA-ORA COO-EE OF 15 MARCH 1918

soldiers along the route young girls sang a ‘hymn of heartily cheered the proces- hate’ with the refrain ‘We sionists. Individual soldiers hate you Billy Hughes’. If here and there attacked so, it was not official, and the women and children, was merely the good-husnatching their ‘No’ stan- moured answer of enthudards from them and break- siastic girls to the hymn ing them in their faces; one of love sung in Mr. Hughes’ soldier bit off a piece of ears by English duchesses. the finger of a woman who resisted his savagery … AN UNNAMED WRITER It was reported in the IN THE WOMAN VOTER OF press that a number of 26 OCTOBER 1916

John Michael Joshua (1893–1974) Group Portrait of the Members of the Transport Section of 3 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps, in Front of a Nissen Hut, Villers-Bretonneux, France, 1918

E.J. Rule sees his soldiers dress in beautiful chemises with pretty pink ribbons FRANCE, 24 MAY 1918 Dear Aunt, Quite a lot has happened since I wrote to you last; we went to the line in a very important part, Villers-Bretonneux. It is the key position in front of Amiens, and I’ve seen things that astonished me as much as any in my experience of the war … When I rejoined my unit … we were now camped in a little narrow valley within five hundred yards of the place. Our dugouts were works of art; beautiful linen sheets were hung around the walls and kapok mattresses were on the floor. Snow white blankets were there also. The village was being gradually shelled into ruins, and

all these things had been taken out of the houses by our boys to make themselves comfortable. The next day … in the afternoon a couple of the boys and I went over to the town, and the sights that met us there were just heart-breaking. I’d seen lots of towns blown to dust, but I’d never seen a town recently pillaged, and believe me there is a marked difference … Inside the town, dogs, cats, and cows lay all about; they had not then been dead long enough to smell unpleasantly … As we went along we heard pianos going in some of the ruined houses. Although the Hun had shelled the town very heavily, he had not ruined the houses completely …

But the most pitiable sights were inside the houses. Food lay on the tables just as the people had left it when they fled [from the Germans] … Cupboards lay wide open, and, although most of the eatables had gone, we could still have picked up a lot of tapioca, coffee, chicory … and potatoes galore. In their bedrooms everything had been pulled down on the floor. Beautiful underwear belonging to the women lay around, and had been trampled on by each visitor; yet there was quite a lot still clean. My boys were very dirty and chatty [infested with lice] and before we had passed the third house the beggars had changed their old dirty stuff for beautiful chemises

with pretty pink ribbons; some had even changed their underpants for garments never made for men … Ladies nighties were quite the fashion, and one of the boys lined up next morning for his breakfast arrayed in a beauty … Coming out one afternoon I saw a strange sight. A quarter of a mile from town was a crowd of our boys, half sprung with vin blanc, round a beautiful piano, one playing and the rest singing at the top of their voices, some with belltopper hats, some in evening-dress, and some with beautiful clothes belonging to women. All this out in a paddock in view of the Hun a mile away. E.J. RULE IN HIS JACKA’S MOB (1933)

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Otto Bettmann (1862–1945) Bust of Henry Lawson c. 1900

THOSE WONDERFUL DARK ELOQUENT EYES

Henry Lawson’s mates remember him

Henry Lawson (1867–1922), the poetic voice of Australia, was a spectacle to behold. He was tall, slender, angular, lavishly mustachioed and had unforgettable eyes. In Henry Lawson by His Mates, a collection of fond recollections of him by people who had loved him, the contributors found description of his distinctive appearance as essential as reflections on his goodness and his giftedness.

Pen Used by Henry Lawson at Leeton, NSW between 1904 and 1922

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he National Library of Australia has a collection of busts of the illustrious. Otto Bettmann’s bust, in wood, of Lawson is somehow the most approachable of them all. Most busts are ‘exemplary’ and so depict their subject with a haughty, statesmanlike, keep-your-distance-untilwe’ve-been-formally-introduced expression. Bettmann’s Lawson isn’t like that and when exhibited beckons us across the room for a chat. This is partly because its subject is already so loved for being a knockabout balladeer in ways Australians could hardly ever love the persons and the busts of statesmen. Then, too, there’s something about the bust being of wood (marble is a haughtier material altogether) that makes it more warm and ‘human’ than most marble busts can be. Lawson’s bust’s big and beautifully complex moustache is made plausibly whiskery in Tasmanian blackwood. Then, when you get up close enough (for the bust invites you to come up close) you find that, unusually in busts, Lawson’s eyes are not pupilless. Everyone who looked into Lawson’s eyes was startled by them and perhaps Bettmann felt he had to do these unique orbs painstaking justice. The overall effect, what with authentic whiskers and plausible eyes, is the most flesh-and-blood bust most of us will come face to face with. All of the quotes here are from Henry Lawson by His Mates (1931).

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Fred Broomfield sees an unmistakable figure on Hunter Street HENRY Lawson was a man of ideals … [He] did not parade his idealism. I remember a time when he paid his homage to a dead hero, with no thought of human overseeing … On the 26th of March 1918—one of the fiercest and bitterest years of the Great War—in the dusk of the evening, my wife and I walked together along Hunter Street [Sydney]. Ahead of us, some hundred yards or so, strode the tall, thin figure of one we both knew well. Presently he quitted the pavement, and, crossing the street, drew himself up before the electrically- lit window of a cutler’s shop on the opposite side. That man was Henry Lawson, the poetic voice of Australia …

The world was all agog in those days with a deed of wonderful heroism on the part of a boy (the sole survivor of the crew of a destroyer) a boy who had steered his vessel into the port of Dover, though he himself was wounded unto death … Photographs of the boat and of the lad were displayed in the cutler’s window, and the electric lights were arranged to bring them into relief. Thinking himself alone and totally unobserved, Henry drew his full, long length to a taut attention, and gravely came to the salute, holding his pose to the slow count of ten. Then he bared his head and reverently bent it. Replacing his hat, he came to the salute and held it for an appreciable while; then, slowly, sadly, he turned and went his solitary way. In a splendidly courteous manner, Henry Lawson had paid his homage to the self-sacrificing deed of a great hero; and his gesture was a beautiful tribute of one great soul to another.

Henry Lawson and E.J. Brady at the Camp at Mallacoota, March, 1910

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FRED J. BROOMFIELD

Henry Boote looks into Lawson’s eyes NO ONE who had any personal acquaintance with Lawson could mistake the significance of his outward appearance. It proclaimed his inborn sympathy for the toiler and the outcast, his instinctive repugnance for arrogant wealth and strutting pretension. To look into those singularly deep and questioning eyes was

to peer into the very soul of that portion of humanity that is conscious of a Crown of Thorns pressed down upon its brow … And that which was expressed in his eyes got into all his poems. Wild, dreamy, smouldering, gentle yet fierce. HENRY BOOTE

Lawson peers into J. Le Gay Brereton’s eyes HIS deafness and its consequences in his work and his conduct come to mind. Because he could not hear very well, he was the more dependent upon other senses for his impressions. Those wonderful dark eloquent eyes saw all the more because his hearing was dull. He was extraordinarily observant; no significant movement escaped his watchfulness … And when he talked, he had a way of leaning towards you and looking directly into

your eyes, quizzically or earnestly, but always questioningly, and your verbal responses mattered less to him than what he read in your facial expression … I wonder, too, if his deafness had anything to do with the peculiarity of his laugh. Most people breathe outward when they laugh. Lawson began usually with an inhalation, and the result was a series of snorts, expressive but unusual. J. LE GAY BRERETON

W.E. Fitz Henry sees a look of misery on Lawson’s face

Frank Jessup (1884–1961) Henry Lawson 1930s

Father Tansey remembers a lank figure IN LATER times Henry might be met in the streets of Sydney, a tall, lank figure, smoking a long, lank pipe, with stray lank wisps of hair under an old brown hat. He was a child of nature, as gentle as he ought to be. His soft brown eyes invited you to talk to him, and his low-pitched voice won you. He had the quiet, subdued speech of the very deaf, but his eyes twinkled like stars. The writer recalls many a

conversation with Henry in his Latin Quarter in Bathurst Street and Sussex Street, and left him always with great love. On one occasion Henry was unsteadily lighting his pipe and a Chinese fruiterer, standing by, held a match in his cupped hands for him. ‘Ah,’ said Henry, looking up at him with soft, beaming eyes, ‘The light of Asia.’ FATHER MICHAEL TANSEY

IT WAS on a mild Sunday morning, early in September, 1922, when I heard that Henry Lawson had passed through the Golden Sliprails, and that his weary, sad battle with life was finished. Burning wet eyes turned from the newspaper laid flat on the sands of Dee Why, and the sea, which a few minutes previously was dancing in the sun, seemed to grow dark and listless … All that Sunday there was an image of Henry that would not leave my mind. I could not remove it … It was my last picture of him, the Wednesday before he died. He was at the Bulletin … As I came down the stairway from the editorial floor, I noticed that he had a look of misery graven deep into his thin, pale, hollowed face. His grey hair was bedraggled and hung in limp straggling wisps over his lined forehead. As I neared him he turned and greeted me with a long, firm handshake, and pushing a letter that he had been reading before

my eyes, invited me also to read it. It was from a pupil in a bush school in a round schoolboy’s hand. The boy spoke of his love for Henry’s works and asked for Henry to send him ‘a letter in your own hand-writing, all for myself’. When I finished, Henry’s eyes brightened and twinkled, and speaking softy between amused chuckles he said, ‘Wants a letter in my own fist and I haven’t a stamp: and even if I did my tongue would be too dry to lick it.’ W.E. FITZ HENRY

Stewart Dawson & Company (Firm) Fob Watch Belonging to Henry Lawson c. 1902

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H.M. Rolland (1882–1972) Canberra; Looking South from near Hotel Acton with Parliament House Nearing Completion, 1925

LIKE A HUGE, SQUAT WEDDING CAKE

The provisional Parliament House is inaugurated, 9 May 1927 The new but only provisional federal Parliament House in Canberra was officially opened on 9 May 1927, and major Australian newspapers sent some of their most special ‘Special Representatives’ (almost no reporters had bylines in those days) to try to catch every nuance. The next day’s print coverage was rich in word-pictures such as ‘Six miles away to the north east the tiny specks [20 aeroplanes] against the stainless blue of the sky wheeled, dipped and circled … changing from black to silver as the sunshine caught the fabric of their wings.’

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odern print journalists will notice with envy the professional spaciousness allowed their 1927 counterparts working on the biography of this important day. As well as the spacious freedom to use thousands of words, the chosen representatives were free to be individualistic, opinionated and impressionistic. And so in the same piece there might be poetical expressions of admiration of things that went brilliantly well (‘A squadron of five Royal Air Force machines drifted with the light wind, their shadows flickering across the ground and sometimes blurring the crisp, sugar-like whiteness of Parliament House’), and some scoffing at things that went wrong. One thing that went wrong was the way in which the aeroplanes overhead drowned out some of Dame Nellie Melba’s warbling of the national anthem, and this was duly reported as one of the nuances of the complex day.

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Canberra manages only a feeble cheer

William James Mildenhall (1891–1962) Duke and Duchess of Gloucester at Parliament House, 1933

ON SUNDAY morning [the day before the ceremony] the Duke and Duchess [of York] arrived at Canberra, with the usual pendant of politicians, just in time to see the sunshine dispel the early morning mists; and there had been a nip of frost, too. Five hundred or less local inhabitants turned up at the station—unhandily placed, as so many things in Canberra are— and tried to

masquerade as a vast multitude. A feeble cheer was raised. Quite obviously the royal party had been led to expect something quite different from this hungry little convocation; it might have been the welcome of a remote bush village. The smile was startled off the Duchess’s face for a moment. Then after a little talk with Prime Minister Bruce— looking very heavy at this morning hour—she and the royal party were whisked away to Yarralumla [Government House]. FROM THE COLUMN ‘A WOMAN’S LETTER’ IN THE BULLETIN OF 12 MAY 1927

The permanent look of the provisional gilded halls MR HUGHES said recently that those politicians who went to Canberra from ‘gilded halls of gaiety’ would find the young city a sad place. When, however, one has glanced at the design and the furnishings and the hundred and one luxuries that a sympathetic commission has managed to crowd into the Federal Parliament House one begins to suspect that Mr Hughes spoke with his tongue in his cheek. ‘Gilded halls’ are scarcely to be imagined which would compare, even

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remotely, with the magnificent comfort and polish that make the provisional House of Parliament something to gasp about. From the bright doorknobs to the air cushions, from the electric heaters to the special suites, from the clubrooms to the gardens, from first to last, every fitting and furnishing and bright little fastening in the temporary Houses of Parliament is the best, the most recent product of those ingenious minds which fill the world with labour-saving,

time-sparing aids to comfort and peace. Temporary Houses of Parliament! … They may still be echoing debates and party quarrels and the exclamations of tourists in a century’s time, for, though the furniture that [today] shines so brightly now, receives one so luxuriously, caresses one so softly, may be a little shabby by the year 2000, one can see the makings of a very great age in these temporary premises … There are lavish smokerooms, where members may

sit through dull debate, and dining rooms where food will come steaming from one of the most magnificently equipped kitchens in the Commonwealth; there are billiard rooms where an army might play … [there is an] elaborate suite for the Prime Minister, whose ‘exercise room’ and dressing-room would turn an American millionaire green with envy. AN UNNAMED WRITER IN THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD OF 9 MAY 1927

Someone raggedly picturesque attends the event CANBERRA, MONDAY FROM the branches of an ancient red gum on Capitol Hill, looking over a young wattle plantation towards Parliament House, lying like a huge, squat wedding cake below, a remarkable panoramic view was obtained of the Royal arrival for the opening ceremony. A hundred square miles of territory lay like a great stage set for the historic scene, impressions of which were of vast distances, unoccupied areas and somewhat hasty preparations … Fleecy clouds were spreading in the west … Lines of [approaching] motor traffic … left long, lifting clouds of dust, showing white in the sunshine, and drifting before the light

southerly breeze. The sunlight streamed through the crimson of drooping flags; it picked out the blues and reds of low-set motor coaches from Sydney and of commercial lorries; it threw into sharp contrast of colour the green of early autumn grass and the flat red squares of civic garden yet unsown … The crowd was patiently and silently awaiting the rising of the curtain upon the historic ceremony. During the wait great interest was taken in the appearance near the east stand of an aborigine, a member of the Gundagai tribe, and a well known character in the district. He was very old and grey and raggedly picturesque. He was determined to go his own way in spite of the

King Billy (Jimmy Clements) in Foreground of Parliament House 1927

argument of two inspectors and one sergeant of police. Immediately and instinctively the crowd on the stands rallied to his side. There were choruses of advice and encouragement for him to do as he pleased. A well-known clergyman stood up and called out that the aborigine had a better right than any man present to a place on the steps

of the House of Parliament and in the Senate during the ceremony. The old man’s persistence and the sympathy of the crowd won him an excellent position, and also a shower of small change that must have amounted to 30 or 40/-. A SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE IN THE ARGUS OF 10 MAY 1927

Dame Nellie Melba competes with aeroplanes AFTER the Duke of York had inspected the guard of honour their Royal Highnesses passed slowly up the step. Then came an anxious moment for the crowds. Dame Nellie Melba was to sing one verse of the National Anthem, but just as she was seen advancing to the edge of the portico the air squadrons swooped overhead with a roar that must have drowned every other sound. The first two

lines of her song were completely lost … The speech of the Prime Minister (Mr Bruce) was heard fairly well, but by the same misfortune as beset Dame Nellie Melba, the greater part of the Duke’s reply was drowned by the roar of the low-flying air squadron … A SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE IN THE ARGUS OF 10 MAY 1927

Dame Nellie Melba Singing ‘God Save the King’, with Prime Minister S.M. Bruce and Mrs Bruce to Her Left 1927

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A woman writer sees splendour in the Senate WHETHER in the glorious sunshine that bathed the scene out of doors under an azure sky or in the dignified setting of the Senate chamber, with its upholstery in Burgundy leather and its scarlet carpet relieving the monotony of the dark brown woodwork, the scene was one of colour that was unforgettable; but the women … lent little to that pageantry of colour. It was the men who carried the honours of the day. In the splendor of full

uniform were representatives of the navy and army, and the consuls general, whose uniforms stand out in any gathering by reason of their wonderful embroideries in thread of gold and silver. Brilliant also were the justices of the High Court in their scarlet robes and wigs of wisdom … the exquisite toilette chosen by the Duchess of York was a significant contrast to the majesty of the naval uniforms worn by the Duke. A wrap

coat of cloth of silver lined with vellum-coloured mirror velvet had long cape sleeves bordered with palest fawn fox fur … Under this was worn a gown of vellum-coloured satin, with embroideries of gold beads and with a wonderful uncut opal surrounded by diamonds set in the V-shaped neckline … Her Excellency Lady Stonehaven wore a picturesque coat of palest leaf green and gold metalled brocade, with angora fur

dyed pale biscuit at the collar, cuffs and hemline. Under this was a frock of ivory crepe satin, and her small hat of peach pink frisca straw had a band of cherry ribbon around the crown and a bunch of coq feathers in shades of pale rose cherry at one side. She carried a bouquet of tawny chrysanthemums … FROM ‘A WOMAN’S IMPRESSION’ BY ‘OUR WOMAN WRITER’ IN THE ARGUS OF 10 MAY 1927

Melba’s diamonds shine brilliantly in the Senate HISTORY was made in 11 minutes today. In that time, just before noon, his Royal Highness the Duke of York inaugurated the Federal Parliament at the new Capital City of Australia— Canberra. He entered the Senate at 50 minutes past 11 o’clock, and at one minute past noon was leaving it. In that time he had read his speech and a message by the King, and a fanfare of bugles announced to the thousands waiting outside that Canberra was the Federal Capital of Australia. [Earlier—the scene in the Senate.] Already some of the guests are in their places …

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The Senate is a huge chamber, with a lofty ceiling. The walls are plain white, and made whiter by contrast with the large one-piece scarlet carpet on the floor and the upholstering of burgundy-red leather. There are four galleries, at such a height that it almost makes one dizzy to look down … The Apostolic Delegate (Dr. Cattaneo), who this morning blessed the city, dignified in purple robes, is seating himself beside Dame Nellie Melba. He removes his biretta and reveals a purple skull cap … The semi-circular benches around the throne in the Senate are filling rapidly. The Indian representative, Dewan

Bahabur Rangachariar, is in a picturesque turban, and he has his caste mark in red on his forehead. His native costume contrasts strangely with his modern tortoise-shell spectacles … Three rows of high-powered electric lamps have been turned on in the chamber. Their heat beats down like tropical suns … The lights are to enable photographs to be taken; and they make the decorations of the uniforms and the diamond necklace and brooch that Dame Nellie Melba is wearing shine brilliantly. … [The Duke and Duchess enter.] The Duke looks distinctly nervous. In the

silence of the brilliant assemblage the first gun of the Royal Salute is heard outside the House, and the moving picture cameras clicking ceaselessly follow the Royal couple … The Duke places his hat on, and reads his speech, quietly at first, but more loudly as he gains confidence. One is apt to forget that Princes are human, and the ceremony must be a trying ordeal for such a young man as the Duke. AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD OF 10 MAY 1927

How Canberra looks after everyone’s gone home CANBERRA is cleaning up. In the grey dawn of Wednesday a five-ton truck, piled high with empty bottles, stole quietly through the city streets.

Edward William Searle (1887–1955) Old Parliament House Opening Ceremony, Canberra, 1927

The Morning After.

Fold up the flags! Compress into a roll The carpets whereupon princely feet have stood! Inscribe another name upon the scroll And roster of Imperial cityhood! The Day has come and gone, with all it means— Saw ever one such stacks of dea d marines? * The glitter and the pageantry hav e passed, The pomp and show like dreams at morning fled; Australia Felix has a home at last , A habitat where she may lay her head O’nights and walk by day in sylv an scenes Through towering gums and flow ers— And dead marines. AN UNI DEN TIFI ED POET IN

THE BULLETIN OF 19 MAY 1927

* ‘Dead marines’ are empty grog

bottles.

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Frank Dunne (c. 1897–1937) Portrait of Bert Hinkler c. 1930

HINKLER HINKLER LITTLE STAR

Bert Hinkler flies alone from England to Australia in 1928 Modern Australians might envy the Australians of 1928 the joy they, the hero-worshippers of 1928, were given by Bert Hinkler and his marvellous feat of flying. There may never have been one time in Australian life when such a percentage of Australians adored one Australian hero so much. Many things made him easy to adore. It was not only that he’d made himself the hero of the whole Empire by flying solo from England to Australia in a record time (a popular 1928 adaptation of the ditty Twinkle Twinkle Little Star went ‘Hinkler, Hinkler little star/Sixteen days and here you are!’) but also that his area of heroism and skill, aviation, was so new and progressive and so brought great honour to young Australia.

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hen there was the fact that Hinkler himself, a small, unremarkable-looking and very man-in-the-street figure radiating a sincere modesty whenever he spoke, seemed a genuinely lovable man and a perfect ‘peoples’ champion. He was a true hero (apart from this latest feat he’d been a heroic flier in the Great War and was said to have flown up to a zeppelin to blaze away at it with a revolver) and had done something almost superhuman, but at the same time was imaginable as every Australian’s dad or brother or son. Of great importance to the delight he gave in 1928 was the way in which his tour of eastern Australia was a continuation of his record flight across the world, and was done in the wondrously tiny aeroplane in which he’d just crossed the world. If a machine can be a hero (and surely it can) then this particular one was. Like its pilot it was endearingly dainty. It was a petite David that had tackled and beaten the Goliath of enormous distances. It had a wing span of only 7 metres and was just 6.7 metres long. After arriving at Darwin, Hinkler flew on, via Longreach, to his home town of Bundaberg to be greeted by his mother, a citizen of Bundaberg, by Queensland’s Premier, and up to 15,000 enraptured others, lots of them perched on roofs. Then he flew on to several other destinations, including, after several days of being feted in the national capital, Cootamundra, Wagga Wagga and Melbourne.

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The conquering hero comes home to Bundaberg

‘O-H! THERE he is!’ shrieked a small young thing in skirts from the top of a motor car, and everyone turned and shouted ‘Where, where’ as all eyes followed the pointing finger, but the plane seemed to disappear and excitement was damped when a mere man with field-glasses coolly remarked that it was just a big black crow! ‘Why are planes and crows so much alike?’ murmured onlookers as they turned to take interest in something else until Bert was sighted again by somebody with very strong sight. Incidentally

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all seemed to have excellent vision and every bird was hailed as ‘him.’ … ‘Hurrah! Bravo, Bert! Here he is! Oh, he’s going over the town—No he’s not. That’s a “loop the loop.” Now he’s coming down. Hurrah!’ Those were just a few of the remarks heard above the din of train whistles, hooters, church bells and the shrieks, yells and ‘honk honks’ of motor horns, as Bert circled lower over the ground, the centre of which was marked by a huge white cross, and a big bonfire blazed as an extra signal. ‘Oh isn’t he lovely! Isn’t

he wonderful!’ cried sweet young things in short skirts and shady hats as they waved handkerchiefs, flags and parasols and anything else that could be waved … as the plane swept with the grace of a great silver bird on to the landing ground ... ‘Here the conquering hero comes’ played the band … Bundaberg’s famous airman is a little man, with a cheerful smiling face and black hair ‘with a kink in it.’ Yesterday he looked rather tired and his face was burnt red by the sun and wind, showing just where his cap failed to

Will Dyson (1880–1938) Hinkler Being Pulled to Monument of Fame by Smith and Lindbergh between 1928 and 1933

cover it [but] how happy he looked as he hugged his little mother, while cameras clicked on all sides. AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE BUNDABERG DAILY NEWS AND MAIL OF 28 FEBRUARY 1928

Hinkler’s plane gallops up the straight at Melbourne’s Flemington Racecourse NO MELBOURNE Cup winner has been cheered as vociferously as was Hinkler as he landed on the flat and drove up the straight of the famous Flemington yesterday … [Earlier, as the people waited,] all the stands in the enclosure were filled … But thousands preferred to wait on the beautiful green lawns and around the railings along the straight ... Away across the river on the slopes of Footscray Park 20,000 people watched the arrival of Hinkler. Viewed from the course the multi-coloured throng with the sun pouring on it resembled nothing so much as a huge bed of pretty flowers … The spectacle on the course was brilliant from the colour viewpoint. The sun and clear blue sky added to the effect … The progress of Hinkler’s flight from Wagga was broadcast, and was followed with close interest … Then the interest of the [waiting] crowd was diverted to Squadron leader Smart in a Moth, who performed many thrilling evolutions over the flat. Looping the loop, spirals, side-diving, spinning and other manoeuvres excited the crowd. His aluminium-coloured machine glistened in the sun … AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE AGE OF 19 MARCH 1928

Certificate of Air Worthiness in Papers of Bert Hinkler, 1928, 7 Feb.–28 Feb.

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Hinkler skims Flemington’s grandstand

AS CASUA LLY as any of slow ly dropping towards the motorists who travelled the course, and through to meet him, and with much a hundred loudspeakers less trouble in parking, Mr. proc laimed ‘That is Bert Bert Hinkler arrived at Hin kler.’ Heedless of the the Flemington racecourse fact that the airman would yesterday afternoon. Over not hear above the roar the assemblage of between of the engine, the crowd 60,000 and 70,000 people che ered and cheered again roared two escorting squad- as the Avro Avian dropped rons of Royal Australian nea rer and nearer until it Air Force bombing aero- was flying over the straight planes, and every one knew at an altitude of a few hunthat Hinkler must be near; dre d feet, with Mr. Hinkler but where? There were sev- ack nowledging the thoueral solo machines in the san ds of handkerchiefs, sky, and the upturned faces par asols, and hats that of the crowd, like ripples wer e waved to welcome on a lake, swung towards him … Mr. Hinkler flew so them in turn. Then … slow ly up the straight that the broadcaster … pointed ever yone had a long view of to a tiny aeroplane that, the aeroplane; he wheeled almost unnoticed, was over the old stand so low

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that the undercarriage seemed almost to touch the roof … Mr. Hinkler wheeled over the flat, and in a moment had landed, and was out of the machine … Mr. Hinkler has no trace of the theatrical in his temperament. He might have ridden around the course yesterday in a flying suit, with helmet and goggles. Instead, he removed his helmet before he left the cockpit, and the crowd saw a small, slim man dressed in a dark grey double-breasted lounge suit, and wearing a soft felt hat. AN UNNAMED REPORT ER IN THE ARGUS OF 19 MARCH 1928

Alexander Collingridge (d. 1942) Bert Hinkler Starting Propeller on His Avro Avian Biplane, York Park, Canberra 1928

Bert Hinkler looks small, shrewd and solid

THIS fellow Bert Hinkler—just what is he like? He can be summed up in three words—small, shrewd and solid. There is nothing spectacular about this short, well made, sallow complexioned man, but there is something dynamic about that elusive thing called personality, which he undoubtedly possesses. From underneath his soft, wavy dark hair and his high forehead, there shine two penetrating brown eyes. They are not the sort of eyes possessed by fools. They twinkle shrewdly. Then here are distinct lines around the mouth, and a typically British jaw, flexible, but firm. AN UNNAMED WRITER IN THE AGE OF 19 MARCH 1928

Nat Phillips (1883–1932) Bert Hinkler c. 1928

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Max Dupain (1911–1992) Morning Reverie, The Domain 1938

THE PAWNSHOP WINDOWS BECAME MORE AND MORE CRAMMED The Great Depression of the 1930s

How terrible, for Australia and Australians, was the experience of the Great Depression that intensified from the late 1920s and continued until the late 1930s? Historian David Potts in his The Myth of the Great Depression examined 2,000 detailed interviews with Australians who lived through the Depression. He came to the revisionist conclusion that the ‘widespread trauma’ and alleged hellishness of it all have been emphasised at the expense of the stories of ‘resilience and happiness’. He thinks that writers and historians, given the choice of emphasising either the poor’s ‘miseries’ or their ‘stoic achievements’, have usually chosen to dwell on the miseries.

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hatever the truths (did unemployment really reach the 40 per cent point that some suppose, or did it peak, as Potts thinks, at 25 per cent?), there is ample evidence of folk showing, out of necessity, great feats of resourcefulness and of common-plight camaraderie. Hal Porter was an observant junior teacher at Williamstown in Melbourne in the 1930s. Frank Huelin, Harry Pugsley and Bill Ryland were all ‘train jumpers’, reduced by the Depression to jumping aboard trains as ‘non-paying travellers’ to go to and fro looking for work. Hugh Clarke’s father Paddy, a country publican ruined by the Depression, took his family to Brisbane. There Paddy Clarke, unemployed and desperate, borrowed £50 to start a bookshop and lending library.

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Hal Porter notices his pupils’ speckless fingernails THE Williamstown beach, bigger than that at Juanles-Pins [in the south of France], is strewn like Juan-les-Pins, on Depression summer weekdays, with the expensive-looking, sun-ripened bodies of sussoes—young Adonises on unemployment relief. Prone and moveless, they have laid themselves out like pumas or corpses across the castor-sugar sand, by the lisping silky sea. Impossible for me, the poor employed scurrying in shabby clothes towards work in sunless rooms, to read their poor unemployed minds … they do not agitate one single artists’s-model muscle. Other sussoes, who have worn mud and lice and terror for God, King and Country, for England, Home and Beauty, do move. They trail the streets with blighted suitcases, and plead with bright desperation and grinning fatigue at the suburb’s front doors, offering for sale strange tin-openers and apple-corers, strange insurance policies, strange hair-crimping devices, home-made toffees, gaudy soaps reeking of jasmine … paintings of camels sneering on dunes, toys of Cro-Magnon crudity soldered from kerosene tins and jam-tins or carpentered from the wood of packing cases. Un-fishermen

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lean, attempting to fish, against the bollards on piers and wharves. All women of all ages wear cheap berets … Do anything, say the advertisements in the newspapers. Do anything; go anywhere. The pawnshop windows become more and more crammed with gravy boats, tan riding boots, silver-tipped walking sticks, goblets made of carved emu eggs set in German silver … amber necklaces, Nellie Stewart bangles, wedding rings … During the day, at school, it is impossible not to know that many of my pupils live on the bread-line, it is

impossible not to observe the home-cobbled shoes, the darned elbows of boys’ jumpers … the don’t-beashamed-of-a-patch trousers and turned shirt collars … [the] scrubbing-board dimmed colours of girls dresses, their skirts home-made from some obviously adult material. No one is however not neat; there are speckless fingernails and polished shoes; no one gets emaciated; all are ebullient and happy-golucky, or undetectedly pretend to be so … HAL PORTER IN HIS MEMOIR THE PAPER CHASE (1966)

Five Men Looking for Work in the Great Depression c. 1930 opposite: John F.T. Grimwade Locomotive Number YX162 Hauling a Down Freight Train at Hynam, South Australia c. 1934

Frank Huelin meets The Wild Man of Borneo on a train

AT Penola … as the train pulled out we were joined by another non-paying traveller. He had a mop of dark, shaggy hair and had not shaved for a week … ‘Where you headin’?’ [Jocka] asked. Our fellow-traveller waved in a vague north-easterly direction. ‘Into Vic,’ he replied. ‘Might get a job with a show doin’ th’ country towns.’ … ‘Been with a show before, Dark?’ [Jocka] queried. The newcomer accepted the descriptive nickname as natural. ‘No,’ he admitted, ‘but I’ve got a good

act. Been rehearsin’ it fer a couple of months.’ Without warning he removed his boots and the narrow strips of rag wrapped round his feet … ‘I’ll show yous me act.’ He rumpled his unkempt hair. ‘It’s a “Wild Man from Borneo” act,’ he announced proudly. ‘Watch this!’ He squatted on his haunches then suddenly dived at the wagon bars and gripped them with his hands and feet, roaring in assumed rage and grinding his teeth, all the time shaking the bars as though trying to rip them from their sockets. He kept this up for several minutes …

[Later] we crawled over a stretch of line where fettlers were replacing sleepers. Darky put on his act for their benefit. Their friendly grins turned to stares of astonishment at this performance. At our last glimpse of them they were still gazing speculatively in our direction. Darky grinned triumphantly. ‘Bet they’ve never seen an act like that before,’ he remarked. ‘They don’t get a chance ter see anythin’ out here …’ As we reached the outskirts of the town Darky pulled open the door … Opposite our wagon stood a

woman and child. The child was staring intently at us. Darky couldn’t resist the temptation. He sprang towards the side of the wagon, gripped the bars and growled ferociously. The child turned excitedly to the woman. ‘Look! Mummy! Look at those men,’ she shrilled, pointing towards us …. The constable waved aside the small throng. He waited until they dispersed then shepherded us to the lock-up. FRANK HUELIN IN HIS DEPRESSION MEMOIR KEEP MOVING (1983)

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Harry Pugsley’s mate Billy has to dance by himself IN MANY bagmen’s camps, we often saw tears, tears rolling down the cheeks of distressed men or teenage boys as they cried out in anguish at their poor circumstances and the stark poverty they were forced to endure. But only once did I hear a young man sob— and sob—almost tearing his heart out … Bill and I crawled from beneath our threadbare blankets and bent over the sobbing figure. ‘Are you sick?’ we gently asked him. Between sobs, ‘No’, he was not sick. ‘Are you hungry?’ ‘No’—he was not hungry either. Catching his breath between sobs, he said, ‘The g irls — sob — sob —would not—sob—dance with me —sob—sob—at the dance— sob—last night.’ … Next morning, after breakfast by the rock pools, Billy told us of his humiliating experience of girls who had refused his invitation to dance. At the dance hall Billy [had] paid his one shilling admittance. Strangers were immediately recognised as such in any small country town. During the Depression years strangers meant only one thing, unemployed young men. And they camped under a bridge. Bill camped under the bridge. All the local

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girls recognised him for what he was, a lowly ‘bagman’. Billy loved to dance … [and] something must have snapped in Billy’s mind after being snubbed by all the girls and then to see them dance with other boys. He made up his mind, a very confused mind, he would dance by himself! Billy loved to dance. Alone, with arms slightly folded as though holding an imaginary partner, he glided around the dance floor with easy grace and poise, round and round, forward and reverse, sideways and then back again, in and out, weaving his way among the couples who crowded the dance floor. He danced alone to the music of the waltz, valetta, jazz waltz, slow fox trot and others—but not to the music of a barn dance. He sat each of them out. In a barn dance his fingers would become intertwined with those of the girls who had refused to dance with him … So he sat alone and watched … On the following Saturday night, Billy again paid one shilling to gain admittance to the local dance. Bill and I were there, too. We looked in at

Sydney, Domain, 25 June 1930

the door. We didn’t have a shilling between us. At the first note of music from the sick piano, Billy was up on the floor with arms folded, dancing alone as before. Girls tittered and giggled, the boys smiled and touched their foreheads— off his rocker—nodding towards the lone figure … Billy had lost his job at 18 years of age when the firm which had employed him as a clerk, went bankrupt as a result of the Depression. So he, like many thousands of others, joined the Legion of the Lost, that great army of employable young

men—the dole bludgers. Billy’s hobby had been dancing. He belonged to a dancing academy. Three nights a week, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, Billy and his lovely young partner rehearsed the various dance steps at the academy to the recorded music of world famous dance bands. But the girls in that little country town high in the New England Ranges could not be expected to know this. HARRY PUGSLEY IN HIS CONFESSIONS OF A DOLE BLUDGER (1984)

Large Group of Men Looking for Work in the Great Depression c. 1930

Alfred Cavalchini Dole Queue during Depression—Coffs Harbour, NSW 1930

Hugh Clarke sees faces stamped with hopelessness I GOT a first hand impression of what people were calling the Depression by going with my father [setting up a lending library] on numerous trips to families who were selling up their libraries to get a few pounds to buy food. We travelled by tram, train and ferry each carrying two large suitcases. Most of the homes we visited appeared to have reasonably affluent owners and some of them were lavish. But the

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opulence was on the outside only. The faces of the people with whom my father bargained were all stamped with the brand of hopelessness. From one barrister’s home we lurched away with cases full of law books all obtained for about eight pounds. My father did not enjoy these excursions or the cheerless conversations he had with his clients … Within a few weeks my father had enough books to stock his shelves and people

began enrolling in Paddy’s lending library—a shilling or two books to join and one penny to borrow a book ... There were other interests, apart from reading, in the procession of people who wandered past the shop. Many of them with pinched faces and shabby clothes lacked even a penny to invest in my father’s library. Some wearing returned soldiers’ badges had arms or legs missing, others came in to browse

around and talk … Our new home in New Farm was sparsely furnished and we three older boys slept on mattresses on the floor. But, though we lacked some material comforts, we were never short of food. You could get half a sheep for two shillings and sixpence … Our back fence was covered with an ancient vine loaded with chokoes which my mother cooked as vegetable or else, by adding sugar, used to

provide ‘body’ for home made jam … Patched pants and bare feet were not uncommon in the school and many boys brought bread and dripping or bread and treacle for their lunches … Mick

and I had no sartorial pretensions but a continual source of embarrassment to us was that the fact that our mother had begun, of necessity, to make our clothes—shirts, socks and trousers. The trousers were

our particular annoyance because, instead of a normal fly with buttons, my mother had substituted a small slit to which she sewed a cloth tongue on the inside. This peculiar modification to our pants set us

aside from our fellows and was to plague us for a year or two to come. HUGH V. CLARKE IN HIS THE BROKE AND THE BROKEN: LIFE IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION (1982)

Blackened Bill Ryland slips into the darkness THERE were various methods adopted in those days to illegally travel by rail. Some did it the fast way and ‘top-decked the passoes’ which was simply lying along the top of a passenger carriage, in rather a breezy position as the train roared along at a fast rate. The idea was to offer as small a target as possible as bridges with a low overhead were inclined to be a hazard, and in the early days several ‘top deckers’ were decapitated … [Many] others, also in a hurry to go places, took the mail trains ‘on the fly’. Lurking just outside the station, they waited ‘on the off side’ till the train started to move out, then, with stout hearts, and light swags they raced alongside, timing their move to grab the door handle and lob on the axle-box at the same time. The startled passengers would suddenly have a body appear from the blue at their feet, but very few went out of their way to report them at the next station.

The most thrilling jump I ever made was on the engine of the Melbourne Express. I was in a hurry to get from ‘A’ to ‘B’ and as this ‘flyer’ was the fastest thing on rails, I decided to do it the hard way. Just as she was pulling out from Culcairn I emerged from my hiding place behind a water tank and shinned up the ladder behind the tender. With swag and tucker bag still on my shoulders I lay flat on the heap of coal at the rear and away we went at full speed ahead. As we roared on through the night I could watch from my precarious perch as the fireman shovelled coal into the mouth of the blazing furnace and the driver tended the controls, both blissfully unaware of their appreciative audience. Just as we were drawing in to ‘The Rock’ [Rockhampton] I scaled back down the ladder and slipped into the darkness, which was now a good match for my soot-blackened face … One memorial [sic] night that I’ll always remember,

I was listening to music on the radio when the program was suddenly interrupted with a news flash. Australia was at war with Germany! … There was no question in my mind, I would have to ‘pack it in’ and ‘rally round the flag, boys!’ I decided to make the fastest trip possible and traverse the 1400 odd miles in quick time to enlist in my home town [Sydney]. When I got to the main line I found that bagmen and swagmen and ‘odds and sods’ from all roads had a similar idea … Some had the same reason as myself, which was purely patriotic, others had a debt to square for relatives killed in the first world war, and others were just plain glad to get a job. I made good time to ‘Rocky;’ and arrived just as a stock train was about to pull out. After a few words with the head drover I was signed on as a ‘prodder’. My duties were to patrol the train at scheduled stops

and prod up with a long pole, any of the cattle which had fallen down and were disinclined to get up again ... Being a ‘starving stock special’ we made a very quick time indeed, and soon we had covered the 600 miles journey to Brisbane. I carried on at a fast clip into New South Wales … I swept down the coast like a southerly buster … I arrived in the Big Smoke in what must have been close to a train-jumping record … After [this] long 1600 mile ‘drag’ from North Queensland to enlist … I strode up to the engine that had brought me safely home, and as it stood there, panting and puffing like some prehistoric beast, I patted its metallic side, and said in a loud voice … ‘Thanks mate, you’re a beauty!’ BILL RYLAND IN HIS UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT HELD BY THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA, KNOCKABOUT BOY: TALES AND SONGS OF A TRAIN JUMPER IN THE 1930s

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SYMPHONY OF STEEL

The building and opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, 1924–1932

Sydney’s Harbour Bridge was officially opened on Saturday, 19 March 1932. That triumph had been preceded, on 19 August 1930, by the momentous meeting of the southern and northern half-arches that had suspensefully crept across the sky towards one another since 1928. The bridge, magnificent when completed, had been from about 1926 (begun in 1924 it took some time for the works to begin to look distinguished) a magnificent work-in-progress of a size, grandeur and optimism that came to defy the gloom of the Depression and to be a godsend of employment for the depressed state and depressed city.

I opposite: Harold Cazneaux (1878–1953) Arch of Steel 1933

t isn’t only the sheer size of the bridge that impresses (for it is a symphony of steel and a hulking work of art as well as a bridge), although it is impressively gigantic. Dorman Long & Co.’s successful tender was for the use of 51,000 tons of steel of which 38,000 were to be in the arch. C.J. Dennis’ poem ‘I Dips Me Lid’ to the Sydney Harbor Bridge, was commissioned by the suppliers of the new bridge’s 60,000 gallons of paint. The poem has a veneer of simplicity that camouflages lots of fine things including a depiction of a sentimental and not very articulate bloke’s struggle to find words to describe the wonder of such a bridge in such a place. Millions of writing and talking eyewitnesses have had this problem with it, and the bridge has been a more generous godsend for photographers and painters.

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Leon Gellert sees the hunched spine of steel completed, 1930 THE Great Arch of the Sydney Bridge is complete. For seven years millions of people have awaited this event, many with apprehension, not a few with feelings of misgiving. For five years ferry-boat passengers have scrambled for those positions on deck from which its tremendous proportions might best be seen. Each day, coming and going across their strip of water, they have lifted their eyes to that web of iron in the sky. And they have discussed it … It has been the most talked-of bridge in the world … The most maligned bridge. The most admired bridge. The two creeping cranes, each on the crest of its own arc, like stupendous and purposeful spiders busy with warp and weft, have at last met over the water … The hunched spine of steel is rigid and ready to support the iron road by which men may move to and from the metropolis

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somewhat quicker and with more comfort. Seen at close range it is like the Wheel of the Mill of God— its circumference flung across the heavens, forbidding and terrible, dwarfing the surrounding forms and proclaiming at once the insignificance and the

might of man. In the clear distance from miles away it is like the half-exposed rib of some monster left over from primeval days. LEON GELLERT IN HIS FOREWORD TO THE BRIDGE BOOK: BY CAZNEAUX (1930)

Edward William Searle (1887–1955) Southern Sun Flying over Sydney Harbour Bridge, 1931

C.J. Dennis and Captain Phillip marvel at the bridge, c. 1932 ‘Young sir,’ ’e sez ... Like that ... It made me feel Romantic like, as if me dream was reel. ‘Is dress was fancy, an’ ’is style was grave. An’ me ? I ’ope I know ’ow to be’ave In ’igh-toned company, for ain’t I been Instructed careful by me wife, Doreen? ‘Sing small,’ she sez. An’ that’s jist wot I did. I sounds me haitches, an’ I dips me lid.

I’d strolled about the town for ’arf a day Then dragged me carcase round the ’arbor way To view the Bridge from Dame Macquarie’s Chair Then parks me frame, an’ gits to thinkin’ there— Thinkin’ of olden days; an’ I suppose I must ’ave nodded orf into a doze. Nex’ thing I knoo, ole Phillip come an’ sat Beside me, friendly like, an’ starts to chat.

‘Young sir,’ ’e sez ... O’ course you understand ’Twus jist a dream. But, on the other ’and, ’E seemed so reel as ’e sat spoutin’ there Beside me on ole Dame Macquarie’s Chair, Lookin’ across the ’arbor while ’e talked— Seemed sumpthink more that jist a ghost ’oo walked Out o’ the past ... ‘Phillip by name,’ ’e said. A queer ole cock, wif lace, an’ wig on ’ead.

‘Young sir,’ ’e sez. ‘You, too, in sheer amaze Look upon this, and hark to other days, An’ dream of this fair city’s early start. In which (’e bows) I played my ’umble part— My ’umble part—a flagpole an’ a tent.’ ‘Come orf!’ sez I. ‘You was a fine ole gent. Reel nob. I’ve read about the things you did. You picked some site.’ (’E bows. I dips me lid) …

It ’appened this way: I ’ad jist come down, After long years, to look at Sydney town. An’ ’struth! Was I knocked endways? Fair su’prised? I never dreamed! That arch that cut the skies! The Bridge! I never thort there could ‘a’ been— I never knoo, nor guessed—I never seen ... Well, Sydney’s ’ad some knocks since I been gone, But strike! This shows she keeps on keepin’ on.

‘Young sir,’ ’e sez. ‘The tears well in my eyes When I behold yon arch that cleaves the skies— That mighty span, triumphant, where we view My old friend Darwin’s vision now made true: ‘There the proud arch, Colossus-like, bestride Yon glittering stream and bound the chafing tide! ’Twas so he dreamed a few short years agone. Spoke truly, sir; they keep on keeping on.’ So Phillip spoke ’is piece, fair puffed wif pride. An’ ’im an’ me dreamed by the ’arbor-side: I, of the scene before, of years to be, An’ of the marvels that men yet might see; ’Im, of a lantern gleamin’ thro’ the fog To light a tent, an’ two men, an’ a dog … Then both of us, like some queer instinct bids, Stands up, serloots the Bridge, an’ dips our lids. C.J. DENNIS, ‘I DIPS ME LID’ TO THE SYDNEY HARBOR BRIDGE (c. 1932)

Raistrick & Co. (Firm) Sydney Harbour Bridge c. 1933

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A columnist sees rearing dolphins ridden by mermaids, 19 March 1932 SYDNEY has been feeling like the studio hand in Hollywood who, when they were screening a picture of Godiva, said he’d wait around for the procession, he hadn’t seen a horse for a long time. So everybody turned out to the Bridge pageant, and there were the loveliest horses drawing the floats … and Clydesdales fluffy about the hooves and patient about the face, positively pranced past the hundreds of thousands along the route under a sky all afterrain blue. … The floats wore gorgeous and glittering aprons—pieces falling from the sides almost to the ground, so that there was no indecent display of wheels, and the fact that in everyday life the floats carry hides and skins and coal and time-payment furniture was carefully hidden. The black swan on the Federation float swam into view graceful and imaginative. But altogether this item was a very vivid bit of color. On it all the

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Edward William Searle (1887–1955) Bridge Opening Ceremony with Bridge in the Background, Sydney Harbour Bridge, 1932

States found a place, and no fewer than 30 girls took part in the tableau. Our starry emblem was girt about a group of sunny-haired young Graces, the shields representing the States were borne by maids in flowing white, and six white-clad girls, their feet in a sea of gold, were grouped together, each wearing a blue sash blazoning the name of the State she represented. Here, of course, glittered a rising sun, and the four steeds that drew this load of charm went stirringly caparisoned in cloths representing Australia’s flag … Elsewhere there were rearing dolphins ridden by mermaids, there were

huge grey and pink galahs, gigantic brolgas leading the flight from the city to the flowery gardens of the Northern suburbs over a sea of green. There was the towering, rearing white horse (made entirely of white Cape daisies) ridden by a silver-armored and -visored St. George, the green wave of Cronulla curling at his heels … Mermaids frolicked in a surf of green and blue water-lilies … The Bridge workmen swung by, heads up, muscles of neck and arms a-ripple, and the barriers were nearly carried away on the wave of cheers … There were 20 trumpeters, replete with fanfares;

there were hundreds of police; there was a broad blue ribbon waiting for the gold scissors and the hand of Mr Lang. But quicker than the Premier, quicker than the Authority, a horseman rode at the ribbon with flashing sword, hacked it asunder and declared the Bridge open in ‘the name of the people of New South Wales, of common decency and decent politics’. Of course the Quixote was a New Guardsman and an Irishman. He is Captain de Groot, formerly of the Hussars … THE ‘A WOMAN’S LETTER’ COLUMNIST IN THE BULLETIN OF 23 MARCH 1932

Private enterprise rears its envenomed head, 19 March 1932 THE last act of the Great Bridge Play! … The Bridge, yawning ever so slightly, says ‘Thank the Lord, that’s [the daytime part of the opening ceremonies] over.’ But his trials aren’t quite over. He goes to sleep again while a fleet of stout merchant ships passes underneath him, belching brown smoke on his nice new paint, but he wakes up when the sun sinks and the moon comes sailing up into

a sky of amethyst and every citizen residing within a radius of 20 miles of Sydney decides that the best place to watch the fireworks from is the eastern footway. With a whiff of forethought absent from most of the other official arrangements of the day the authorities have decided to keep vehicles off the Bridge. This is as well, for when the eastern footway commences to bulge and seems likely to split, the human swarm

flows over the fences and fills railway tracks, motor speedway and every other inch of space on the giant’s deck. A squad of very tired policemen is kept busy chasing boys, who will climb up the girders or up the many convenient stairways that have been placed about the bridge to allow the maintenance staff to keep an eye on all its joints. The Harbor goes on a wild jag. Warships are outlined in dotted lines of

light, and every craft in port is lit up from truck to waterline. Twenty searchlights go mad and dance like brolgas in a new sort of aurora all over the firmament. Rockets in prodigious quantities pepper the sky with jewels and gold and make the moon a superfluity. Overhead a monoplane flits, leaving a trail of fire, but visible itself only when it cut the ray of a waving searchlight. On the bridge deck … Private Enterprise rears its envenomed head, and Capitalists (in a small way) vend gorgeous Certificates, signed in real handwriting by somebody or other, testifying to the fact that the purchaser has that day walked across the Bridge. And on this note, indicating that after all our to-morrows shall be very much as our yesterdays, the curtain descends. THE ‘SUNDRY SHOWS’ COLUMNIST IN THE BULLETIN OF 23 MARCH 1932

Edward William Searle (1887–1955) Sydney Harbour Bridge Crowded with Onlookers during the Water and Aerial Display, 19 March 1932

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A spectacular example of Featurist irrationality [IT] IS still the world’s largest suspended-deck arch bridge and is still the most spectacular single manmade object in the land. It is the image of Australia adopted by airlines’ advertisers and by Hollywood to establish the Australian locale in a three-second shot. It is a typical Australian big Government project in that it was designed outside Australia … It is also characteristic of Australia in that its design is a spectacular example of Featurist irrationality. The giant arch of trussed steel, the suspension rods, and the wide, thin deck they support make up the whole bridge. But they were not enough. The stone pylons at each end of the arch were raised as towers above the deck almost to the soffit of the arch. Most people at the time it was built appreciated that the pylons were redundant features, but the

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stonework was welcome as a necessary addition to make the steel presentable. The steel itself was understood to be necessarily ugly; it needed camouflage. The pylon towers reversed the natural shape of the arch by transferring the emphasis from the centre to each end, where everyone who was used to suspension bridges expected to see high pylons. The silhouette now became vaguely, cosily reminiscent also of the Tower Bridge in London. The pylon features thus successfully destroyed the visual reality of the bridge, while relieving Sydney of the expense of covering the whole arch with stone veneer … [It is] the crowning achievement of Australian featurism,

but the pylons differ only in scale, not in principle, from most things on three million Australian mantelpieces. ROBIN BOYD IN HIS THE AUSTRALIAN UGLINESS (1960)

E.V. Kealey Aberdeen and Commonwealth Line, One Class Only to Australia via Suez Canal c. 1932 opposite: Harold Cazneaux (1878–1953) Dr J. Bradfield Standing on ‘King Pin’ under the Arch at the Sydney Harbour Bridge, February, 1931

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Joseph Ringland Anderson (1894–1961) Hélène Kirsova as the Doll in ‘Petrouchka’, Monte Carlo Russian Ballet, Melbourne 1937

THE WOMENFOLK ESPECIALLY BECAME INTOXICATED BY THE BALLET

Ballets Russes in Australia, 1936–1940

Between 1936 and 1940, Australians, hitherto quite ballet-impoverished, were brought an abundance of ballet by the Ballets Russes. Ballet Russes is a generic name given to a succession of ballet companies which emerged in Europe after the demise of Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1929. During the 1930s and 1940s there were several Ballets Russes companies which toured throughout Europe, the Americas and to Australasia. Three Ballets Russes companies were formed for touring to Australasia between 1936 and 1940 and between them and across three tours they gave 650 performances in Australia and 123 in New Zealand.

T

he tours were a revelation for Australians. Jacques Lidji, company director of one of the touring companies, found Australians ‘a reserved people’ at first and not sure what to think of and what to express about this avalanche of ballet. ‘But after the eight weeks which we first spent in Melbourne, the womenfolk especially became— what shall I say? intoxicated by the Ballet. They thirsted for more.’ The writer Elizabeth George went to see the dancers of the first Ballets Russes company to tour Australia, The Monte Carlo Russian Ballet, rehearsing in Adelaide, not long after disembarking after the long voyage to Australia. Balletomane, ballet writer and ballet administrator Arnold Haskell came to Australia with all three Ballets Russes companies as a publicist and all-round organiser. Ballerina Tamara Tchinarova Finch visited Australia with all three touring Ballets Russes companies. At the end of the final, 1939–40 tour she chose to stay in Australia. At first she fell on very hard and demeaning times and in 1940, as part of a tiny touring ensemble, this once-famous ballerina whose praises had been sung by Arnold Haskell (‘With her jet-black hair, olive skin, and the suggestion of immense nervous energy held well in reserve, one can only compare her to some pure-bred Arab horse’) fell into the clutches of a shonky theatrical agency that on one awful occasion sent her to a wintry Ballarat.

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Elizabeth George watches a constellation of brilliant little worlds TO LOOK for the new Pavlovas and Genées in the Monte Carlo Ballet at rehearsal is rather like looking for separate stars in the Milky Way. Here is no planet set apart in lonely grandeur, but a constellation of brilliant little worlds, some twinkling, at the moment, more gloriously than others, but each with its season for maximum brightness. When some particularly lovely figure slips down from the stage to take her place

in the dim auditorium, it is with a shock that the balletomane recognises the owner of a world-famous name as a fresh-faced girl with demurely sleeked hair and eyes alight with the joy of living ‘on the points’. Helene Kirsova, in the intervals between her own rehearsals, nursed the thin stage cat and talked to me wistfully of her desire to see real Australian bears. her after Roussova, scene death moving as the sultan’s wife in

Hugh P. Hall David Lichine (Centre Front) and Tatiana Riabouchinska (Centre Elevated) in the Circus Divertissement, and Artists of the Company, in ‘Graduation Ball’, the Original Ballet Russe, Australian Tour, His Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne, 1940

scene ‘Scheherazade’—a y compan which set all the the on crying in the wings rehearsal—revealed first herself, surprisingly, as a little girl of 15½ still young enough to be chaperoned on the tour. She came and sat beside her mother, and arranged to visit museums and art galleries. Sonia Woizikovsky, released from the ballet master’s demands, practised ecstatically all by herself in a corner of the auditorium. She looked like some lovely

child who had been coached by a conscientious nymph … These girls had danced their way through the tropics and kept on their twinkling toes even in the rolling waters of the Australian Bight; but the first rehearsal on dry land was obviously a red letter night, and the eyes of every girl in the ballet were glowing with happiness. ELIZABETH GEORGE IN ADELAI DE’S THE ADVERTISER OF 12 OCTOBER 1936

Dimitri Rostoff (Right) and Paul Petroff (Left) and Dancers from the Original Ballet Russe in ‘Paganini’ 1940

Arnold Haskell eavesdrops in a bush pub THE success of the ballet made theatrical history in Adelaide, and ballet history too. In this city of 250,000 inhabitants the theatre was nearly full for eighteen days, and the season could have continued another eighteen so great was the enthusiasm. Looked at statistically that is amazing. Chicago, with three and a

half million, can roughly stand eighteen days; Paris, today, far less … The interest was not confined to one class, as it is apt to be in England. One day I went to see the auctioning of 25,000 sheep at the Burra, on the very fringe of the rainless district. It was piping hot, and the sheep kicked up a miniature dust-storm of

red burning sand that found its way into eyes, throat and nose. This is not an excuse for a drink, but it made several drinks urgent and essential. In the village pub I heard the following: Drover: Have you been to see those Russians yet? Publican: Yes, and I’m saving up to go again. Sillfides was fine. I’m

sending the missis and the kids on Saturday. Then he grew abstruse, far above my understanding, with the price of sheep, pedigree rams, and the effect of weather on feed. ARNOLD L. HASKELL IN HIS DANCING ROUND THE WORLD: MEMOIRS OF AN ATTEMPTED ESCAPE FROM BALLET (1937)

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Hugh P. Hall sees a prima ballerina darn her own shoes, 1940 IN BALLET photography, not the least interesting part is the contact with the dancers themselves and the world behind the scenes … The glamour of ballet from the front of the house is very strong, but there is an added fascination when one catches glimpses and impressions backstage … In the corridors and in the wings one sees dancers, dressed as all sorts of characters or wandering about in various stages of dress or undress … Backstage one will see, maybe, a slave from PRINCE IGOR conversing with a sylphide, or a group of little swans mingling with Russian peasants from PETROUSHKA … Before the curtain goes up, the stage itself is almost invariably crowded with people—dancers in all types of costumes practising, carpenters, electricians, perhaps the manager himself and a few privileged visitors all talking—even during the playing of the overture. One would think they must be caught at the rise of the curtain, for they all seem so casual and unconcerned. But miraculously when the curtain does go up, all but the dancers of the moment seem to have melted into thin air, apparently without signal, command or warning of any kind—and the ballet is on! … A rehearsal with the dancers in black tights,

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coloured jumpers and headbands is also most interesting. I had the pleasure of watching some rehearsals of Lichine’s GRADUATION BALL which had its premiére in Melbourne. (Of this ballet alone, I have a set of over 100 photographs.) The technical ability

of Riabouchinska was remarkably demonstrated at rehearsals … [for example] by the spectacular leap in the circus scene in this ballet where she runs from the wings, and, though holding a parasol in one hand, takes a flying leap on to Lichine’s shoulder— there striking the right

Tamara Tchinarova Sewing Pointe Shoes, Borovansky Ballet c. 1946

attitude instantly, always with unerring precision. She would, in between times, pick up a ballet shoe and darn the toe. Such are the contrasts of the theatre! HUGH P. HALL IN HIS BALLET IN AUSTRALIA FROM PAVLOVA TO RAMBERT (1948)

Tamara Tchinarova Finch faces life after the Ballets Russes A FEW days later a phone call summoned us to Ballarat, where a theatre had been booked. Immediately we arrived we knew that yet another disaster had struck. The theatre was a wooden shack, with a poster on its front door announcing the appearance of the Covent Garden Ballet with full orchestra in a programme of famous ballets. One lonely reporter was waiting, curiously, wondering how eighty people would fit on the stage … When he found out there were three of us and a pianist, he said he would denounce the fraudulent announcements in the local paper. We looked desperately for Mr Knight and found him at the local pub, drinking the proceeds of the sixteen tickets sold … And so we danced. It was freezing, and the hollow wooden-platform stage had loose planks in it. Whenever we jumped, a wooden board shot up on the other side. We changed costumes behind a screen held by a fireman, in full view of the audience. The hall was lit by four bare bulbs. Switching the stalls lights out meant having a blacked-out stage. We could see the audience; in the front row, women were wrapped in blankets, their

feet resting on hot-water bottles. They could hardly see us, though, as our hot breath created clouds of vapour and our feet lifted clouds of dust. Our noses were dripping, sending long sprays during our pirouettes; our toes were numb, frozen solid. We danced the evening away, and then found Mr Knight, staggering drunkenly around, repeating tearfully, ‘It was a beautiful show, the best I’ve ever represented, but there’s no money at the box office …’ TAMARA TCHINAROVA FINCH IN HER DANCING INTO THE UNKNOWN: MY LIFE IN

Portrait of Tamara Tchinarova Finch as a Nursemaid in ‘Petrouchka’, Ballets Russes Australian Tours c. 1937

THE BALLETS RUSSES AND BEYOND (2007)

eide and the Golden h and Martin Rubinstein as Zoeb Portrait of Tamara Tchinarova Finc ky Ballet c. 1946 Slave in ‘Scheherazade’, Borovans

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Bushfire at Yallourn, Victoria c. 1939

IT APPEARED THAT THE WHOLE STATE WAS ALIGHT The Victorian bushfires of January 1939

In his Burning Bush: A Fire History of Australia, Stephen J. Pyne divines that ‘Sometime—or rather at several critical junctures in the saga of Australia—the island continent opted for fire’. He says that a sequence of environmental events saw soils deteriorate and aridity and drought become commonplace, and then highly combustible woody plants succeeded rainforest and ‘Fire acquired a signatory rhythm and power that indelibly identified it with the bush it shaped. And then Homo arrived’.

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normous and deadly bushfires have been so commonplace in Australia that an anthologist with room for mention of only one has an embarrassment of tragic riches. Although named by a day, the Black Friday bushfires of 1939 (‘Black Friday’ was Friday 13 January) burned in some form for a whole Victorian summer. The Victorian fires killed 71 people and consumed whole townships. Approximately 1,300 homes were lost. Some fires were started by lightning but most of them by the people of rural Victoria carrying on with the routine burning of things even though drought and heat had made everywhere menacingly flammable. ‘Mills, houses, bridges, tramways, machinery, were burned to the ground; men, cattle, horses, sheep were devoured by the fires or asphyxiated by the scorching debilitated air’, Royal Commissioner Leonard Stretton summarised in his Introduction to his report on the fires. He continued: Generally, the numerous fires which during December, in many parts of Victoria, had been burning separately as they do in any summer, either ‘under control’ as it is falsely and dangerously called, or entirely untended, reached the climax of their intensity and joined forces in a devastating confluence of flame on Friday, the 13th of January. On that day it appeared that the whole state was alight.

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Four Men Standing on the Charred Remnants of the Trestle Railway Bridge after the Bushfires, Noojee, Victoria, 13 January 1939

Alexandria buries its dead

WITH thicker smoke than at any time during the fires covering the town of Alexandria today, the funerals of eight of the men who were burnt to death in the Rubicon forest on Tuesday were held in the local cemetery. Several hundred bushmen who themselves, in many cases, had narrow escapes from death, followed the hearse from the hospital, where the bodies had lain. The cortege of 50 cars passed through the main street, lined with

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refugees standing bareheaded, many in their shirt-sleeves and working clothes—all they saved when the fled from the mills in the forest. Dimly through the drifting smoke could be seen the flag at half-mast on the Shire Hall. The first funeral was that of Alfred Neason at 10.30, and at intervals the bodies of the others were brought through the town to the cemetery, where the graves had been dug by the dead men’s mates.

Many of the pall bearers were timber workers who had been with the dead men at the mills when the fire broke out on Tuesday … the last funeral took place at 2 p.m. There were pathetic scenes as the relatives and friends of those who had been burned crowded round the open graves. Following on so many days of nervous tension the funeral produced a climax of emotional strain which threatened to break the control of many people.

Many of those who attended were still showing signs of their ordeal in the forest. Some were half-blinded by smoke. One man had an arm bandaged from hand to elbow and his head was still swathed in bandages covering wounds he had received when his team of horses was destroyed and he plunged into a water channel just as the flames reached him. AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE HERALD OF 13 JANUARY 1939

Mrs Mason’s dug-out fills with smoke LYING in bed today at the home of a friend, her voice almost reduced to a whisper by the effect of smoke, Mrs Foster Potter, one of the women who survived in the dugout [at the Rubicon forest near Alexandria], told the story. ‘When the fire came roaring down on Tuesday afternoon we rushed to the dugout,’ she said. ‘The last woman, Mrs Mason, got there black with smoke and covered with glowing cinders. We could hear the fire roaring over the top of the dug-out and several times the timbers holding up the roof caught fire. ‘As the hours dragged on, the dug-out filled with smoke. There were four other women, five children and 11 men. One of the children was my baby Ronald, only eight weeks old, and there was another baby of eight months. ‘We held the children down close to the ground so that they could get as much air as possible. We kept Ronald’s face plastered with plenty of mud from the bottom of the tunnel to keep it from blistering. ‘A cockatoo and a parrot which we had taken in

Cover of Bush Fires: A Pictorial Survey of Victoria’s Most Tragic Week, January 8–15, 1939

Fire Fighters in Gas Masks in Bush Fires: A Pictorial Survey of Victoria’s Most Tragic Week, January 8–15, 1939

with us died within 20 minutes. As the smoke became denser we could not see each other, but called out in the darkness to find out how the others were standing it. ‘Gradually the replies became fainter. I could hear Mr Bert Murphy reciting the Lord’s Prayer, and then his voice drifted off.’ AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE HERALD OF 12 JANUARY 1939

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Mrs Cannon sees and hears heartbreaking things I HAVE just returned from one of the worst bushfire areas. I have seen sights and heard things that would break the hearts of all … I have given lifts to men, women and children, who, worn out after terrifying experiences, were seeking safety away from the blackened ruins, where but a week ago, their comfortable homes and pretty

gardens stood … footsore and weary, they just collapsed into the car … I have seen toddlers, too young to understand the meaning of this upheaval, looking for lost pets, and seen the grateful look on a mother’s face when I tactfully refrained from telling the awful truth. I have seen a child pick up what was once a lovely

Burnt-out Cars on a Road in the Aftermath of Black Friday, Noojee, Victoria, 1939

feather with a ‘Look, Mummy, cocky’s lost one of his fevvers.’ I have stepped forward quickly to kick some ashes over the rest of cocky. I have seen the same toddlers crying for their favourite dolls or teddy bears as they were tucked into strange beds in temporary homes. Their mothers, brave and philosophical women, hold

back the tears, which they could easily shed were they less brave and philosophical. They smile bravely and thank God they and their families have escaped from what at times seemed certain death—that death which claimed neighbors, close friends. MRS D. CANNON IN THE HERALD OF 14 JANUARY 1939

Norman McCance comes home to a sad black world IT WAS a pleasant haunt of bird-life that stretched down the hill behind our country home at Avonsleigh, near Emerald, acres of peppermint and stringybark and messmate, with a dense undergrowth of dogwood, mimosa and bracken. It tangled itself delightfully above the trash and litter of forest and swept down to a tiny creek that crept as if afraid of itself in the stillness, under great treeferns … the birds loved it and all the creatures of the bush knew it as a sanctuary. That was how I left it … on January 8. In less than a quarter of an hour on January 12 a roaring burst of flame hit that pleasant stretch of bushland and turned it into blackened desolation. Just a waste of charcoal and powdered ash … They tell me the bush will soon grow again, rioting in fresh green life after the rain, but after tramping that blackened barren

M.E. Bill Forest Remains after a Bushfire, Icy Creek, Victoria, 1939

ash-heap I find this hard to believe. Roast rabbits lay pathetically shrivelled here and there among the charred logs. Birds had simply been blasted out of existence, leaving no recognisable remains, though a mudlark, suffocated by smoke, lay on a blackened clearing with not a feather even scorched. Similarly a black flying phalanger curled up in death on an ash-heap and not one hair of its soft fluffy fur was even singed. It had probably suffocated in some hollow tree. Of all the lesser phalangers and pigmy flying mice that used to make the bushland tick and creak on moonlight nights when

I sat entranced in the fragrant shadows, there was neither sign nor trace. Wombats and wallabies had happily escaped the fire by cunning and speed respectively. One tiny wombat popped down its burrow with surprising speed as we wandered sadly by the tiny creek … But the wombats were bewildered and hungry. Their happy hunting-grounds had gone, and they could not find their bearings … Dozens of wallabies, bewildered in this sad black world, jumped up from the creek, some racing up hill in terror, others pausing only a stone’s-throw away to puzzle out the situation.

Some limped with burnt feet … They tell me it will all grow again, and that I am lucky to have the home unharmed and such a clean sweep made of the bush. But I did not want a clean sweep at the expense of bird-life and my tree marsupials. And all my shy peering lizards are gone, and the burnished beetles and the swaggering bull-ants … Birds and insects and green growth may come again in season, but what a desolation the bushland will be until that repopulation. NORMAN MCCANCE IN THE AUSTRALASIAN OF 21 JANUARY 1939

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Neptunia, which Had Been Carrying Mines, Being Blown Up during the First Japanese Air Raid on Darwin during World War II, 19 February 1942

I HEARD THE BOMB SCREAMING EARTHWARD

Two air raids of the Second World War— Darwin 1942, London 1943

Charles Abbott, the Administrator of the Northern Territory, and his wife Hilda were at home at Government House in Darwin when the first Japanese raid on the town and on vessels in the harbour began at 9.57 am on 19 February 1942.

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s they’d always planned to in the event of a raid, the Abbotts and their servants, hearing a siren, fled from Government House itself to shelter under the nearby Administration office building. But it was to be the Administration building that was hit by a 1,000-pound bomb and those who’d been sheltering there ran to take shelter on a cliff face at the foot of the gardens. In his published memoir Charles Abbott listed the sheltering staff as the ‘half-caste maids’ Elsie [Hilda Abbott spells the name as Elsey] and Daisy, Mr and Mrs Kampur respectively the Russian driver and cook, ‘the old halfcaste gardener Billy with his full-blooded lubra, and Leo the native boy who swept the verandas’. In this first raid (it lasted about 40 minutes) at least 288 people were killed (80 of them sailors aboard the bombed and sunk USS Peary) and up to 400 injured by the attacks of between 70 and 90 aircraft. There’s a shocked immediacy about Hilda Abbott’s typed but unpublished description of the ordeal, and in her papers she does say that it was ‘written at the time’. Pat

Forster was a sailor serving in Darwin, usually at a shore station, but he was on a vessel in Darwin harbour when the first raid came. He was almost dozing off after an allnight shift when he was ‘jolted awake by loud explosions and the roar of aircraft’. As well as his written version of events he produced dramatic paintings and sketches. One of the most celebrated pieces of reporting of the Second World War is Edward R. Murrow’s story (broadcast to the USA from London on 3 December 1943) of his 2 December flight to Germany and back in the Lancaster bomber D for Dog. Beneath him as the bombs fell he saw that ‘Berlin was a kind of orchestrated hell, a terrible symphony of light and flame’. D for Dog made it home but other planes taking part in the same massive raid were shot down, and in his 3 December broadcast Murrow mourned ‘two reporter friends of mine on this operation who didn’t come back’. They were Norman Stockton of Australian Associated Newspapers and Lowell Bennett of the International News Service; Murrow had the grace to say that both, had they survived, ‘would have given you a better report of last night’s activities’. Stockton, in London, had been writing a book about his wartime experiences in London, and the National Library of Australia has his (of course) unfinished manuscript, much of it typed on the same Australian Newspaper Service copy paper on which he typed his stories.

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Hilda Abbott’s eyes seem to leap in their sockets I HAD just finished my morning round after pawpaw and coffee on the veranda … Then we seemed to hear a siren wail. I picked up the little bags we kept packed and a small eiderdown cushion I had always determined to hide my face against if there were a raid. As we [she and her husband] looked at each other we heard the first bomb fall. The Administrator [her husband] raised his eye-brows. ‘That’s it,’ he said. The two half-caste girls, Elsey and Daisy, and Leo the black-boy, came trailing around the corner of the house. ‘Run!’ I called. We went all together to the shelter underneath the office-cottage … the Russians came, carrying their ready-packed bags and with rucksacks on their backs. We were just in our places when came the most terrible, incalculable noise. Mortar, concrete and grit showered down, bruising and blinding us. The sidewall came crashing in and the whole structure cracked, the roof lowering over us, creaking and with gashes showing, and then most terrible screams pierced the thunder of noise. I was blown

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out where the pillars had been highest, in that instant knowing we would all be crushed under the breaking and moving concrete. Mrs Kampur and I pushed against the wire netting laced with bougainvillea that shut in one end of the space underneath the flooring—but it would not give. My husband, covered with concrete dust, completely grey like a ghost, called to us to stay where we were. ‘[But] It’s coming down,’ I screamed back, and jumped, followed by Mrs Kampur. I fell into the pineapple bed turning my foot slightly, and through my mind went the thought that I would not now be able to get away. The noise was so terrific that nothing was distinguishable—our guns, their guns, bombs. It was all just enormous and terrible. I crawled up the bank a little and called ‘Elsey! Elsey! Where are you all?’ Over and over again I called. Elsey crawled from under a heap of rubble and we scrambled up to a terrace where soursop trees grew and lay flat beneath them … Elsey was indignant. She was very dark, with a strapping figure and fine eyes and smooth black hair in a chignon on her

neck. Her face was bleeding from scratches, her black hair grey with dust, her whole body shaking with rage … My husband came, carrying a crowbar, and went back around the leaning building. ‘Daisy is killed,’ he told me. ‘I must get Leo out. He’s caught under one of the blown-in walls.’ Leo’s head and shoulders were showing but he could not move. My husband levered and soothed and dug during most of the raid. He was so frightened, poor Leo, and wailed so shrilly all the time. Machine gun bullets now spattered around us. Waves of planes swooped low and the crack, crack, crackle split the air. ‘These ants, Madame,’ Elsey cried, brushing the vicious green ants that had scurried down from the soursops. ‘Oh these ants!’ She was very angry—Japs, bullets and ants all besetting her so. Stones were being flung up round us, shrapnel spattered the ground, showers

Hilda Abbott

of gravel were coming down and the noise was more and more. Elsey’s forehead was cut and blood streaming over her face. ‘Daisy’s dead,’ she moaned. ‘Oh, this is terrible.’ ‘Lie flat and put your face down,’ I hissed. ‘As soon as it is over I’ll take you right away.’ ‘But Leo—he’s calling out! These ants!’ … Crackle, crackle over our heads … Backwards and forwards went those planes. It seemed the Japs were having a morning of demoniacal, grinning pleasure, I buried my face in that absurd little pillow—pale blue with white applique—as each wave came over. It was soft and wonderfully consoling.

Roy Wheeler Zealandia after a Bombing Raid 1942

At long last Leo was out and with only a hurt leg; and my husband came and hung over the cliff some yards away. I suppose he thought we must not be together [with the risk of them both being killed together] because of our children. I said nothing. I tried to realise I might be dead in the next wave, or that he might … What I did find out is that you must pray beforehand if you

want to pray at all—now you must save your life and the servants’ lives. Leo came sidling closer to us, crying bitterly. ‘Daisy bin finish; Daisy bin finish,’ he kept wailing … Then a new sound came out of the hell’s fury. A dull thud in the cauldron of noise. ‘They’ve got a ship,’ the Administrator said. We saw it crumple. It was like some majestic great

animal sinking from a shot in the hindquarters. My eyes seemed to leap in their sockets. We were to hear that deadly sound again and again … Then we saw another ship settle and go down. The harbour had many American ships; and our destroyers and merchant ships and the transports … were all lying out there under this bitter attack … We heard ‘thud’! and an uncanny roar—thud and

roar—and guns and echoes. It was horrible. A destroyer, the [USS] Peary, had been anchored near our cliff and, now … she seemed to be sailing. [But] she was hit and drifting. She was firing. She fired until the last, until she was covered in the blue water of our lovely harbour. It was terrifying. Ship after ship went down while the planes still roared overhead. No one said a word.

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We were caught in a tragic, unspeakable duet; burying our faces from bullets from the intermittent planes overhead, and lifting them to see ships struck out at sea. Then, suddenly, nothing. Peculiar, unreal silence. The great tornado had passed … ‘Is the house still there?’ I called. ‘Oh yes, it’s here’, my husband answered. ‘It’s a bit knocked about.’ There was rubble all over the lawn … we struggled up and at the top of the steps under the umbrella’d poinciana a news-reporter asked me my impression of the raid. I begged to be allowed to think it over. It seemed so funny that there was this smooth young man on his job, as though he’d just left his typewriter in an undisturbed office. ‘We’ll have a cup of tea,’ my husband said … We went first to look at the crater the bomb had made. I peered into the ragged hole some thirty feet deep between the garage and what was left of the building. It was terrible … the porch where the visitor’s book had been … had disappeared. The Indian laburnum tree that previously had shaded it had been uprooted and blown to blazes, and the garage was half gone … However there stood the Buick … it appeared to have its nose blown off … Poor little Daisy had been crushed under an enormous weight of concrete. The whole

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wall had fallen on her. Only her little shoes showed and my husband had seen the last twitch of the little feet. ‘You had better not go down to her,’ I was told. ‘There’s nothing you can do.’ … Once, very late at night, when the sirens had wakened us, we [had] stood together and I had held Daisy in my arms to try and stop her trembling. Could she have had some foreboding that raids meant so much more to her than to us? As we turned back to the house my husband and I agreed just then how little any of the damage mattered. Nothing material like that seemed then of any account. The rafters hung loosely beneath the verandah ceiling and lumps of concrete and heapings of white dust were everywhere. The Vauxhall was still whole, waiting by the steps, but a large stone sat placidly on

the roof … bits of gravel and mortar and grit and the dust entirely shrouded it. The front mud-guards and body had bullet marks like little silver wounds … Though my eyes were opened I half-closed my mind to the enormous sheets of flame reaching from sea to sky where oil from the tankers was burning and thick black blankets slowly spreading on the water. Men were struggling in the oil and little Navy boats were darting about trying to pick them up … Back on the western verandah the Russian came carrying the tea tray … Elsey followed with another tray. The silver teapot for us and the commandant, the red enamel one for them … I told the servants to collect their packed bags and go to the car when we’d all finished our tea. The car had been taken around the

Bombed Flats, Darwin, Northern Territory c. 1942

[bomb] crater and across the lawn between the palms to the roadway … I went to my room. Dust and grit were over everything. Lumps of mortar were in the open suitcase on my bed. Now it didn’t seem to matter at all what was in it, or what might happen to the house … Nothing seemed of geat value—only that one was still alive. The Chanel scent in cut-glass bottles on my table seemed silly. Brave little half-caste Daisy was dead under the office building. HILDA ABBOTT IN THE ABBOTT PAPERS HELD BY THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA

Pat Forster has an unforgettable day

AFTER the air raids on the first day, as the tide ebbed and flowed bodies would be washed into the mangroves. Often they would float out on the high tide, and it was one of our more unpleasant duties at the Signal Station to spot and report the presence of bodies to HMAS Melville who would send out a motorboat to tow the body

ashore. The stench of putrefaction was ever present around the harbour. I will never forget one day when I reported for duty only to see 16 bodies on the veranda of the Signal Station. They were black and blue and bloated, and I felt desperate, isolated and lonely. I could not sleep on the ground floor at the

Signal Station that night, and I lay on the roof, frustrated that here we were carrying out our duties to the best of our ability, but having no control over our destinies.

USS Peary Burns behind HMAS Katoomba, with HMAS Manunda on the Right, after a Japanese Air Raid, Darwin, 1942

PAT FORSTER IN HIS THE NAVY IN DARWIN 1941–1943: A GRAPHIC RECORD FROM A SAILOR’S SKETCHBOOKS (2003)

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London Burns during a Bombing Raid by Aircraft of the German Luftwaffe

Norman Stockton sees the outline of the world’s most heroic city PRESENTLY [after Stockton’s first air raid in London] the All Clear sounded, and outside the stars twinkled in a cloudless sky … stars which, before the war, had been hidden from millions of Londoners by the … artificial lights of their city. The blackout brought the stars to London. It also brought problems for strangers. It is easier to get lost in a London blackout than in a dust storm in central Australia. But

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after you’ve lived in this pitch-black world a few weeks you develop a sixth sense—what miners call pit-sight—and you can walk confidently, knowing, although you cannot see, that there’s a lamp post or sand box ahead. The faintest reflection from the stars is sufficient to guide you around a corner, and in the blitzed areas you are helped by familiar objects—a wall rising sheer from an area of desolation … or a

white-painted wooden railing around a crater where a London building once stood. You don’t see many German planes over England now. The sky is dark instead with RAF and USAAF bombers—the wings of Allied chickens coming home to roost after dropping their eggs on German cities … Day after day now Londoners listen for the deep throaty roar of bombers—Allied bombers—as they fly over the

capital on the way southwards. Their roar rises to a thunderous crescendo as they pass overhead, and then they are gone. All that remains is the trail of vapour, parallel bars of white on the background of azure blue, for all the world like a sheet of music waiting to be filled in with its score … The initial desire of humans when the air raid sirens wail is to micturate [urinate]. My apartment

isn’t soundproof: nor are those of my 200 neighbours. Consequently the wail of the banshee [‘Moaning Minnie’, the air raid siren] is almost drowned out by the clanking of chains and gurgle of rushing water in 200 apartments. Allowance is made for the weakness of London kidneys by bus and tram drivers, who courteously pull up near a public lavatory for three or four minutes whenever the siren sounds … [He was amazed that trams and buses still ran during air raids.] A week after I arrived in London I was caught in a sudden vicious night raid on Elephant and Castle … a city-bound tram arrived. ‘I thought you’d stop running during a raid,’ I said to the clippie [bus conductress] as I boarded it. ‘What! Stop for them blinkin’ Jerries?’ she exclaimed. ‘Not blinkin’ likely.’ We trundled into the city while the bombs were falling, our route in the blackout lit up by the Christmas-tree twinkle of bursting ack-ack rockets and the glare of incendiary fire, with the outline of the world’s most heroic city silhouetted against a background of criss-crossed and trellised searchlight beams … But bombing is not abstract and impersonal every night. Sometimes … it becomes personal and real … A bomb fell on a night in May [1943] … My apartment is on the top floor. I heard the bomb screaming

German Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Me 410 Hornisse Fighter Bomber in Flight c. 1943

earthward as I was typing the manuscript of this book. Instinctively I ducked. There was a dull, rumbling roar as the bomb exploded a hundred yards away, across the street. The buildings opposite disintegrated. One hundred and eighty plate glass windows from my block of apartments, mine included, cascaded in a shower of splinters. The apartment rocked violently, as if it were a cockleshell craft buffeted by a huge wave. I thought the building was collapsing. The ceiling caved in (across the pillow in my bed fell a chunk big enough to crush my skull like an egg-shell if I had been there). There was a crash of crockery in the kitchen. Doors burst off their hinges … [Across the road] Rescue parties continued digging all night, although the All Clear didn’t sound until 5 a.m. …

A young girl who looked as if she was asleep, not dead, was brought from the ruins of another building. She was about 23 or 24 … From the wreckage of what had once been the home of [that] young girl I retrieved a letter. It was near where they had found the body: probably what had been her bedroom. It was fluttering at my feet and my eyes caught the words ‘Dearly Beloved’. I picked it up. ‘Dearly Beloved,’ it said. ‘I hope you weren’t too late back. The train was late, they say … I’m writing to you because they have just been playing our favourite “Dearly Beloved” on the wireless, also to tell you that I love you. Less than four weeks now, my love, and we will be married. Three weeks next Saturday … Darling, you won’t be working next

Saturday, so if I can find some tea and sugar, shall we have tea at our flat? Wouldn’t it be fun? Love you, darling with all my heart. Four weeks seems a long time. All my love to you, forever darling.’ The note was signed by a man’s name. The date at the top showed that they would have been married three days after the bomb fell. There were only two casualties in my block of apartments. A man was blinded by flying glass. A girl was knocked unconscious when the ceiling of her apartment collapsed on her. NORMAN STOCKTON IN HIS UNFINISHED AND UNPUBLISHED BOOK, THE MANUSCRIPT HELD BY THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA, ABOUT HIS LONDON EXPERIENCES OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

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Bruce Postle (b. 1940) Dust Storm from Victoria’s Mallee Region Sweeping through Lonsdale Street in Melbourne’s CBD with a Woman Crossing the Street in the Foreground, 8 February 1983

THE POWER OF THE WILLY-WILLIE IS AMAZING

Francis Ratcliffe visits The Kingdom of the Dust, c. 1936

Francis Ratcliffe was an English-born biologist and conservationist who felt himself ‘exceptionally fortunate in being allotted such fascinating problems to investigate in Australia’. The first of these problems was the giant fruit-eating bat known as the flying fox and the next was what he called ‘soil drift (that is, wind erosion) a creeping cancer of the land … a peril that threatens human settlement and welfare in at least three continents’.

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atcliffe wrote scholarly papers in sober language about his areas of expertise but also wrote for popular consumption his memoir Flying Fox and Drifting Sand. It’s a book full of fine painterly descriptions and the National Library of Australia has a signed copy of the 1947 edition containing his handwritten testimony that ‘The bush, and the people and wild creatures living in it, have meant a great deal in my life. I could not paint the Australian scene, as I should have liked to; so I had to do the next best thing—describe it in words’. Dust storms and willy-willies help to give Australia its meteorological character, but most of them happen in the

far inland, well out of sight, and it’s rare for anyone to describe them as fully and as enthusiastically as Frank Ratcliffe did in his chapter ‘The Kingdom of the Dust’. They were of course elements of the wind erosion he studied. They are, usually and mostly, phenomena of the far inland, but occasionally a dust storm (in fact a storm of topsoil) comes to the city. One came to Melbourne on ‘Black Thursday’, 6 February 1851, a time of terrible bushfires around the city and of hot gales that had everyone sheltering indoors. The artist William Strutt remembered how ‘The heat had become so terrific quite early in the day that one felt unable to move. At the breakfast table the butter in the butter dish was melted to oil … everything felt hot to the touch, even the window panes in the shade … and the dust raised in clouds by the fierce wind was sand which penetrated everywhere. Layer after layer did I brush off from my lithographic stone while etching thereupon a design for the Anti-Transportation League …’ The most famous city-afflicting dust storm of recent times occurred on 8 February 1983, when terrific winds stripped an estimated 50,000 tonnes of topsoil from the parched Mallee district and flung an estimated 1,000 tonnes of it at Melbourne. At the height of the storm, at about 3 pm, winds uprooted trees and unroofed 50 Melbourne houses, and witnesses later said ‘everything went black’ as dust blotted out the light.

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Francis Ratcliffe drives straight into a really juicy storm I WAS driving cross-country near the New South Wales border. My hair was hard and dry and grey, and my hands had the almostgreasy feeling which a fine dust covering brings. The taste of dust had been in my mouth for nearly thirty-six hours. I was sitting beside a cheerful and garrulous little man who was skillfully piloting a buckboard over a track of astonishing vileness. We had left behind an expanse of saltbush-covered plain, and were making for a range of hills. On every side were outcrops of rock, mostly red and yellow, but some purplish-blue with green and copper-coloured splashes and veins, and some of pure quartz which looked exactly like piles of rather dirty chunked-up snow such as are scraped together in a city street. Occasionally a whole slope would be

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strewn with little quartz pebbles, all white and shining in the sunlight … When we dropped down the far side of the hills and approached a tree-lined creek, we drove straight into a really juicy storm. We first saw the line of gums through a yellow mist of fine dust. Then a turbulent gust hit the flats, and the trees were blotted out. The air was as thick as a London fog. Then, all at once, the sand began to move, and the ground seemed to be liquefied and to flow away in front of us like red quicksilver. We pulled up the car, for it was impossible to follow the track. While we were standing there waiting for the wind to subside and the

air to clear a little, a heavy shower passed over. Big smacking drops bombarded the car. The water picked up the dust at once; and in half a minute the windscreen looked as if it had been sprayed with red paint. FRANCIS RATCLIFFE IN HIS FLYING FOX AND DRIFTING SAND: THE ADVENTURES OF A BIOLOGIST IN AUSTRALIA (1938)

top: John Flynn (1880–1951) Christmas Dinner at Innamincka Nursing Home during a Dust Storm, South Australia c. 1937

bottom: Carl T. Dugdale A Phenomenal Dust Storm at Narrandera, NSW 1915

Bruce Postle (b. 1940) Dust Storm from Victoria’s Mallee Region Sweeping through Lonsdale Street in Melbourne’s CBD, 8 February 1983

A willy-willie on a windless day ONE afternoon [in the New South Wales bush in the Broken Hill district] I sat on the top of a hill and looked over what must have been one of the most ill-treated areas in the district. It was so denuded, so utterly barren and bare, that the few living shrubs seemed quite out of place. There was not a cloud in the sky, and not a movement in the air; and on every side twisted red dust columns crept about the plain … over a dozen were in sight. Willy-willies usually appear on windless days …

The power of the willy-willie is amazing. I know, because I have been in the middle of one. It was just such a day as this—scorching and still; and I had been helping a man put up a windmill. We were resting from our labours, and the billy was on the boil … I remember my companion had just made the delightful statement that he hated shaving at that time of year, because you felt each one of the six legs of the flies which walked over your face, when I noticed that the foliage of some trees about

fifty yards away suddenly began to dance and toss in a most unnatural fashion. I simply could not understand it; for, as I say, there was not a breath of wind. The branches heaved more and more wildly and a cloud of dust rose up between the trunks and started to move in our direction. I hardly had time to pull my hat over my face before the willy willie hit us. Some scenes of mad confusion followed; and when I deemed it safe to open my eyes, the dust column was a hundred yards away. In it was entangled most of the

litter which had been lying about from the unpacking of the windmill parts; while the lubrication brochure, which had slipped out of my hand when I grabbed my hat, was floating like a little white butterfly high up in the sky. A pair of eagles, which had been circling overhead for the last half-hour, were apparently so smitten with curiosity that they swung over to investigate it. FRANCIS RATCLIFFE IN HIS FLYING FOX AND DRIFTING SAND: THE ADVENTURES OF A

BIOLOGIST IN AUSTRALIA (1938)

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Mr Percy Grainger between 1890 and 1920

NOTHING SEEMED TO HAPPEN TO HIM AS IT DOES TO OTHER PEOPLE Percy Grainger

Melbourne-born Percy Grainger (1882–1961) was a gifted and highly original musician and composer. A piano prodigy, he left Australia when he was 13 to go to an elite academy in Germany, and never lived in Australia again, and yet he remained passionately nationalistic. His genius and his energy drove him in many pioneering directions. He was for example an indefatigable collector of English folk songs (going out into rural England with new-fangled recording contraptions) and an inventor of music-making machines. Lots of his compositions were pathbreaking in the extreme. His hair-raising and pulsequickening composition The Warriors is an 18-minute musical bombardment that calls for at least three pianos (it was once performed using 19 pianos

hammered by 30 pianists) and a burly orchestra and Grainger took part in its performances, demanding for performers and audiences, during his Australian tour in 1926.

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rainger was, especially when young, strikingly lovely to look at. One biographer thinks that The fact that Grainger’s appearance matched his talent was a not insignificant component of his success. As a young man, his Byronic good looks and his golden hair were almost as much admired and as often remarked upon as was the strength and vigour of his playing.

For much of his life Grainger, always fastidious about what he ate and drank and what he abstained from, and, a prodigious walker of long distances, was phenomenally robust. He put his strength to practical uses (he was a famous mover of pianos) and in 1923 organised and provided most of the muscle for the carrying of the ailing composer Frederick Delius up and then back down a Norwegian mountainside.

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D.C. Parker beholds a marvellous sight THE first time I saw him [Grainger] was in Liverpool on a Saturday morning when he and his delightful Swedish wife Ella were on the point of sailing to New York. We met at the Adelphi Hotel … He, Ella and I went to breakfast—and what a breakfast it turned out to be. I saw before me a small, wiry, active man with a great shock of fair hair, friendly, keen to talk, of decided opinions and unconventional outlook. His meals proved to be quite as unconventional. I have not seen him take what I should call a pleasant, appetizing one … How much energy and enthusiasm could be sustained on milk and water 50-50, boiled cabbage, Swedish bread, cheese and so on has always been a mystery to me … Nothing seemed to happen to him as it does to other people. Yet another small proof of this. I recollect being with him and Ella at lunch in the house of a friend who lived in London. After lunch the hostess, a very elegant and fashionable lady belonging to a diplomatic family, who knew him well, asked him if he would play. He was kindness itself on such

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occasions and at once agreed to do so. Looking at the small piano, he apparently discovered that there was something wrong with it. In a few moments we beheld a marvellous sight. Having taken off his jacket, he had about half the piano on the carpet and was toiling away with its insides like an engineer, much to the astonishment of the company … The piano … having at length been put in order, we had a capital recital, one typical example of Graingerism following another. Nevertheless, the last item on this impromptu programme capped the rest. For some reason which I never could fathom, Percy appeared to be fond of whistling. He must have approved of it, I presume, because he considered it popular and democratic. I did not agree; I told him I looked upon it as a vulgar habit. But no matter. He liked it so much that he made an arrangement of ‘Ye Banks and Braes’ for chorus and whistlers. With this we ended our afternoon’s music. For he

managed to persuade those present to sing or whistle it in chorus while he played the piano. Some sang, some whistled; I found it all surprisingly effective; but to look around and see a group of posh people in London joining in the performance of a Scots song impressed one with the comic aspect of the scene. D.C. PARKER IN THE GRAINGER JOURNAL OF JULY 1979

I.P. Andrew Percy Grainger and His Wife Ella—Studio Portrait 1935

opposite: Percy Grainger (1882– 1961) The Warriors: Music to an Imaginary Ballet for Orchestra and 3 Pianos Dished Up by the Composer for 2 Pianos, 6 Hands 1923

Thorold Waters hears something noisy and audacious IN AN orchestra I have heard real cannon fired … to heighten the effect of Tchaikovsky’s overture on the burning of Moscow, but that was fairy-thread music compared with the stupendous cataclysms of sounds in Percy Grainger’s ‘The Warriors’ which startled the unwary in the Auditorium last night. ‘Music to an imaginary ballet’ is the meek description, but Grainger

has marshalled all the Amazons and Vikings, the savages of yesterday, and the scientists of today, and the whole of their sounds and furies, from the first thud of flint to the last reverberation of a great shell, into a terrifying force of expression … Even the lulls in sound when the violins or the woodwind are given cadences soft by comparison, possess the effects of impending

disasters … Yet in the whole of this concatenation can be detected a definite themal foundation leading up to a bringing together of all the warriors in a sort of exultant amity of Babel. Cacophony, without meaning all of us, are, accustomed to, but the great motive in this amazing work of Grainger’s seems to give discord its licence … for nothing so noisy or audacious has ever

been imagined on this side of the globe before. Whosoever failed to respond to the urges of its rhythms, especially the vivid march near the end, or to hear an integral beauty in the modulations which followed the march, has really become a little too civilised. THOROLD WATERS IN MELBOURNE’S SUN NEWS-PICTORIAL OF 27 OCTOBER 1926

Grainger dresses for comfort THERE is a distinct Peter Pan grin about all his smiles, which tells of an eternal boyishness … The quick, alert mind is expressed in the sentences which come tumbling over one another in vivid phraseology, as fresh and arresting as his musical compositions. There is something irresistibly spontaneous about him. Pose is an unknown quantity to him. For instance he never wore a hat for years, until it was said that his idea was to pose and to show off his luxuriant head of golden hair. On Wednesday he wore a felt hat jammed down firmly on his head as he left the Melbourne express. That is to say, it was jammed down

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firmly as the unruly golden mop would allow. He wore an old sack suit and a heavy overcoat, and boots that were too uncompromisingly broad and plain to be anything but comfortable. AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE ADELAIDE ADVERTISER OF 8 JULY 1926

Axel Poignant (1906–1986) Portrait of Percy Grainger 1935

Percy Grainger ‘In the Round’ 1933

Frederick Delius is taken on an outing WE HAVE had the visit of Percy Grainger, who is such a dear and delightful friend, and so devoted to Fred [Frederick Delius]. Just fancy, what he did: Fred was longing to go up the mountain side and up a high mountain back of our hut, because there is a heavenly view on the

High-Snow mountains and a great solitude with no human trace up there. So Percy arranged a chair and two poles through it and straps and ropes for us all three, Percy in front, Senta and I at the back, all strapped in like horses and so we carried Fred up to the top and down again.

With wraps and overcoat, our lunch etc. to carry it was an awfully heavy job. But we could not get any Norwegians to do it. It took us seven and a half hours, as we had to rest so often and we had to go over stones and rocks, up the steep mountain, thro’ snowfields, rainclouds, bogs, becks—a

tremendous job … But we came home in triumph at 9 p.m. having been watched from below with telescopes and marvelled at by the inhabitants. JELKA DELIUS IN A LETTER OF 4 AUGUST 1923

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MELBOURNE WINS ITS OWN GOLD MEDALS The Melbourne Olympics, 1956

When Melbourne won the right to be the stage for the 1956 Games of the XVI Olympiad she established some records of her own long before any of 1956’s athletes raised a sweat. She became the first city in the Southern Hemisphere ever to hold the Games and also the youngest city (and the furthest from Greece) to be their host. The Melbourne Games were held between 22 November and 8 December. The Games coincided with the arrival of the new-fangled marvel, television, in Australia enabling millions to enjoy the eerie new experience of catching glimpses of the dashing young Duke of Edinburgh, here for the Games, without necessarily being in the same city with him.

opposite: Bruce Howard (b. 1936) Newspaper’s Coverage of the Water Polo Match between Hungary and Russia, Melbourne, Victoria, 1956

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ress reports of the opening ceremony have touching sighs of relief between the lines. That ceremony, exposing young, inexperienced Melbourne to the world, could have been a disaster and an embarrassment. Instead (phew!) it was a great success and did wonders for that city’s self-esteem. In his 15 Days in ’56 proud Melburnian press photographer Bruce Howard quoted lots of the world’s press in its praise of the opening ceremony and rejoiced later that ‘Our young capital, in its youth and its remoteness, moved into the international spotlight with assurance and pride. It won its own gold medals on opening day’. On 4 November 1956, Soviet forces invaded Hungary to crush a spontaneous national uprising which had begun on 23 October. By 10 November, the uprising was effectively suppressed and the USSR had Hungary back in its grip. About 2,500 Hungarians and 700 Russians were killed and 200,000 Hungarians fled as refugees, planeloads of them arriving in Australia while the Melbourne Olympics were underway. In the famous Olympic ‘blood in the water’ water polo match in Melbourne the Russian and Hungarian teams taunted and fought one another. The Hungarian athletes had to make agonising decisions about whether or not to go home, not knowing what Hungary had become since the Russian invasion and occupation.

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Bruce Howard (b. 1936) Australian Swimmers Faith Leech, Dawn Fraser and Lorraine Crapp Competing in the 100 Metres Freestyle Final at the Olympic Pool, Melbourne, 1956

Dawn Fraser doesn’t like what she sees TELEVISION had only just become available in Australia and the 1956 Olympic Games was the first big event to be televised. It was not uncommon to see one small black-and-white television set in a department store window with hundreds of people crowded around watching it. That’s how many people got to watch the Games, because the tickets were completely

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sold out and very few people owned their own television sets … Harry [Gallagher] took Jon [Henricks] and me over to Ken Rainsbury’s just before the swimming events started in the second week of the Games. He made us put on our swimsuits and mine was so tight I felt I could hardly breathe. It had a skirt on it but the skirt was pulled tight across the costume

and looked more like a cummerbund. I screamed blue murder, said I was flat-chested enough, and took it straight off again. … Eventually I lay down on Ken’s dining room table while Harry rubbed all the hair off my arms and legs using emery paper. Jon was told to shave his legs in the bath … For the first time in my life I spoke often to the media. But when I saw

myself on television and heard myself on radio I was shocked. The studio had put make-up on me and done my hair and I didn’t like what I saw. In fact I didn’t recognise myself at all because Pop had forbidden us to wear make-up until we were twenty-one. SWIMMER DAWN FRASER IN HER AUTOBIOGRAPHY DAWN: ONE HELL OF A LIFE (2002)

Bruce Howard finds too much to look at [DURING the opening ceremony] there was almost too much to focus on; the big picture as the teams marched around the stadium … or a hundred little cameo performances; the magnificent Fijian standard bearer in lap lap and sandals; the cheerful Czechs who waved at everybody; Emile Zatopek waving his cap; the beautiful brunettes from Colombia, getting more whistles than cheers in their short skirts, split at the sides, and with their long stiletto heels sinking deep into the cinder track; the French girls in their blue costumes with white berets; the three men and one woman from Bermuda, all in Bermuda shorts, of course … There was too much to look at— the Belgian girl carrying the mascot kangaroo, the Norwegians fanning themselves with their hats, the startling raised-arm salute of the Japanese team … the Russians swinging their arms across their bodies rhythmically as they marched, the Russian girls dressed too warmly, with red and white pullovers under their jackets … the American girls, wearing lipstick which exactly

matched their handbags and shoes. Then there were the scarlet-blazered Danes, the Ethiopians in grey, the Italian team in their brilliant blue blazers, the proud looks of the only two women flag-bearers for their nations, from Argentina and Chile. It really was the world on parade … For brightness and smartness, honours went to Canada and Great Britain. The Canadian women looked crisply smart in their white pleated skirts, navy blue double-breasted jackets, scarlet shoulder bags and white pull-on hats … For sheer fashion honours it was difficult to decide between France and Poland. Designed by leading Paris couturier, Pierre Balmain, the French girls were in periwinkle blue trimly tailored suits, with sheath skirts and panels of kick pleats at back and front. They wore jaunty white berets, high fashion beige court shoes and were another team to wear gloves. Marching with perfect timing, the Polish girls looked almost like a team of mannequins in their

immaculately tailored honey-beige costumes, worn with exactly matching stockings and high-heeled bronze court shoes. So high were the heels of the ultra smart shoes worn by many of the women, spectators wondered how they managed to march so well and with such a swinging stride.

Bruce Howard (b. 1936) Belgian Girls Irene Sweyd, Eva Gerard-Novak and Swimmer Colette Goossens Carries a Mascot Kangaroo during the Grand Parade of Teams at Melbourne Cricket Ground, 22 November, 1956

BRUCE HOWARD IN HIS 15 DAYS IN ’56 (1995)

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Bernhard Cecins says thank you to Shirley

AND then those tears. Something ought to be said about them. The discus throw became what I might call ‘an event of tears’. Practically everyone seemed to be quite handy with this feminine art. It all started early in the morning when one of the favoured girls, German champion AnneCatherine Lafrenz, failed to reach the qualifying distance of 42 metres. She burst into tears and it took a long time for this otherwise so lively girl to recover. Then came the final in the afternoon when the victory dais became slippery with tears of joy and disappointment. Tall and beautiful Czech girl Olga Fikotova, with her mascot, a little koala bear, clenched in her fist, had tears rolling down her cheeks when she saw her country’s flag rising on the victory mast. Next to her wept the Russian pair Irina Begliakova and Nina Ponomaryeva … Later they said that everyone expected to win and a little cry was so natural after all the tension and months of hard work … Shirley Strickland, of London and Helsinki fame, gave the biggest thrill to

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Bruce Howard (b. 1936) Australia’s Shirley Strickland after Winning Gold in the Women’s 80 Metres Hurdles Waves to the Crowd Along with Compatriot Norma Thrower (Left) Who Won Bronze and Beside Them Silver Medal Winner Gisela Kohler of Germany, Olympic Games, Melbourne Cricket Ground, Victoria, 1956

the 120,000 spectators in the Main Stadium with her game courage and brilliant hurdling … When Shirley stood on the victory dais I thought

that there never was an athlete who deserved more right to be there. I was so proud of her and all of a sudden I found something salty on my lips and felt

like those discus throwers a few days ago … Thank you Shirley! BERNHARD D. CECINS IN KEITH DONALD’S OLYMPIC SAGA (1957)

New technology brings a reporter close to the Duke TV brought great spectacle to 200,000 viewers. FOR every one of the 100,000 people who saw the Olympic opening at the Main Stadium yesterday, two saw the same spectacle through television. They saw the great event in homes, bars, milk bars and motor service stations. I was fortunate in finding a place where there were three television sets in a row, one tuned on GTV9, one on HSV7 and one on ABV2 … All used the full technique that has made television such an overwhelmingly popular medium of entertainment wherever it has been tried. They treated the camera and the microphone as intrusive and privileged persons, snooping closer

to whatever was going on than any mere spectator could possible do. Every few minutes I saw the Duke of Edinburgh from just five yards away … I saw the expressions on the faces of the marching athletes, their demeanour, the details of their clothing. I saw the torch bearer close enough to reach out and touch him. No one of the 100,000 people seated around the stadium could have seen these things except as distant, half-comprehended parts of a general spectacle. Yet, on the other hand, there was lacking that sense of majesty that a great spectacle can produce among those who view it direct. AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE AGE OF 23 NOVEMBER 1956

Bruce Howard (b. 1936) Ron Clarke Runs into the Stadium with the Olympic Torch, Melbourne Cricket Ground, 22 November 1956

Hungarian athletes take the biggest gamble of their lives ONE of yesterday’s most tragic sights as the buses left Olympic Village for the airport was the parting between coach Mihaly Igloi and his brilliant young protégé—1500 metres world record-holder Istvan Rozsavolgyi, 21. Igloi hugged and kissed Rozsavolgyi for more than a minute. So did [Lazlo] Tabori. As Rozsavolgyi turned to leave, Igloi broke down and sobbed. Tabori put his arms around Igloi’s shoulders and led him away to his bedroom. Rozsavolgyi said he was returning to Budapest because he had learned recently that his wife and child were safe and expecting him back. Most of the 83 athletes who left last night were in tears when they were driven from the Olympic Village in three motor coaches at 5.54 p.m. … The buses were kept nearly half an hour late as athletes said goodbye to each other outside the Hungarian quarters. For 15 minutes the athletes kissed each other, hugged, and shook hands … All the women were in tears as the coaches pulled out. Many of the men also broke down … Then tiny Hungarian girl gymnast Alice Kertesz, 19, caused most of the staff to burst into tears as she said her goodbyes to her team mates.

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Bruce Howard (b. 1936) Hungari an Swimmer Zsuzsa Ordogh Fare wells Team Mates, Essendon Airp Victoria, 1956 ort,

Little Alice came to wave goodbye to the busloads of athletes. But as she was kissed goodbye, she broke down. Athletes tried to comfort her, but she continued to cry. Some of the catering staff also attempted to comfort her, but she broke away from the women as the buses pulled out. She followed the buses for 50 yards, crying and waving, then slowly walked back to the women’s quarters, still in tears. [Later …] Last night 83 members of the team

of 155—including five women—left Essendon for Budapest, capital of Hungary … Hundreds of Hungarians in the crowd of 1500 which farewelled the team, stood to attention and sang the country’s centuries-old national anthem, ‘God save the Hungarians,’ as the plane taxied away slowly. Many were in tears, men as well as women, as they waved to members of the team, who could be seen waving back through the plane’s windows.

Before they left, some of the Hungarians said they realised they were taking the biggest gamble of their lives … [Lazlo] Tabori [middle-distance runner], a curly-headed aristocrat, said last night it would be foolish of him to return to Hungary. Although his parents and two sisters were there he could not be of much help to them. UNNAMED REPORTERS IN THE ARGUS OF 8 DECEMBER 1956

Bruce Howard (b. 1936) Brothers John and David Gratton Sit on a Road Sign to Watch the 116 Mile Road Race at Broadmeadows, Victoria, 1956

Laurie Failes (1899–1976) Old Town of Adaminaby 1950s

THE HOME TO WHICH WE CAN NEVER RETURN

Old Adaminaby is drowned for the greater good of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme

In 1949 the people of the substantial village of Old Adaminaby in New South Wales (Cooma was the nearest town) learned, at first disbelieving the news, that their village was to be submerged beneath an artificially created lake, Lake Eucumbene. The lake was necessary for the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme.

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ld Adaminaby had arisen from about 1848 and was by 1949 a real township with a population of about 750. The town and its people, those who chose to stay in the region, were moved to a New Adaminaby on higher ground several kilometres away. Some buildings were uprooted, whole, and moved intact and others, including some churches, were taken down in Old Adaminaby and rebuilt at New Adaminaby. The Snowy authorities made much of the creation, in Lake Eucumbene, of a trout fishing paradise where the town had been. The dislocations caused deep distress that endures today. As the 50th anniversary of the Snowy Scheme was celebrated, some of the displaced folk produced a book, The Drowning of Old Adaminaby, that sounded a contrary, anti-celebratory note.

we remember as home but to which we can never return, the place we can never show our children or grandchildren. We look back on this 50th anniversary … not with pride, but with great sadness, because something was taken away from us that can never be replaced. The artist Roderick Shaw spent a day in the late 1950s looking at the new Adaminaby and visiting the old and deserted and decomposing Adaminaby ‘complacently waiting for the water’. In 1983, in very dry and droughty conditions, Lake Eucumbene shrank, revealing what was left of Old Adaminaby. Nita Stewart was one of the former residents of that town who made the ‘very dreary and depressing’ pilgrimage to the ‘ghost town’.

This book records the memories of some of the people who lived in Old Adaminaby, the place

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Roderick Shaw sees the waters reaching the window sills NEW ‘Adaminaby’ huddles uncomfortably on [a] new dry hill, gauche—undecided, and waits for a miracle to put the blood back into [its] veins. Miss Yen standing behind the counter in her general store rattles like the stock on the shelves. She is no more at home in her new store than the vintage cakes of soap and tins of unprocurable paint she has lovingly carried from the old store. Her eyes can get wet when you mention old drowned ‘Adaminaby’. Her brother who runs the butchery too will not take her back to see the old town where they used to serve hundreds of families in the Valley who have now moved to dry ground. I drove over to Old Adaminaby because I wanted to see it—and to sketch. The back approach to the town has none of the picturesque quality I remember—you sneak down on the town now and take the old boy by surprise in the backyards. Dark, grey water, like an army blanket lies across the old road …

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Not a building is intact although a few still stand— the school, a dwelling at the top of the hill, the ‘Ritz’ [a boarding house], the Methodist Church which would not be moved and a few sheds. The chimneys that still stand are the only reminders of the warmth of human understanding— their old hot black throats exposed to the sunlight for a last gasp of air … Nearly a year has passed since the last evacuation when the old lady was carried off in triumph from behind her pathetically barricaded gate of roses—a year of demolition and marauding tourists … My preliminary presketching survey of the town left me stunned. I could not understand how the ingredients of a township could be so thoroughly

rearranged—short of a bombing … On the outskirts of the town, down low at the rising water level a few dwellings are left on their own to drown as the water gurgles over the window sills and laps against tumbling walls … I finally took up a position at the top of the town, sketching down the main street towards the lake … Later a sharp wind came in short bursts whining through the pines bringing with it another sound like the beat of a hammer on corrugated iron … It turned out to be the rhythmic flapping of the Cyclone windmill at the back of the ‘Ritz’, still receptive to the breeze but cranky and greaseless. I camped in the ‘Ritz’; there are no windows left intact and from the top floor I could see the pattern

Frank Hurley (1885–1962) Adaminaby Old Town Being Flooded c. 1949

of the backyards and laneways through which a flock of sheep with newborn lambs makes its way across the town, feeding and mothering. Dead ends and holes in the dilapidated fences cause a lot of consternation as lambs become separated from mothers—and as light begins to fade mothers and children increase their plaintive calls. RODERICK SHAW IN THE DROWNING OF OLD ADAMINABY, COMPILED BY ANITA STEWART AND KATHLEEN COSSETTINI (1999)

Frank Hurley (1885–1962) Adaminaby Old Town Being Flooded c. 1949

Construction of Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme—Section of House Being Transported to Adaminaby Dam 1950

Bev Humphries goes for a ride in her house FRASERS were house movers from Newcastle and they took on the job of moving the buildings. The most spectacular of these was the two storey bank and what a sight it was as it slowy travelled along the road. It gave us a very strange feeling to come home from school one day to find a great hole in the foundation of our house and huge steel girders under it. Our house was to be moved without us having to leave

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it, and so the furniture had to be secured. The chimneys were knocked down and the steps and tank were removed. The day of the move was extremely nerve-wracking for our parents, and lots of people came to watch. We all held our breath as the house was slowly moved across our old front garden. Our family, some relatives, friends and a reporter from the CoomaMonaro Express newspaper climbed in. We all stayed

in the house—mostly on the front verandah—for the whole journey to the new site several kilometres away! We arrived without any mishaps and the house was eased in to its new position … Electricity, water and sewerage were connected. For the reporter’s benefit a new electric kettle was presented to Mum so that she could make tea for the visitors, who included Snowy officials. After most

people had gone they asked to have the kettle back! We kept it! … All in all, the forced upheaval caused a great deal of anxiety to all the residents of Old Adaminaby … the character of the new town was different. BEV HUMPHRIES IN THE DROWNING OF OLD ADAMINABY, COMPILED BY ANITA STEWART AND KATHLEEN COSSETTINI (1999)

Old Adaminaby Relics Appear during Drought in Lake Eucumbene Area 1983

Nita Stewart goes back I WENT back [when Lake Eucumbene shrank and the old town’s remains emerged] because one of the places I really liked was where my grandmother lived … and she had a tennis court that had a lot of happy memories for me … Anyway, I told my children about this tennis court, and when the day came and when the water was down enough for us to go and find

it, it was … so sad, and then as I stood on the tennis court I could see grandma’s cow-bail where as a child I’d had to run around that paddock to put the calf in. And even the gate was there and the fence, and you know, you could actually, just like going back into the past and seeing something: you know, if there’d been a calf in there I could even have chased it in and said ‘Now

that’s what we used to do.’ And her orchard. That also, the trees were dead, naturally, but we used to go over as children and help our grandfather pick the apples … and even the foundations of where her shed was, and the house and the pine trees, and yes I found that very sad, and I know it was really terrible for those who actually owned the house to go and see it.

It was dry. As a matter of fact, after being years under the water, the sand was still on the tennis court, and the fences, that was the amazing thing, the fences were still there, even paling fences, they were still standing there. ANITA STEWART IN PETER READ’S RETURNING TO NOTHING: THE MEANING OF LOST PLACES (1996)

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Paul Robeson in ‘Showboat’, Drury Lane, London, 1928

YOU AND ME, WE SWEAT AND STRAIN

Paul Robeson sings at the Sydney Opera House while it’s being built, 1960

Although the Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson was the first grand star of fine music to trill officially at the Sydney Opera House, in a sense the first great singer to warble there was the black American bass-baritone Paul Robeson (1898–1976). Nilsson sang in the first public concert, an all-Wagner extravaganza, in the Concert Hall in September 1973. But in 1960, on his first and only visit to Australia, the spectacularly large and tall and deeply idealistic and very political Robeson went to the Sydney Opera House building site at the invitation of the Building Workers International Union and gave an impromptu

recital to the workmen during their lunch hour. This was a very Robesonesque thing to do because the great, persecuted man, a socialist, was a champion of workers’ causes. At this impromptu recital he used his unearthly voice to emit his signature Ol’ Man River from Showboat, a grim song about black workers’ and slaves’ oppression by white bosses, and the hymn-like Joe Hill, a rallying cry to workers everywhere to ‘organise’ so as to have the industrial muscle with which to fight corrupt bosses. His concerts in theatres, like the Sydney one attended by ‘S.W.K.’, were very politicised occasions.

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‘S.W.K’ hears a perfectly produced voice LUMBERING across the platform like a brown grizzly-bear, on whose general lines he seems to be built, he joined in the clapping of himself which his initial appearance touched off, and he kept this up every time he reappeared. It was the custom we have seen from the Soviet ballet and Chinese opera, of clapping the audience … He dispensed with white-tie-andtails in favour of soup-andfish and black tie. He waved his arms and strolled around while singing … And he gave two examples of poetry-reading, the first of William Blake, the second Othello’s final speech, and did both magnificently. Like these recitations, his songs … illustrate his political beliefs. He opened with a Negro spiritual, ‘We are climbing Jacob’s Ladder,’ followed it with Handel’s serene ‘Art Thou

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‘Champion of Working Class’ Paul Robeson Sings for Construction Workers 1960

Troubled,’ then literally lashed into part of the ‘Ode To Joy’ … In striking contrast was Schubert’s fragile ‘Cradle Song,’ for which the singer reduced his great voice to the tenderest whispers … One of the most deeply moving songs, not

on the programme, which the singer gave in Yiddish as well as English, was like a cry of defiance from the dead who fell under the German machine-guns in the ghettos of Warsaw. The voice? As perfectly produced as any voice could

be—which explains why at 62 its quality yet shows no slightest sign of wearing at the edges. It seems to come up from a bottomless well of resonance. ‘S.W.K.’ IN THE BULLETIN OF 16 NOVEMBER 1960

Faith Bandler sees Paul Robeson in a tearful rage YES, Paul Robeson came to Australia in the early ’60s with his wife, Islanda. It was a wonderful experience for me to meet Paul but equally a great experience to meet Islanda, who was a journalist—author and journalist and a representative in the United Nations. Islanda was a very special person in many ways, a woman of great independent means and I became friends with Islanda. But it’s true, you know to meet Paul Robeson for me was, it was like I hear people talk about meeting the Pope or the Queen or whatever. But I met Paul Robeson and he meant more to me than any other great person did in fact, because Paul Robeson stood up for what he believed in. And for standing up for what he believed in, and that was for the equality of his own people, he was persecuted for it, locked up for it, in Harlem for years. His whole career thrown on the rocks and there would not have been ever in the history of the world, one with a voice like Paul Robeson’s. And I treasure it to this day; it’s nice to begin the day with that voice. But he did come, and

I found it hard to believe that he was actually going to come and put his big feet on Australian soil and he did. And I went out to the airport with many others to meet him and he just looked, he looked strong and powerful but also tired and weary and life had been very tough for him. He’d been treated so badly by the Americans and he said to me, ‘You must tell me more about your people.’ Well, actually he meant the Aboriginal people and so I had an occasion to meet him, after meeting him at the airport, and to show him a film that was made on the Warburton Ranges. And I shall never forget his reaction to that film, never. It was a film taken on a mission station where the people were ragged and

unhealthy and sick, very sick. And we took this film and we showed it to him. He was staying in the Hotel Australia and we showed him the film and Paul then was wearing a black cap on his head, to keep his head warm. He was no [spring] chicken then, of course, and Islanda always insisted that before a concert he should rest that day, but she allowed him to come down and have a look at the film, in the Starlight Room, as they called it, in the Hotel Australia and as he watched the film the tears came to his eyes and when the film finished he stood up and he pulled his cap off and he threw it in his rage on the floor and trod on it and he asked for a cigarette from someone. Well a lot of people smoked in those days so there was no shortage of cigarettes and Islanda said to me,

above: Paul Robeson, Alberta Hunter ‘Queenie’ and Edith May, Marie Burke in ‘Showboat’, 1928 above left: Jerome Kern (1885–1945) Ol’ Man River: From the Epic Musical Drama ‘Show Boat’ c. 1927

‘Well it’s many years since I’ve seen him do that’. He was so angry and he said to me, ‘I’ll go away now, but when I come back I’ll give you a hand’. He was beautiful, but he died and he didn’t come back. FAITH BANDLER REMINISCING IN 1993, IN AN INTERVIEW FOR THE AUSTRALIAN BIOGRAPHY PROJECT

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Alex E. Proimos Purple Sails, Sunset at the Sydney Opera House 2009

I HAD A LOOK AT KRONBORG CASTLE, AT ELSINORE

Jørn Utzon imagines the Sydney Opera House

One day in late January 1957 the architect Jørn Utzon (1918–2008) was out walking in the beech forest near his home at Hellebaek in Denmark.

‘S

uddenly’, an Utzon biographer recreates from Utzon’s own version of the story, in the distance, Lin, Utzon’s 10-year-old daughter, materialised on her bicycle, her blonde hair streaming out behind and her feet pumping up and down … as she pedalled furiously towards him. Coming abreast of him she braked, alighted and thrust the bicycle sideways into the ditch beside the road. Utzon was startled, frightened lest there had been an accident at the house. Her happy smile reassured him—it was good news. After first informing Utzon of his Sydney win [his design for the Opera House had been chosen] … she demanded ‘Now can I have my white horse?’

This collection bends its rules just a little here to admit some of Utzon’s visualisations behind his design of the Opera House. But after all he was there, looking across the water at the inspirational castle at Elsinore (it’s Hamlet’s castle, Shakespeare’s setting for his The Tragical History of Hamlet Prince of Denmark). Then, visualising, he time-travelled forwards to be there to imagine a white-clad building glowing like snow and ice in a harbour city’s light.

Utzon was forced to leave the unfinished Sydney project when powerful philistines made him the scapegoat for its many problems. He wasn’t there, conspicuously absent, when the Queen opened the building on that blustery blue day in 1973. But the finished building does realise, from the outside, his original vision of it as a snow-white, icewhite and gleaming sculpture in the harbour. ‘The final effect’, he told an interviewer, prophetically, in 1964, will at times resemble what we call alpengluhen—the colour you get on snowcapped mountains when the sun is setting, the beautiful pink and violet reflections from the combination of matt snow and shiny ice. This roof will be very sensitive. Unlike a building which has only light and shade, it will be a very live sort of thing, changing all the day long. Utzon’s first visit to Sydney after his win was in July 1957. Word had gone ahead that he was 6 feet 9 inches tall and looked like Gary Cooper, the matinee idol, but one reporter who met his plane thought that he looked ‘like Edmund Hillary, the conqueror of Everest’. The spectacle of the Opera House sails suggests all sorts of images to imaginative folk who see them. In his poem Sydney, the poet and Opera House devotee Peter Nicholson wrote: Cockatoo headline of Opera House sails Flashes its crest near the Quay.

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Towering Utzon arrives in Sydney

MR. Joern Utzon proved to be a personality as outstanding and original as his Opera House design when he arrived in Sydney last night. Six feet four and a half inches tall, he stood head and shoulders over most of the other passengers in the Qantas plane. With a friendly, easy manner, and

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a natural humour, he made light of his success in the opera house competition … He revealed that Kronborg, the castle [at Elsinore] which is the setting for Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’, helped him design the opera house … ‘We had no trouble visualising Bennelong Point

because … at Elsinore we have the castle on a point of land, just like your tram depot at Fort Macquarie. We could look at Kronborg and just visualise the Opera House.’ AN UNNAMED REPORTER IN THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD OF 30 JULY 1957

Max Dupain (1911–1992) Sydney Opera House in Construction, Sydney, 1972

Utzon looks at clouds and a castle IF YOU regard the site for the Opera House as a site in a city, which is what several competitors did, of an area of such a size, then a possible solution would be just to build two theatres— beside each other. That could have been done if the site had been in a city park. If the site had been in a city street with neighbours on both sides you would have got another solution. I realised that this peninsula popping out in a harbour would mean that it would be looked upon from all sides and even might be looked upon from above … I would have to make an architectural unity out of this whole peninsula … my building had to be a unity … There are two stages and there will be an acoustic shell above the audience and the whole thing is then covered by a sort of rain-coat. Rasmussen: I think that this is a rather special rain-coat. How did you get that idea? I understand the basic idea with two Greek theatres, but how did these forms originate? Utzon: Very simple, really. I had to cover a rather great stage, even up to a height of 90 ft., and a vast auditorium. If you build a normal theatre it will be like a boot with the stage-house as the

top part of the boot, and if you put two boots here you do not use the plateau, you will actually destroy it. I stood looking at clouds over a low coast-line, and I had a look at Kronborg Castle at Elsinore, and at Gothic churches. There you have forms against a horizontal line like the sea or the clouds without a single vertical line, nothing constituting a weight, and with forms that are different from all angles … Rasmussen: How have you imagined the surface of

the building, the colour? Utzon: There is no doubt it must be white … white is the best to show the shades of the different forms of light in a harbour city like Sydney. The light will change quite a lot here. All these shades will be seen at their best on a clear white surface … We get the white colour from a very beautiful stone being made in Sweden, the Carmen stone. More than one million of them have been produced … When the sun is shining you will get

from these different stones the same effect as you get in the mountains where the more icy form of snow shines more than the softer snow. We can see it here at night. We have some stones piled out of doors, and we can see the enormous light reflecting the neon-advertisements, the lights of the city or a passing ferry-boat. JØRN UTZON INTERVIEWED BY ARCHITECTURE PROFESSOR STEEN RASMUSSEN IN SYDNEY’S SUN-HERALD OF 13 MARCH 1966

Loui Seselja (b. 1948) Energy of Australia Lightshow, Sydney Opera House, 18 August 2000

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Peter Allen watches a scene unfold like a grand opera ON the windswept roof of a harbourside skyscraper yesterday I watched the Opera House launched to the world in an unforgettable kaleidoscope of movement and colour. The scene unfolded like a grand opera, played to a live audience of about a million people, who swamped every vantage-point within eye distance of the Opera

House’s majestic sails. And it went like clockwork, despite a howling north-westerly that buffeted everything in sight, and, at one stage, it threatened to whisk away the chairs reserved for the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh on the Royal Podium. The chairman of the Opera House Opening Committee, Sir Asher Joel,

and Mr Syd Grange, from the Premier’s Department, grabbed the chairs at the last second and held them until the Royal Couple were seated … As the Queen and Duke mounted the Royal podium to the strains of ‘God Save The Queen,’ the pride of the RAAF—nine F111s which themselves cost more than the Opera House—swept

low overhead in a Royal salute. The only hitch in the colourful opening ceremony was that the spectators, including VIPs standing upwind of the podium, could not hear the Queen’s speech because of the whistling gale. PETER ALLEN IN SYDNEY’S SUNHERALD OF 21 OCTOBER 1973

Jørn Utzon (1918–2008) Architect’s Model for the Geometry of the Sydney Opera House Shells 1961

The shells hypnotise Richard Weston AS passing clouds, the sun or you, the viewer, move by, the shells variously glow, gleam or flash with light. Stand closer, and the tiles scintillate, as if studded with stars. Closer still, and tiny

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constellations appear and disappear below the irregular surface of each tile. Walking down the narrow ‘street’ between the halls you move between soft blue shade and glistening ice; in

the shadows glow mysterious pools of light reflected from a sunny neighbour. And as the sun sets, the light lingers, caressing and colouring the tiles: cream and ochre, then salmon pink and the palest

of violets, until the voluptuous geometry is reduced to a ghostly silhouette. RICHARD WESTON IN BUILDING A MASTERPIECE (2006)

From a mess of traffic Peter Nicholson glimpses this amazing building IN the middle of a hot Australian summer, a new Cross City Tunnel forcing motorists to use its subterranean tendrils, road closures making drivers either succumb to its expensive ease or find new ways about, tempers at breaking point, one suddenly caught a glance of the Sydney Opera House, out of the corner of the eye. There, centring the whole city of Sydney, this amazing building still had the power to overwhelm with its leaping shells, its suggestion of ascent to an empyrean. Fruit rinds, sails, wings—each person chooses their own imagery. How far removed from the sweat and fury on the roads below. What Platonic perfection, in contrast to the swearing and rising blood pressure of infuriated drivers. [At the Opera House after a concert] A performance has finished. The wind drops and evening’s purple dissolves into the swirling waters of the

Don McMurdo (1930–2001) Sydney Opera House with Boats in Foreground between 1976 and 1998

harbour. Crowds have dispersed and you are left to your own devices … Suddenly, the whole panoply of human endeavour raises its mighty yearning edifice before you with its intolerable cruelties, its inexplicable greatness, imagination’s parallel universe moulding itself through the sculpture whose stairs you descend towards home. Mahler and Shakespeare are echoing in the shells, lithe limbs reaching apotheosis in the Rose Adagio, with cheering,

waves of applause, first visits and last glimpses. Before you, above you, around you, is the winged victory of human aspiration made visible in concrete, steel and tile. The Sydney Opera House stands, not phantasmagoric, something inspiration, technology and sheer hard work brought forth at the cusp of city and ocean, yacht sails and ferry lights disappeared in evening. A glimpse of the Sydney Opera House from a mess of traffic. The spirit is

refreshed and your blood pressure eases, architectural lines tracing from paper the nervelines of our best intentions, metamorphosing into reality, not dissolving into thin air. Silence is best then. The heart, vexed but not yet cynical muscle, is too full to say anything more. PETER NICHOLSON IN ‘WINGED VICTORY: THE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE’, IN THE THREE QUARKS DAILY BLOG OF 13 MARCH 2006

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Olegas Truchanas (1923–1972) A Gathering Storm Approaches, Watched by Campers on the Shore of Lake Pedder, Tasmania

WORTH MORE THAN ANY MONEY OF ANY SORT

Lake Pedder is lost

In 1972 Tasmania’s Lake Pedder, a mountain lake in a remote and magical landscape that had become dear to the hearts of many, was flooded (utterly transforming it) to enable a minor hydro-electric scheme. The fight to stop the Tasmanian government from pressing ahead was long and angry, and ultimately heartbreaking for those who’d cherished the unique place and had felt it had profound spiritual qualities.

O

ne of the prominent crusaders against the flooding was Olegas Truchanas, the intrepid conservationist and wilderness photographer. His series of reverential photographs of the Lake Pedder he knew, and taken when its pristine days were numbered, is the most important record of the way it was before it was transformed. He was drowned in 1972 while canoeing in the Gordon River and his ashes were scattered at Lake Pedder. Lake Pedder’s loss gives the reminiscences of those who knew it when it was exquisite a special poignancy. In 1973 a Committee of Enquiry looked into what had been lost and gained by the flooding of Lake Pedder and whether the original lake could ever be retrieved. The artist Max Angus, Louis Shoobridge, a former member of the Tasmanian Parliament, and the actor Beverley Dunn were among those who described to the enquiry the pre-flooding Lake Pedder they’d seen and been spellbound by.

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Kevin Kiernan looks at his temple, soon to be ransacked I HAVE loved many of the wild places it has been my good fortune to glimpse … But only at Lake Pedder did I feel somehow loved in return. Each of thirty or forty visits to Lake Pedder, the crown jewel of all the wilderness in the Roaring Forties, has left me with a different set of memories but the same feeling. The feeling flowed through me as I watched a sou’west storm wreathe the summits of the Frankland Range with mist and then turn gold with the setting sun. It flowed through me as I stood upon the sand by Maria Creek while beach and water reflected the moonlight back into the night. It was there when I first encountered a moonbow suspended above the Maria Lakes, and it was there when I gazed down from mountain crests as the lake was reborn from its

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Olegas Truchanas (1923–1972) The Beach and Dunes with the Sentinel Range Reflecting in the Water, Lake Pedder, Tasmania

soft cocoon of early-morning mist. Always it was that same feeling; of being home, of being secure, of belonging: that this was a place to be shared. I took my family there, I took my friends. I took their friends. But I can’t any more. Engineers and politicians have draped a huge shroud of water across the canvas which took nature millennia to perfect, and they now claim that the shroud is a masterpiece simply because it is bigger. … I remember walking one morning with Brenda [Hean] from Maria Creek along the wide expanse of Pedder Beach to the gnarled and twisted

ti-trees which grew from the sand near the northern shoreline … We continued across the narrow strip of swampy plain and up the track which twisted through the banksia and bauera to the crest of the Coronets. It was a Pedder morning. Dew-lit spider webs hung outstretched between the gently nodding buttongrass stalks in the early morning light. The pace and disappointment of the preceding weeks had taken a heavy toll on all of us. But Brenda, as ever, refused to succumb … The beauty of this moment was overpowering. As the mist began to recede from the upturned

palm of the mountains to reveal the lake, I glanced momentarily at her, suspecting that she was fighting back silent tears, like those I was quite unable to suppress. I was transfixed. She sat upon a block of quartzite which had been etched by the weather and was ornamented by a patchwork of moss and lichen. Her chin was thrust defiantly forward. As she gazed across the lake she seemed to become one with it, and both of them seemed to become part of something greater. I can’t explain that sensation. KEVIN KIERNAN IN HIS ESSAY, ‘I SAW MY TEMPLE RANSACKED’, IN LAKE PEDDER (1985)

Olegas Truchanas (1923–1972) Sunrise on Mount Solitary with Maria Creek in the Foreground, Lake Pedder, Tasmania

Louis Shoobridge is converted [UNTIL 1971] I had considered that Lake Pedder was expendable, … but then a truly wonderful person in this State who’s no longer with us … he prevailed on me, he worked on me in such a way that I slowly began to think I had done something terribly wrong … [He] talked to me and

he persuaded me, he said ‘go down.’ He said ‘Will you go and look at it?’ And I said ‘Allright I will.’ And it was from a height of 2000 feet I suppose in the aircraft that I caught sight of it and I think it was then that I realised the enormity of what the state was going to do. I felt … like

the man who comes face to face with Jesus Christ for the first time. He realises that he has to make a decision and I realised … it was no use landing on the lake floor at Lake Pedder and then going home and saying I’ve seen it and it’s still expendable. It wasn’t to me any more expendable

and I had to think quickly of what on earth could I do? … The only thing I could think of was to move in the Legislative Council for a referendum to be held. LOUIS SHOOBRIDGE IN HIS TESTIMONY TO THE LAKE PEDDER COMMITTEE OF ENQUIRY (1973)

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Olegas Truchanas (1923–1972) Megaripples at the Water’s Edge Are Formed by Prevailing Winds and Constant Gentle Currents at Lake Pedder, Tasmania

Max Angus tries to describe what lost Lake Pedder was like NOW comes the difficult part, to try to find words to describe the indefinable quality that was Pedder … Since I understand that no member of the Committee ever saw Pedder Beach—I should like to try to convey something of what one feels when first landing there by plane … communication between those who

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have seen Lake Pedder and those who have not, has always been difficult, and must remain so. It is like another language beyond the reach of maps or words. The beach at the eastern end of the lake was used as an aerodrome each Summer. To land there on a calm morning was unforgettable. The flight from

Hobart is over a series of mountain ranges, and the eyes becomes accustomed to the deep olive green of the forests, the lighter greens of moor lands and the deep blue of shadowed valleys. Incredibly, out of this sombre, rich tapestry, a sapphire-blue lake appears, set in a magnificent glacier valley ringed

with mountains. The pilot prepares to land, and as the plane loses height, the greens of the mountains diminish, and the splendid, stunning light from this mighty beach envelops you as it seems to race by in a blur of dazzling, pinkish white … The … impression as you stand on this great, flat area, after the noise of

Olegas Truchanas (1923–1972) Melaleuca Trees along the Northern Shoreline of Lake Pedder, Tasmania

the plane has receded from your ears, is of profound and awesome silence. The overwhelming sense of space and light. The amount of reflected light given off more than a million square yards of sand is considerable and gives the sense of being in a huge bowl of light which touched the nearby peaks with its radiance … As you reached the water’s

edge of this tideless lake on that calm morning, you saw that it was hardly an edge at all, but blended almost imperceptibly with the sand. So shallow was the lake that as you walked on through the sun-warmed water, you were surprised to notice that after covering a hundred yards you were still only ankle-deep in water. You looked at an

infinity of mountains and sky reflected all around you in the impeccable surface of the lake and felt disbelief that that you were standing on a beach nearly a thousand feet above sea level. The beach is actually the floor of the lake itself, covered by water all winter, revealing itself each summer, washed and rendered level by wind and waves,

sparkling fresh, ready to receive the first plane of summer. Just as a mountain provides snow each winter for our delight and the skiers’ use, so Pedder provided this beach each summer. MAX ANGUS IN HIS TESTIMONY TO THE LAKE PEDDER COMMITTEE OF ENQUIRY (1973)

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Olegas Truchanas (1923–1972) The Beach and Dunes with the Sentinel Range Reflecting in the Water, Lake Pedder, Tasmania

Beverley Dunn is asked to put a price on Lake Pedder INITIALLY [visiting Lake Pedder in 1971] the grandeur was overwhelming, but after one had been at Pedder for a few days the scale of this grandeur became relevant to the great eastern beach on which one could stand, run, walk or just be and feel privileged to be just part of that magnificent wilderness, and somehow part of the universe spiritually, in a way totally impossible

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now … During those 12 days we saw the moon wax from a [finger]nail paring to a great golden luminous disc. It was quite awe-inspiring to see the full moon rise … to see around you the glitter sparkle of the sand, the only sounds to be heard being the crunch, crunch, crunch of your feet walking across the beach to get to the water. Then to see the reflection of the rising moon on the midnight-blue water

… Lake Pedder’s moods [were] always changing. [There was] this frightening power and beauty of an electric storm over the Franklands at night. It rained heavily, and the next day visibility was reduced to about ½ a mile … The following day, the wind changed, the rains stopped, and then came the wonder of seeing the mountains emerge through the cloud. One could understand how

myths were born in ancient times. The beach was now covered with very shallow long lagoons. The sand was a luminous pink—it glowed. In this diffused light all the colours were intensified. We left on a day which began with the mist rising from the lake which revealed a miracle of stillness. It was, as Olegas Truchanas had described it, a possibility, and we had not expected to experience

Olegas Truchanas (1923–1972) Reflections, Mists and Melaleuca Trees in a Serene Lake Pedder, Tasmania

it. [It was] a glass Pedder day. For half an hour there was not a breath of breeze to stir the water and the only ripple made was the result of a lone seagull coming into land … [Committee members then asked Beverley Dunn a series of curly questions that tried to get her to put a cash value on the worth of Lake Pedder experiences like her own.] A committee member: Miss Dunn, you realise

the difficulty of weighing money values against the intangible things you’ve spoken about … but perhaps it might cost say something between $10 and $30 million to save Lake Pedder at this stage. Ms Dunn: It’s worth it though. … The committee member: But could we just come at it another way? Have you seen the Sydney Opera House? Miss Dunn: Yes. The committee member:

Well, that is costing over $100 million. Well, can you try and make a comparison with the preservation of Lake Pedder? Is the preservation of Lake Pedder worth more to Australia than the building of the Opera House? Would you like to express a view on that? Miss Dunn: I don’t think you can make the comparison. But [just to see] the Opera House, just to see it and to see those marvellous spinnakers

out-spinnakering the lot on the harbour, that gives people a tremendous experience in its own way … Lake Pedder gives you a more primitive, primeval, spiritual, mystical experience … It is worth more than $10 million. It is worth more than any money of any sort. BEVERLEY DUNN IN HER TESTIMONY TO THE LAKE PEDDER COMMITTEE OF ENQUIRY (1973)

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LIST OF WORKS Introduction J. Redaway & Sons (engraver), William Blandowski (artist, 1822–1878) Aborigines of Australia, Corrobori or Native Festival 1855 or 1856 engraving and aquatint; 23 x 29 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an8996434 Rotary Photographic Co. (Firm) Mme. Melba c. 1907 postcard; 13.5 x 8.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an22932808 Cliff Postle (1913–2004) Bert Hinkler Lands at Eagle Farm Racecourse in His Avro Avian during a Race Meeting, Queensland 1928 digital print; 15.4 x 25 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4928895 Montague B. Younger Columbia! Welcome! A Song of Greeting to the American Fleet c. 1908 score; 3 pages Music Collection nla.mus-an12265507 John Longstaff (1861–1941) Portrait of Henry Lawson c. 1900 oil on canvas; 41 x 30.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an20358241 Harold Cazneaux (1878–1953) Crowds on the Sydney Harbour Bridge after the Opening Ceremony, Looking towards North-East Pylon and Neutral Bay 1932 nitrate negative; 10.8 x 6.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3695938 Courtesy the Cazneaux Family

Two corroborees, 1796 and 1836 Jon Rhodes (photographer, b. 1947), Port Jackson Painter (artist) Portrait of Bennelong printed 2002 photographic reproduction of a painting; 25.6 x 17.2 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4663126-s6 © Natural History Museum, London

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Samuel Thomas Gill (1818–1880) Native Corroboree 1874 watercolour; 24.2 x 35 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an2377249 Joseph Lycett (c. 1775–1828) Corroboree around a Camp Fire c. 1817 watercolour; 17.7 x 27.7 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an2962715-s16 Henry Dangar (1796–1861) Corroboree or Native Dance at Durhambak on the Banks of the Upper Manning, New England, Australia c. 1830 watercolour; 26 x 40 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an6431238 Tommy McCrae (c. 1836–1901) Two Groups of Aboriginal Men at a Corroboree, Wahgunyah Region, Victoria 1880 pen & ink drawing; 18 x 12 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an6431252-6

Europeans marvel at (and eat) kangaroos Nora Heysen (1911–2003) Bohrah the Kangaroo 1930 pen, ink and wash drawing; 25.6 x 33.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an23209332 Helena Forde (1832-1910) The Kangaroo (Macropus Major) plate in The Mammals of Australia by Gerard Krefft (Sydney: Government Printer, 1871) Australian Collection nla.aus-f11248-12x W. Butcher & Sons (Firm) A Kangaroo Hunt 1910s coloured lantern slide; 8.2 x 8.2 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an24912781 S.A. Lindsey Kangaroo Sticking, Darling Downs, Queensland 1894 gouache painting; 42.8 x 57 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an5776598

George Lacy (c. 1816–1878) A Kangaroo on the Tambaroora Goldfields c. 1852 watercolour; 32 x 40.3 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an3103641 Robert Cruikshank (1789–1856) Popular Gardens, Tom, Jerry and Logic Laughing at the Bustle and Alarm Occasioned amongst the Visitors by the Escape of a Kangaroo 1822 hand-coloured etching; 15 x 24.7 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4893028

Australia’s convicts Thomas Francis, Ly. Franklin 4, Taken at Port Arthur, 1874 print on carte-de-visite mount; 9.4 x 5.6 cm on mount 10.5 x 6.3 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4269870 Thomas Molineaux, per Isabella 2, Taken at Port Arthur, 1874 print on carte-de-visite mount; 9.4 x 5.6 cm on mount 10.5 x 6.3 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4270177

Convict Uniform and Two Caps between 1830 and 1849 wool and leather uniform Pictures Collection nla.pic-an6393471 Death of a Convict on the Hulk Justitia 1830s hand-coloured engraving; 21.5 x 23.7 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an8891819

The massacre at Myall Creek, 1838 Title page from Awful Execution of 17 Convicts, Who Were Executed at Sydney, New South Wales, on May 22nd, 1852 for the Horrid Massacre of a Tribe of Natives: Upwards of Thirty Men, Women and Children Were Barburously Slaughtered and Their Bodies Burnt to Ashes. With the Names of the Criminals and the Places Where They Were Transported from (Manchester: Sutton, 1852) Australian Collection nla.aus-f6457

John Finlay or Finelly, per P. Bomanjee, Taken at Port Arthur, 1874 print on carte-de-visite mount; 9.4 x 5.6 cm on mount 10.4 x 6.4 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4270360

Australian Aborigines Slaughtered by Convicts illustration in The Chronicles of Crime; or, the New Newgate Calendar. Being a Series of Memoirs and Anecdotes of Notorious Characters Who Have Outraged the Laws of Great Britain from the Earliest Period to 1841 by Camden Pelham (London: T. Miles, 1891) Australian Collection nla.cat-vn1697507

John Boyne (1750–1810) Landing at Botany Bay 1786 hand-coloured etching; 40 x 54 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an6016577

Samuel Thomas Gill (1818–1880) The Avengers c. 1860 pencil drawing; 12.7 x 20.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an2377344

William Redmore Bigg (1755–1828) Soldiers Boarding Prison Hulk c. 1800 watercolour; 33 x 50.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an6332096

Thomas John Domville Taylor (c. 1817–1889) Squatters Attack on an Aboriginal Camp, One Tree Hill, Queensland 1843 pencil drawing; 10.5 x 29.2 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4970952

Sutherland, 29.5.83 print on carte-de-visite mount; 9.4 x 5.6 cm on mount 10.4 x 6.4 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4270311

Christmas in colonial Australia Helena Forde (1832–1910) Christmas Card with Australian Wildflowers and a Butterfly c. 1881 lithograph; 16.6 x 11.8 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4273105

Paul Edmund de Strzelecki (1797–1873) Map of New South Wales & Van Diemen Land 1845 map; 19.4 x 60 cm Maps Collection nla.map-rm1666

Robert Bruce (engraver, active 1866–1886), Nicholas Chevalier (artist, 1828–1902) Christmas Morning in Australia 1869 wood engraving; 32.5 x 45 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an7497094

Eugene von Guerard (1811–1901) North-East View from the Top of Mount Kosciusko, New South Wales 1867 hand-coloured lithograph; 32.5 x 51 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an7744592

The Christmas Bush (Ceratopetalum gummiferum, Sm.) plate 25 in The Flowering Plants and Ferns of New South Wales: With Especial Reference to their Economic Value by J.H. Maiden; assisted by W.S. Campbell (Sydney: Govt Printer, 1895–1898) Australian Collection nla.cat-vn317972

Eugene von Guerard (1811–1901) Mount Kosciusko, from the NorthWest 1897 hand-coloured lithograph; 32.5 x 51 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an7744695

Samuel Calvert (1828–1913) Gathering Wattle for Christmas c. 1873 wood engraving; 35.6 x 23.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an10280450 Samuel Calvert (engraver, 1828– 1913), Thomas Selby Cousins (artist, 1840–1897) The Bushman’s Dream 1869 wood engraving; 44 x 32 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an8927781 Livingston Hopkins (1846–1927) The Average Australian Christmas c. 1900 brush and ink drawing; 38 x 28 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an6332009 Edward Roper (c. 1830–1904) Christmas in the Colonies, a Christmas Dinner at the Diggings 1860s chromolithograph; 15 x 10.4 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an9098982

Europeans reach the highest place in the continent, 1840 Adam Forster (1848–1928) Ranunculus lappaceus, New South Wales, 1916–1919 watercolour; 38.2 x 27.2 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an6173293

Frank Hurley (1885–1962) Gathering Storm over Kosciusko from Guthrie between 1910 and 1962 half-plate glass negative Pictures Collection nla.pic-an23816845

The Great Comet of 1843 and Donati’s Comet of 1858 Richard Peele The Comet as Seen at Sea on Board H.C.S.V. Victoria, March 1843 watercolour; 19.2 x 15 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an5600255 Walter Synnot (1773–1851) Sketch of a Comet... 1843 watercolour; 23 x 33 cm Courtesy Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office Mary Morton Allport (1806–1895) Comet of March 1843 Seen from Aldridge Lodge V.D. Land c. 1843 lithograph; 23 x 18 cm Courtesy Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office Ludwig Becker (c. 1808–1861) Observational Views of Donati’s Comet, 1858, 1 lithograph; 22.2 x 13.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn5815540

Ludwig Becker (c. 1808–1861) Observational Views of Donati’s Comet, 1858, 3 lithograph; 22.2 x 13.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn5815582 Ludwig Becker (c. 1808–1861) Observational Views of Donati’s Comet, 1858, 4 lithograph; 22.2 x 13.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn5815588 Ludwig Becker (c. 1808–1861) Donati’s Comet over Flagstaff Hill Observatory, Melbourne, 11 October 1858 lithograph; 12.9 x 20.4 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an8534806

Victorian-era sea voyages to Australia Augustus Earle (1793–1838) Scudding Before a Heavy Westerly Gale off the Cape, Lat. 44 Deg. 1824 watercolour; 20.6 x 27.3 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an2838430 Edward Charles Moore Warm Reception that Ye First Albatross Met with 1854 pen drawing; 18.5 x 27 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an3720013 Charles Joseph Staniland (1838–1916) Emigrants Going to Australia 1880s hand-coloured wood engraving; 31.5 x 46 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an8924234 Thomas Baines (1820–1875) The Clipper Ship Blue Jacket 2700 Tons, Captn. Underwood, Passing an Iceberg lat. 49 South, on Her Voyage to Australia 1855 oil on lantern slide; 5.6 x 7.9 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an4053991 The Emigrant 1850s hand-coloured lithograph; 24 x 20.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an8926516 J.H.S. Hindmarsh Title page from Scenes during a Passage from England to Australia 1856 bound manuscript; 31 pages Manuscripts Collection nla.cat-vn1237575

J.H.S. Hindmarsh Illustrations in Scenes during a Passage from England to Australia 1856 bound manuscript; 31 pages Manuscripts Collection nla.cat-vn1237575 John Hunter (1737–1821) Porpoise c. 1790 watercolour; 22.3 x 18.3 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an3186683

A gold rush in 1852 and a descent into an Aladdin’s Cave in 1895 Samuel Thomas Gill (1818–1880) Prospecting 1864 chromolithograph; 19.4 x 25.3 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an7149196 Samuel Thomas Gill (1818–1880) The New Rush 1864 chromolithograph; 19.4 x 25.2 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an7149201 Thomas Ham (1821–1870) Commissioner’s Tent, Ballaarat 1854 engraving; 15 x 20.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3078574 Samuel Thomas Gill (1818–1880) Diggers of High Degree 1853 lithograph; 21.6 x 16.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an7537601 Samuel Thomas Gill (1818–1880) Zealous Gold Diggers, Bendigo, July 1st, ’52 1852 lithograph; 15 x 19.8 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an7537712 Mine Works, Ballarat between 1870 and 1899 albumen print; 13.2 x 20 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an23770935

The Eureka Stockade, 3 December 1854 Replica of the Flag Flown by the Miners at the Eureka Stockade, 1854 c. 1970 cotton flag; 64 x 73 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an11278531 Ludwig Becker (c. 1808–1861) Peter Lalor 1856 lithograph; 24.3 x 19.7 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an3903439

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F.A. Sleap Administering the Oath, Eureka Stockade, 1854 1888 wood engraving Courtesy State Library of Victoria John Black Henderson (1827–1918) Eureka Stockade Riot, Ballarat, 1854 watercolour drawing; 17 x 23.1 cm Courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW E. Vaughan On the Wing of the Storming Party 1854 watercolour and pencil; 30.4 x 25.2 cm Courtesy Australian War Memorial Portion of the Flag Flown by the Miners at the Eureka Stockade 1854 cotton flag portion; 16 x 4.2 cm approx., and accompanying letter; 3 pages Pictures Collection nla.pic-an7828337

Catherine Hayes performs in Melbourne, 1854 George W. Mason Miss Catherine Hayes, September 1854 1857 wood engraving; 15.5 x 12.2 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an7978987 W.C. Harwood The Catherine Hayes, Polka 1855 score; 3 pages Music Collection nla.mus-an21661589 Walter G. Mason The First Appearance of Miss Catherine Hayes at the Victoria Theatre, Sydney, on Tuesday September 25th, 1854 1857 wood engraving; 16 x 23.1 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an7978994 G. Alary Variations: As Sung by Miss Catherine Hayes c. 1857 score; 6 pages Music Collection nla.mus-an5350554-s69

The melancholy wreck of the Dunbar, 20 August 1857 The Dunbar New East Indiaman hand-coloured wood engraving from Illustrated London News, 24 December 1853 Courtesy Australian National Maritime Museum collection. Reproduced courtesy of the Museum James Johnson, the Sole Survivor of the Dunbar illustration in A Narrative of the Melancholy Wreck of the Dunbar, Merchant Ship, on the South Head of Port Jackson, August 20th, 1857: With Illustrations of the Principal Localities (Sydney: Published for the proprietors by James Fryer, 1857) Australian Collection nla.aus-f9296 John Thomas Doyle and Samuel Thomas Gill (1818–1880) Wreck of Dunbar South Head 1862 or 1863 watercolour Courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW Scene in the Gap on Saturday, August 22nd, at Sunrise illustration in A Narrative of the Melancholy Wreck of the Dunbar, Merchant Ship, on the South Head of Port Jackson, August 20th, 1857: With Illustrations of the Principal Localities (Sydney: Published for the proprietors by James Fryer, 1857) Australian Collection nla.aus-f9296 Wreck of the Dunbar off Sydney Heads, 20th Septr 1857 watercolour; 9 x 14 cm Courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW The Sailor Rescued illustration in A Narrative of the Melancholy Wreck of the Dunbar, Merchant Ship, on the South Head of Port Jackson, August 20th, 1857: With Illustrations of the Principal Localities (Sydney: Published for the proprietors by James Fryer, 1857) Australian Collection nla.aus-f9296

Explorer Ernest Giles, 1875 Portrait of Ernest Giles, Australian Explorer between 1860 and 1897 black and white print; 10.5 x 7.9 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an24189206

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Ernest Giles (1835–1897) Australia Twice Traversed (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1889) Australian Collection nla.cat-vn2771840 Alone in the Desert illustration in Australia Twice Traversed by Ernest Giles (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1889) Australian Collection nla.cat-vn2771840 Ernest Giles (1835–1897) Map Showing the Routes Travelled and Discoveries Made by the Exploring Expeditions Equipped by Thomas Elder and under the Command of Ernest Giles 1876 map; 50.1 x 97.3 cm Maps Collection nla.map-rm2902-1 Map in Australia Twice Traversed by Ernest Giles (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1889) Australian Collection nla.cat-vn2771840

The siege at Glenrowan, 26–28 June 1880 The Kelly Gang—from an Original Photograph, Steve Hart, Dan Kelly, Ned Kelly c. 1870 gelatin silver postcard; 9 x 14 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an14034948 George Gordon McCrae (1833–1927) The Kellys, the Glenrowan Quadrilles c. 1880 pen and ink; 13.5 x 21.9 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an6324250 Patrick William Marony (1858–1939) Capture of Ned Kelly 1894 oil on canvas; 137.2 x 183.2 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an2263702 Patrick William Marony (1858–1939) Ver. Rev. Dr. Gibney: Heroic Rescue at Glenrowen, Chas. White: Author of ‘Story of Australian Bushranging’ … c. 1894 oil on canvas; 137.3 x 106.7 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an2293291

Sydney’s Garden Palace burns down, 22 September 1882 Gibbs, Shallard & Co. (Firm) Burning of the Garden Palace, Sydney, September 22, 1882, as Seen from Macquarie Street 1882 chromolithograph; 36 x 51 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an8337740 Queen’s Statue in Garden Palace, Sydney International Exhibition Building c. 1882 1 of 24 gelatin silver prints; 24 x 24 cm or smaller Pictures Collection nla.pic-an14213983-18 Garden Palace, Sydney International Exhibition Building, Seen from the Royal Botanic Gardens in the Domain c. 1882 1 of 6 gelatin silver prints; 27 x 35 cm or smaller Pictures Collection nla.pic-an14239211-5 Garden Palace, Sydney International Exhibition Building in Ruins c. 1882 1 of 24 gelatin silver prints; 24 x 24 cm or smaller Pictures Collection nla.pic-an14213983-8 Charles Sandys Packer (1810–1883) Reminiscence of the Garden Palace: Schottische 1880s score; 4 pages Music Collection nla.mus-an5134123

The Brisbane floods of February 1893 1893 Flood Damage to Jetties and Boat Houses near the Victoria Bridge sepia print Courtesy John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland Emma Street Toowong during 1893 Flood print Courtesy Fryer Library, University of Queensland Library Steamer in Queen Street, Brisbane, Sunday, February 19, 1893 in Pictures of the Floods: Southern Queensland, February, 1893 (Brisbane: Telegraph Newspaper Co., c. 1893) Australian Collection nla.aus-vn2883328

Stanley Street, South Brisbane, after the Flood in Pictures of the Floods: Southern Queensland, February, 1893 (Brisbane: Telegraph Newspaper Co., c. 1893) Australian Collection nla.aus-vn2883328

Bicycles and cyclists in Australia Nettie Palmer on a Bicycle at Elsternwick, Victoria 1902 sepia print; 10 x 7.3 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4239300 Four Young Women with Their Bicycles on the Beach, Moruya, New South Wales c. 1900 black and white negative; 10 x 12.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4587429 John Flynn (1880–1951) Unidentified Group of Shearers on Bicycles between 1912 and 1955 black and white lantern slide Pictures Collection nla.pic-an24171417 Nicholas Caire (1837–1918) The Melbourne Bicycle Club c. 1878 print; 13.3 x 18.3 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an5117501 Richard Wingfield Stuart (1843–1914) The Bike Picnic, Bedford between 1862 and 1899 ink and watercolour drawing; 24.8 x 30.8 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3769492-s18 William Henry Corkhill (1846–1936) Man with a Bicycle c. 1895 glass negative Pictures Collection nla.pic-an2441675

Federation occasions, 1901 Tom Roberts (1856–1931) Sketch for Opening of Federal Parliament, 1901 oil on academy board; 30.3 x 45.6 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an2284223 Pitt Street, Sydney 1901 gelatin silver print; 26.4 x 34 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an10834037-s25

Swearing-in Ceremony, Centennial Park, Sydney, Commonwealth Celebrations 1901 gelatin silver print; 26.5 x 34 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an10834037-s7

Presentation of Illuminated Address to Dame Nellie Melba at Public Reception at Cave Hill 1902 black and white print; 11 x 26 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an24072057

Town Hall at Night, Sydney 1901 1 of approx. 45 gelatin silver prints; 21 x 25 cm or smaller Pictures Collection nla.pic-an13143099-3

Henry Pelham Gill (1855–1916) Portrait of Dame Nellie Melba 1893 watercolour; 75 x 32.7 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an7021867

George Rose (Firm) Duke of York Celebrations, Melbourne. The Royal Procession Passing under the German Arch, Collins Street 1901 sepia stereograph; 10 x 18 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an22481967

The Arrival of Dame Nellie Melba in Processional Drive at Lilydale 1902 gelatin silver print; 12 x 19 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an24071457

Edward VII Arch in Melbourne 1901 1 of approx. 49 gelatin silver prints; 21 x 25 cm or smaller Pictures Collection nla.pic-an13117280-2

Australians at the Boer War, 1899–1902 The Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York Talking to the Boer War Soldiers, Western Australia, July 1901 lantern slide; 7.8 x 7.8 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3356652 Felix McGlennon (1856–1943) Sons of Australia c. 1900 score; 4 pages Music Collection nla.mus-an544371 Garnet Garfield The Transvaal War between 1890 and 1900 score; 14 pages Music Collection nla.mus-an4994966 Burning Farm Houses for Treachery c. 1902 black and white print; 7.8 x 10.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3408903 Hospital Ward Decorated with Flags. Boer War c. 1900 black and white print Pictures Collection nla.pic-an10885576-1

Nellie Melba comes home to Melbourne, 1902 Dame Nellie Melba, Charles Mitchell and Kangaroo, Cave Hill Pet 1902 black and white print; 11 x 9 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an24072249

Public Reception for Dame Nellie Melba at Cave Hill, Estate of Her Father David Mitchell 1902 black and white print; 11 x 16 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an24079672

The search for a site for the federal capital W. Lister Lister (1859–1943) Canberra, 1912 oil on canvas; 70 x 67.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an2293147 Edmund Thomas Luke (1864–1938) Early Morning at Albury Overlooking the Murray River 1902 albumen print; 18.7 x 23.9 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an24553118 The Shrivelled Senators cartoon in Punch Melbourne, 27 February 1902 Newspapers and Microforms Collection nla.cat-vn2911333 Sam Goddard View of Canberra c. 1920 oil on cotton fabric on plywood panel; 30.5 x 40.7 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an2293539 Edmund Thomas Luke (1864–1938) Senators Bathing in the Snowy River at Dalgety 1902 albumen print; 18.6 x 24.1 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an24589182

Sandow the Magnificent performs in Melbourne, 1902 Cover of The Gospel of Strength According to Sandow: A Series of Talks on the Sandow System of Physical Culture by Eugen Sandow (Melbourne: T. Shaw Fitchett, 1902) Australian Collection nla.cat-vn1653878 Fold-out page from The Gospel of Strength According to Sandow: A Series of Talks on the Sandow System of Physical Culture by Eugen Sandow (Melbourne: T. Shaw Fitchett, 1902) Australian Collection nla.cat-vn1653878 Programs Related to Eugen Sandow’s 1902–1903 Tour of Australia Ephemera Collection nla.aus-vn3530901 Fold-out page from The Gospel of Strength According to Sandow: A Series of Talks on the Sandow System of Physical Culture by Eugen Sandow (Melbourne: T. Shaw Fitchett, 1902) Australian Collection nla.cat-vn1653878

The Yarrabah Aboriginal Mission at Cairns, 1903 and 1910 Two Old Hands, Yarrabah in Queensland Office of the Chief Protector of Aborigines’ Annual Report (Brisbane: Government Printer, 1909) Australian Collection nla.cat-vn2117147 Charles Maurice Yonge (b. 1899) Aboriginal Children at Yarrabah, Queensland 1928 or 1929 black and white print; 8.2 x 13.8 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3997786-s61 Charles Maurice Yonge (b. 1899) The School and Children at Yarrabah, Queensland 1928 or 1929 black and white print; 8.2 x 14 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3997786-s64 Native Girls, Yarrabah in Queensland Office of the Chief Protector of Aborigines’ Annual Report (Brisbane: Government Printer, 1909) Australian Collection nla.cat-vn2117147

277

Modesty at the beach, 20 October 1907 The Skirted Bathers of Bondi Beach illustration in The Sydney Mail, 23 October 1907 Newspapers and Microforms Collection nla.cat-vn2318559 Costumes that Offended Mrs Grundy illustration in The Sydney Mail, 23 October 1907 Newspapers and Microforms Collection nla.cat-vn2318559 Some Suggestions at Bondi illustration in The Sydney Mail, 23 October 1907 Newspapers and Microforms Collection nla.cat-vn2318559 How the Manly Beach Bathers Obeyed the Ordinance illustration in The Sydney Mail, 23 October 1907 Newspapers and Microforms Collection nla.cat-vn2318559

A heatwave in 1908 and a (timeless) breaking of a drought Heat-Wave in Victoria in The West Australian, 21 January 1908 Courtesy State Library of Western Australia Harold J. Graham (1858–1929) Dry Weather in Melbourne Suburbs, No Water in the Houses 1882 pen and ink drawing; 10 x 15.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an6439191 J.A. Commins In Drought Time, 1897 black and white postcard; 8.4 x 13.4 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4779119

Lonely patrols of the rabbit-proof fences Frank H. Broomhall The Long Road, No. 1 Rabbit-proof Fence, Western Australia, 1926 black and white negative; 9.8 x 12.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3647494 Surveyor Canning and Party on the Survey Trip to Mark Out the Line of the Rabbit-proof Fence, Western Australia c. 1901 sepia-toned print; 15.2 x 20.6 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3997481

278

Motor Lorry Loaded with 1,760 Pairs of Rabbits, Drawn from Depot 30 Miles from Nearest Railway Station c. 1918 albumen print; 15.1 x 20.4 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an24664485

Kerry Photo (Firm), Sydney Tommy Burns, Ready for a Left Shift c. 1908 sepia-toned print; 13.5 x 8.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3788663

Lafayette Studios Portrait of Arthur Upfield print; 14.6 x 9.4 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an9897467-1

Charles Henry Kerry (1858–1928) Burns–Johnson Boxing Contest, Sydney, 26 December 1908 gelatin silver print and gouache; 42.2 x 101.4 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3060336

The USA’s Great White Fleet visits Sydney, 1908 Clinging Room Only on the Watson’s Bay Tram, Off to Observe the American Fleet, Sydney, 1908 black and white print; 15.1 x 20.7 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4778551 Souvenir Medal to Commemorate the Visit of the American Fleet to Australia in 1908 brass medal; 2.4 cm diameter Pictures Collection nla.pic-an7884481 Alfred Cutler The Great White Fleet in Sydney Harbour as Seen from Cremorne Point, 1908 black and white print; 37.7 x 119 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an21287102 Louis L. Howarde (composer), Alan M. Rattray (lyricist) The Sons of Uncle Sam c. 1908 score; 4 pages Music Collection nla.mus-an6310452 Cover of The Bulletin, 20 August 1908 Newspapers and Microforms Collection nla.cat-vn1085805

Jack Johnson humiliates Tommy Burns, Boxing Day 1908 Norman Lindsay (1879–1969) Tommy Burns versus Jack Johnson, World Heavyweight Boxing Championship, Rushcutters Bay, Sydney, Saturday, 26 December, 1908 photographic print; 13.1 x 8.9 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3050654 Courtesy H., C. and A. Glad Portrait of Jack Johnson c. 1908 black and white print; 19.5 x 13.7 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3060857

Fight for the World’s Championship, Tommy Burns and Jack Johnson, in the Ring at the Stadium, Rushcutters Bay, N.S.W., Saturday, December 26, 1908 poster; 26.2 x 37 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3638997

Harry Houdini sinks and then soars in Melbourne, 1910 Harry Houdini in Melbourne, Vic. c. 1910 1 of 5 gelatin silver prints; 16 x 23 cm or smaller Courtesy State Library of Victoria Harry Houdini in Melbourne, Vic. c. 1910 1 of 5 gelatin silver prints; 16 x 23 cm or smaller Courtesy State Library of Victoria Houdini, the Handcuff King gelatin silver print; 25 x 16 cm Courtesy State Library of Victoria Harry Houdini’s Voisin Biplane on Ground 1911 black and white print; 11.4 x 16.1 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3722958 Harry Houdini in Australia c. 1910 1 of 6 gelatin silver prints; 16 x 23 cm or smaller Courtesy State Library of Victoria

Australians go to the Great War, 1914–1918 James P. Campbell Writing in the Trenches 1915 gelatin silver print; 5.9 x 8.4 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an23297142 May Gibbs (1877–1969) We Are the Gumnut Corps, We’re Going to the War c. 1916 print; 8.7 x 13.9 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn5816909

Photograph of the author in Love Letters of an Anzac by Oliver Hogue (London: Andrew Melrose, c. 1916) Australian Collection nla.cat-vn2366207 Cover of The Kia-ora Coo-ee: Official Magazine of the Australian and New Zealand Forces in Egypt, Palestine, Salonica and Mesopotamia, 15 August 1918 Australian Collection nla.cat-vn2170632 Frederick Septimus Kelly (1881–1916) Diary Entry Dated Friday, 23 April 1915 in Diaries of Frederick Kelly, Oct. 1907–Nov. 1916 Manuscripts Collection MS 6050 Courtesy Carol Jones B.E. Pike Must it Come to This? Enlist! c. 1915 poster; 59 x 47 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4938854 John Michael Joshua (1893–1974) Group Portrait of the Members of the Transport Section of 3 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps, in Front of a Nissen Hut, Villers-Bretonneux, France, 1918 black and white print; 8 x 12.8 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4902598

Henry Lawson’s mates remember him Otto Bettmann (1862–1945) Bust of Henry Lawson Tasmanian blackwood bust; height 74.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an7969471 Pen Used by Henry Lawson at Leeton, NSW between 1904 and 1922 pencil lead, wood, steel and string pen; length 10.3 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an23078287 Henry Lawson and E. J. Brady at the Camp at Mallacoota, March, 1910 in Henry Lawson: By His Mates edited by J. Le Gay Brereton and Bertha Lawson (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1931) Australian Collection nla.cat-vn2612301 Frank Jessup (1884–1961) Henry Lawson c. 1930s watercolour; 23.9 x 19 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an4647632

Stewart Dawson & Company (Firm), London Fob Watch Belonging to Henry Lawson c. 1902 silver watch; diameter 5.2 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an7835773

The provisional Parliament House is inaugurated, 9 May 1927 H.M. Rolland (1882–1972) Canberra; Looking South from near Hotel Acton with Parliament House Nearing Completion, 1925 watercolour; 25.8 x 37.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an5381439 William James Mildenhall (1891–1962) Duke and Duchess of Gloucester at Parliament House, 1933 black and white print Pictures Collection nla.pic-an11030057-284 King Billy, i.e. Jimmy Clements, in Foreground of Parliament House 1927 black and white negative; 6.6 x 9.6 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3547995 Dame Nellie Melba Singing ‘God Save the King’, with Prime Minister S.M. Bruce and Mrs Bruce to her Left 1927 black and white negative; 9.5 x 12 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3697250 Edward William Searle (1887–1955) Old Parliament House Opening Ceremony, Canberra, 1927 black and white print; 18.8 x 31.7 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4655983

Bert Hinkler flies alone from England to Australia in 1928 Frank Dunne (c. 1897–1937) Portrait of Bert Hinkler c. 1930 pencil and wash drawing; 30 x 21 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an8377430 Will Dyson (1880–1938) Hinkler Being Pulled to Monument of Fame by Smith and Lindbergh between 1928 and 1933 ink and pencil drawing; 42 x 68.3 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn382542

Certificate of Air Worthiness in Papers of Bert Hinkler, 1928, 7 Feb.–28 Feb. Manuscripts Collection MS 347 Alexander Collingridge (d. 1942) Bert Hinkler Starting Propeller on his Avro Avian Biplane, York Park, Canberra 1928 black and white print; 8.8 x 13.9 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4358422 Nat Phillips (1883–1932) Bert Hinkler c. 1928 score; 3 pages Music Collection nla.mus-an14181209

The Great Depression of the 1930s Max Dupain (1911–1992) Morning Reverie, The Domain 1938, 2001 printing black and white selenium-toned print; 27.8 x 27.7 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an23221258 Five Men Looking for Work in the Great Depression c. 1930 black and white print; 16.9 x 24.4 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn5125787 John F.T. Grimwade Locomotive Number YX162 Hauling a Down Freight Train at Hynam, South Australia c. 1934 black and white print; 8.2 x 14 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn5979508 Sydney, Domain, 25 June 1930 black and white negative; 12.5 x 9.8 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3697234 Large Group of Men Looking for Work in the Great Depression c. 1930 black and white print; 18.6 x 24.4 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn5425786 Alfred Cavalchini Dole Queue during Depression— Coffs Harbour, NSW 1930 print Courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW

The building and opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, 1924–1932 Harold Cazneaux (1878–1953) Arch of Steel 1933 print; 37.7 x 27.2 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an2381168 Courtesy the Cazneaux Family Edward William Searle (1887–1955) Southern Sun Flying over Sydney Harbour Bridge, 1931 gelatin silver composite print; 32 x 25.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an6820583 Raistrick & Co. (Firm) Sydney Harbour Bridge c. 1933 jigsaw; 9.4 x 15.2 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an24912028 Edward William Searle (1887–1955) Bridge Opening Ceremony with Bridge in the Background, Sydney Harbour Bridge, 1932 black and white glass negative; 12 x 16.4 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4653837 Edward William Searle (1887–1955) Sydney Harbour Bridge Crowded with Onlookers during the Water and Aerial Display, 19 March 1932 black and white print; 23.8 x 31.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4515947 E.V. Kealey Aberdeen and Commonwealth Line, One Class Only to Australia via Suez Canal c. 1932 poster; 97 x 60 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an21316762 Harold Cazneaux (1878–1953) Dr J. Bradfield Standing on ‘King Pin’ under the Arch at the Sydney Harbour Bridge, February, 1931 black and white glass negative Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3696029 Courtesy the Cazneaux Family

Ballets Russes in Australia, 1936–1940 Joseph Ringland Anderson (1894–1961) Hélène Kirsova as the Doll in ‘Petrouchka’, Monte Carlo Russian Ballet, Melbourne 1937 black and white print; 15.9 x 11.7 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3454914

Hugh P. Hall David Lichine (Centre Front) and Tatiana Riabouchinska (Centre Elevated) in the Circus Divertissement, and Artists of the Company, in ‘Graduation Ball’, the Original Ballet Russe, Australian Tour, His Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne, 1940 black and white print; 20 x 25 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4174804 Dimitri Rostoff, Tatiana Riabouchinska and Paul Petroff and Dancers from the Original Ballet Russe in ‘Paganini’ 1940 hand-coloured print; 23 x 35.7 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3534107 Tamara Tchinarova Sewing Pointe Shoes, Borovansky Ballet c. 1946 black and white print; 23.7 x 18.8 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3422360 Portrait of Tamara Tchinarova Finch as a Nursemaid in ‘Petrouchka’, Ballets Russes Australian Tours c. 1937 black and white print; 39.3 x 31.7 cm Manuscripts Collection nla.ms-ms9733-5-14 Portrait of Tamara Tchinarova Finch and Martin Rubinstein as Zoebeide and the Golden Slave in ‘Scheherazade’, Borovansky Ballet c. 1946 black and white print; 18 x 24.4 cm Manuscripts Collection nla.ms-ms9733-5-31

The Victorian bushfires of January 1939 Bushfire at Yallourn, Victoria c. 1939 gelatin silver print; 32 x 25 cm Courtesy State Library of Victoria Four Men Standing on the Charred Remnants of the Trestle Railway Bridge after the Bushfires, Noojee, Victoria, 13 January 1939 black and white print; 25 x 30.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn5125773 Cover of Bush Fires: A Pictorial Survey of Victoria’s Most Tragic Week, January 8–15, 1939 (Melbourne: L. Kay for Pictorial Newspapers, 1939) Australian Collection nla.cat-vn327982

279

Fire Fighters in Gas Masks in Bush Fires: A Pictorial Survey of Victoria’s Most Tragic Week, January 8–15, 1939 (Melbourne: L. Kay for Pictorial Newspapers, 1939) Australian Collection nla.cat-vn327982 Burnt-out Cars on a Road in the Aftermath of Black Friday, Noojee, Victoria, 1939 black and white print; 24.1 x 30.4 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn5125898 M.E. Bill Forest Remains after a Bushfire, Icy Creek, Victoria, 1939 black and white print; 15.9 x 20.8 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4655901

Two air raids of the Second World War— Darwin 1942, London 1943 Neptunia, which Had Been Carrying Mines, Being Blown Up during the First Japanese Air Raid on Darwin during World War II, 19 February 1942 black and white print; 19.1 x 25.7 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn5126063 Hilda Abbott print from Hilda and C.L.A. Abbott Papers, 1906–1971 Manuscripts Collection MS 4744 Roy Wheeler ‘Zealandia’ after a Bombing Raid 1942 black and white print; 18 x 12 cm Courtesy Northern Territory Library

Axel Poignant (1906–1986) Portrait of Percy Grainger 1935 sepia-toned print; 10.4 x 14.3 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an12090192 Courtesy Roslyn Poignant

Francis Ratcliffe visits The Kingdom of the Dust, c. 1936

Percy Grainger ‘In the Round’ 1933 sepia-toned gelatin silver print; 9 x 13.8 cm Courtesy Grainger Museum Collection, University of Melbourne

Bruce Postle (b. 1940) Dust Storm from Victoria’s Mallee Region Sweeping through Lonsdale Street in Melbourne’s CBD with a Woman Crossing the Street in the Foreground, 8 February 1983 sepia-toned print; 29.9 x 20.1 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4579229 John Flynn (1880–1951) Christmas Dinner at Innamincka Nursing Home during a Dust Storm, South Australia c. 1937 black and white lantern slide; 8.2 x 8.2 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an24681601 Carl T. Dugdale A Phenomenal Dust Storm at Narrandera, NSW 1915 postcard; 8.8 x 13.8 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an23780463 Bruce Postle (b. 1940) Dust Storm from Victoria’s Mallee Region Sweeping through Lonsdale Street in Melbourne’s CBD, 8 February 1983 sepia-toned print; 21 x 30.4 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4579226

Percy Grainger

Bombed Flats, Darwin, Northern Territory c. 1942 black and white print; 6.3 x 8.8 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4347992

Mr Percy Grainger between c. 1900 and 1920 postcard; 13.7 x 8.7 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an22947323

USS Peary Burns behind HMAS Katoomba, with HMAS Manunda on the Right, after a Japanese Air Raid, Darwin, 1942 black and white print; 19.5 x 25.8 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn5126065

I.P. Andrew Percy Grainger and His Wife Ella— Studio Portrait 1935 print Courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW

London Burns during a Bombing Raid by Aircraft of the German Luftwaffe black and white negative Courtesy Australian War Memorial

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German Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Me 410 Hornisse Fighter Bomber in Flight c. 1943 black and white print; 8.9 x 14.2 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4904294

Percy Grainger (1882–1961) The Warriors: Music to an Imaginary Ballet for Orchestra and 3 Pianos Dished Up by the Composer for 2 Pianos, 6 Hands score Music Collection nla.cat-vn4537816 Courtesy Estate of Percy Grainger

The Melbourne Olympics, 1956 Bruce Howard (b. 1936) Newspaper’s Coverage of the Water Polo Match between Hungary and Russia, Melbourne, Victoria, 1956 black and white photographic reproduction of a newspaper article; 25.4 x 20.2 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4278496-s287 Bruce Howard (b. 1936) Australian Swimmers Faith Leech, Dawn Fraser and Lorraine Crapp Competing in the 100 Metres Freestyle Final at the Olympic Pool, Melbourne, 1956 black and white print; 20.2 x 25.4 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4278496-s218 Bruce Howard (b. 1936) Belgian Girls Irene Sweyd, Eva Gerard-Novak and Swimmer Colette Goossens Carries a Mascot Kangaroo during the Grand Parade of Teams at Melbourne Cricket Ground, 22 November, 1956 black and white print; 25.3 x 16.7 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4278496-s35 Bruce Howard (b. 1936) Australia’s Shirley Strickland after Winning Gold in the Women’s 80 Metres Hurdles Waves to the Crowd Along with Compatriot Norma Thrower (Left) Who Won Bronze and Beside Them Silver Medal Winner Gisela Kohler of Germany, Olympic Games, Melbourne Cricket Ground, Victoria, 1956 black and white print; 19.1 x 24.2 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4278496-s315 Bruce Howard (b. 1936) Ron Clarke Runs into the Stadium with the Olympic Torch, Melbourne Cricket Ground, 22 November 1956 black and white print; 25 x 17.7 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4278496-s43

Bruce Howard (b. 1936) Hungarian Swimmer Zsuzsa Ordogh Farewells Team Mates, Essendon Airport, Victoria, 1956 black and white print; 19.1 x 24.2 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4278496-s315 Bruce Howard (b. 1936) Brothers John and David Gratton Sit on a Road Sign to Watch the 116 Mile Road Race at Broadmeadows, Victoria, 1956 black and white print; 25.4 x 20.2 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4278496-s301

Old Adaminaby is drowned for the greater good of the Snowy Mountains HydroElectric Scheme Laurie Failes (1899–1976) Old Town of Adaminaby 1950s colour slide Pictures Collection nla.pic-an20118662-9 Frank Hurley (1885–1962) Adaminaby Old Town Being Flooded c. 1949 plastic negative; 11.2 x 15.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an23816902 Frank Hurley (1885–1962) Adaminaby Old Town Being Flooded c. 1949 plastic negative; 11.2 x 15.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an23816905 Construction of Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme—Section of House Being Transported to Adaminaby Dam 1950 print Courtesy National Archives of Australia Old Adaminaby Relics Appear during Drought in Lake Eucumbene Area 1983 print Courtesy National Archives of Australia

Paul Robeson sings at the Sydney Opera House while it’s being built, 1960 Paul Robeson in ‘Showboat’, Drury Lane, London, 1928 gelatin silver print Pictures Collection nla.pic-an10572027-2

‘Champion of Working Class’ Paul Robeson Sings for Construction Workers 1960 black and white print Courtesy Sydney Opera House Jerome Kern (1885–1945) Ol’ Man River: From the Epic Musical Drama ‘Show Boat’ c. 1927 score; 7 pages Music Collection nla.mus-an7831996 Paul Robeson, Alberta Hunter ‘Queenie’ and Edith May, Marie Burke in ‘Showboat’, 1928 gelatin silver print Pictures Collection nla.pic-an10572027-3

Jørn Utzon imagines the Sydney Opera House Alex E. Proimos Purple Sails, Sunset at the Sydney Opera House, Australia 2009 digital photograph flickr.com/photos/ proimos/3546381370/ Reproduced under Creative Commons license creativecommons. org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en Max Dupain (1911–1992) Sydney Opera House in Construction, Sydney, 1972 gelatin silver print; 35 x 49.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an21114758 Loui Seselja (b. 1948) Energy of Australia Lightshow, Sydney Opera House, 18 August 2000 colour transparency; 5.5 x 5.5 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an23243038 Jørn Utzon (1918–2008) Architect’s Model for the Geometry of the Sydney Opera House Shells 1961 wood architectural model; approx. 29.5 x 89 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an7650469 Don McMurdo (1930–2001) Sydney Opera House with Boats in Foreground between 1976 and 1998 slide; 5.3 x 5.3 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-an23333226

Lake Pedder is lost

Index

Olegas Truchanas (1923–1972) A Gathering Storm Approaches, Watched by Campers on the Shore of Lake Pedder, Tasmania slide c. 1969, digital reproduction 2007 digital reproduction from slide Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3885846-s92

Complying with the Regulations, Surf Bathing in NSW illustration in The Bulletin, 24 October 1907 Newspapers and Microforms Collection nla.cat-vn1085805

Olegas Truchanas (1923–1972) The Beach and Dunes with the Sentinel Range Reflecting in the Water, Lake Pedder, Tasmania slide 1971, digital reproduction 2007 digital reproduction from slide Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3885846-s51

Aviation Week at Rosehill Racecourse 1910 broadside; 102.2 x 76.6 cm Courtesy State Library of Victoria

Olegas Truchanas (1923–1972) Sunrise on Mount Solitary with Maria Creek in the Foreground, Lake Pedder, Tasmania slide c. 1970, digital reproduction 2007 digital reproduction from slide Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3885846-s46 Olegas Truchanas (1923–1972) Megaripples at the Water’s Edge Are Formed by Prevailing Winds and Constant Gentle Currents at Lake Pedder, Tasmania slide c. 1970, digital reproduction 2007 digital reproduction from slide Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3885846-s60 Olegas Truchanas (1923–1972) Melaleuca Trees along the Northern Shoreline of Lake Pedder, Tasmania slide c. 1969, digital reproduction 2007 digital reproduction from slide Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3885846-s41 Olegas Truchanas (1923–1972) Nicholas Truchanas Wandering Thoughtfully along Lake Pedder’s Edge with the Towering Frankland Range behind, Tasmania slide 1971, digital reproduction 2007 digital reproduction from slide Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3885846-s16 Olegas Truchanas (1923–1972) Reflections, Mists and Melaleuca Trees in a Serene Lake Pedder, Tasmania slide 1968, digital reproduction 2007 digital reproduction from slide Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3885846-s55

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REFERENCES Two corroborees, 1796 and 1836 Charles Darwin witnesses a rude, barbarous scene, 1836 Darwin, Charles, Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited during the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle Round the World: under the command of Capt. Fitz Roy. London: John Murray, 1845. John Hunter sees an exhibition well worth seeing, 1791 Hunter, John, An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island: including the journals of Governors Phillip and King, since the publication of Phillip’s voyage: with an abridged account of the new discoveries in the South Seas. London: John Stockdale, 1793.

Europeans marvel at (and eat) kangaroos D.H. Lawrence watches a mother kangaroo and her joey, 1922 Lawrence, D. H., The Complete Poems. London: Heinemann, 1957. Matthew Flinders gives an island an appropriate name, 1802 Flinders, Matthew, A Voyage to Terra Australis: undertaken for the purpose of completing the discovery of that vast country, and prosecuted in the years 1801, 1802, and 1803 in His Majesty’s ship the Investigator, and subsequently in the armed vessel Porpoise and Cumberland Schooner; with an account of the shipwreck of the Porpoise, arrival of the Cumberland at Mauritius, and imprisonment of the commander during six years and a half in that island. London: Nicol, 1814. John Gilbert meets enraged kangaroos, 1840 Gilbert, John, ‘Letter ... describing the habits of some Mammalia and Aves of Western Australia’, Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, part XII, 1844, pp. 33–7. Thomas Smith sees kangaroos in London, 1806 Smith, Thomas, The Naturalist’s Cabinet: Containing Interesting Sketches of Animal History; illustrative of the natures, dispositions,

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manners, and habits of all the most remarkable quadrupeds, birds, fishes, amphibia, reptiles, &c. in the known world. London: James Cundee, 1806–1807.

Australia’s convicts Alexander Maconochie beholds a sea of faces, 1840 Maconochie, Alexander, Norfolk Island. London: J. Hatchard, 1847. The Reverend Browning sends 264 convicts to school, 1842 Browning, Colin Arrott, The Convict Ship; and, England’s Exiles, in Two Parts. London: Hamilton, Adams, 1847. David Burn reads some eyes, 1842 Burn, David, An Excursion to Port Arthur in 1842. Hobart: J.W. Beattie, 1898. Reverend Rogers shares the last night of three condemned men, 1846 Peutetre (Thomas Rogers), ‘A Bushranger’s Autobiography’, The Australasian, 1 February 1879, p. 136.

The massacre at Myall Creek, 1838 A frightened George Anderson sees the blacks led away House of Commons, Parliament of Great Britain, Australian Aborigines: Copies of Extracts of Despatches Relative to the Massacre of Various Aborigines in Australia, in the Year 1838, and Respecting the Trial of Their Murderers. London: Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 1839. William Hobbs follows tracks made by naked feet House of Commons, Parliament of Great Britain, Australian Aborigines: Copies of Extracts of Despatches Relative to the Massacre of Various Aborigines in Australia, in the Year 1838, and Respecting the Trial of Their Murderers. London: Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 1839.

Christmas in colonial Australia Mrs Meredith’s Sydney Christmas, 1839 Meredith, Louisa Anne, Notes and Sketches of New South Wales during a Residence in that Colony from 1839 to 1844. London: John Murray, 1844. Henry Lawson sees ghosts of Christmases past, 1870s Lawson, Henry, The Children of the Bush. London: Methuen, 1902.

Europeans reach the highest place in the continent, 1840 James Macarthur climbs up, and up through flying mist Clews, Hugh Powell G., Strzelecki’s Ascent of Mount Kosciusko 1840. Melbourne: Australia Felix Literary Club, 1973. Reaching the summit remunerates Strzelecki’s fatigue Strzelecki, Paul Edmund de, Physical Description of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land : Illustrated by a Geological Map, Sections, and Diagrams, and Figures of the Organic Remains. London : Longmans, 1845.

The Great Comet of 1843 and Donati’s Comet of 1858 The comet creates intense alarm, 1843 Smyth, Robert Brough (ed.), The Aborigines of Victoria: with Notes Relating to the Habits of the Natives of Other Parts of Australia and Tasmania. Melbourne: Government Printer, 1878. The Merediths set up their instruments, 1843 Meredith, Louisa Anne, My Home in Tasmania, During a Residence of Nine Years. London: John Murray, 1852. Donati’s Comet takes Melbourne by surprise, 1858 Becker, Ludwig (1859) ‘Observations on Donati’s Comet, Made between October 12th and November 12th 1858’, Transactions of the Philosophical Institute of Victoria from January to August, Inclusive, vol. IV, part I, 1859, pp. 9–13.

Donati’s Comet ducks out of sight ‘Ode to the Comet’, Punch (Melbourne), 14 October 1858, p. 89.

Victorian-era sea voyages to Australia Reverend Mereweather sees a liquid mountain, 1850 Mereweather, John Davies, Life on Board an Emigrant Ship: Being a Diary of a Voyage to Australia. London: T. Hatchard, 1852. William Strutt sees a resolute look on his Captain’s face, 1850 Strutt, William, Off for Australia: Emigration Every Body, and Every Thing, Now, All, is New. Manuscripts Collection, National Library of Australia, MS 4294. John Hindmarsh hears ‘Sail ho!’ on Christmas Day, 1852 Hindmarsh, J.H.S., Scenes during a Passage from England to Australia, Verse and Sketches, 1856. Manuscripts Collection, National Library of Australia, MS 4156. Keith Cameron sees dear little Daniel Robertson buried at sea, 12 May 1884 Cameron, Keith, ‘General News’, The Gull, no. 12, 10 May 1884. Mark Twain sees a once-in-alifetime show, 15 September 1895 Twain, Mark, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World. Hartford, Conn.: American Pub. Co., 1897.

A gold rush in 1852 and a descent into an Aladdin’s Cave in 1895 William Strutt’s motley company rushes to Ballarat, 1852 Strutt, William, Off for Australia: Emigration Every Body, and Every Thing, Now, All, is New. Manuscripts Collection, National Library of Australia, MS 4294. Julius M. Price sees, by candlelight, the whole place positively sparkling with gold, 1895 Price, Julius, The Land of Gold: The Narrative of a Journey through the West Australian Goldfields in the Autumn of 1895. London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1896.

The Eureka Stockade, 3 December 1854

Explorer Ernest Giles, 1875

Rafaello Carboni beholds the Southern Cross hoisted Carboni, Raffaello, The Eureka Stockade: The Consequence of Some Pirates Wanting on Quarter-deck a Rebellion. Melbourne: Printed for the author by J.P. Atkinson, 1855.

Giles, usually the least gloomyminded of men, feels gloom overwhelm him Giles, Ernest, Australia Twice Traversed: The Romance of Exploration: Being a narrative compiled from the journals of five exploring expeditions into and through central South Australia and Western Australia, from 1872 to 1876. London: Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1889.

Michael Canny sees his blood spurt out Canny, Michael, ‘A Stockade Veteran’, The Argus, 3 December 1904, p. 17. A.W. Arnold gets his white trousers covered in blood Arnold, A.W., ‘The Eureka Anniversary. Remembrances of the Fight. An Old-Time Theatrical’s Story’, The Ballarat Courier, 2 December 1904, p. 3. ‘A correspondent’ sees more than he can bear A Corrrespondent, ‘The Eureka Massacre’, Geelong Advertiser, 6 December 1854, p. 4. Christopher Crook sees something unforgettable Crook, Christopher, ‘A Reminiscence of Eureka’, Geelong Advertiser, 6 December 1904, p. 2.

Catherine Hayes performs in Melbourne, 1854 Louisa Anne Meredith studies a marvellous head-dress Meredith, Louisa Anne, Travels and Stories in Our Gold Colonies. London: Charles Griffin, c. 1865.

The melancholy wreck of the Dunbar, 20 August 1857 James Johnson hears the screaming begin ‘The Loss of the Dunbar: The Inquest on the Bodies’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 August 1857, p. 4. A reporter confronts an appalling scene ‘Examination of the Scene of the Wreck’, The Empire (Sydney), 24 August 1857, p. 4. George Thornton gazes down at a heart-rending scene ‘The Loss of the Dunbar’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 August 1857, p. 4. A reporter attends a moonlit funeral ‘The Funeral’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 August 1857, p. 5.

The siege at Glenrowan, 26–28 June 1880 James Reardon feels Ned Kelly’s revolver at his cheek Royal Commission on the Police Force of Victoria, Second Progress Report of the Royal Commission of Enquiry into the Circumstances of the Kelly Outbreak, the Present State and Organization of the Police Force, etc. Melbourne: John Ferres, Government Printer, 1881. Constable Dwyer gives Ned Kelly a kick Royal Commission on the Police Force of Victoria, Second Progress Report of the Royal Commission of Enquiry into the Circumstances of the Kelly Outbreak, the Present State and Organization of the Police Force, etc. Melbourne: John Ferres, Government Printer, 1881. Jesse Dowsett sees his bullet ricochet off Old Nick Royal Commission on the Police Force of Victoria, Second Progress Report of the Royal Commission of Enquiry into the Circumstances of the Kelly Outbreak, the Present State and Organization of the Police Force, etc. Melbourne: John Ferres, Government Printer, 1881. The Reverend Matthew Gibney earns the crowd’s applause Royal Commission on the Police Force of Victoria, Second Progress Report of the Royal Commission of Enquiry into the Circumstances of the Kelly Outbreak, the Present State and Organization of the Police Force, etc. Melbourne: John Ferres, Government Printer, 1881. His captors see Ned Kelly’s look of wild passion Sadleir, John, Recollections of a Victorian Police Officer. Melbourne: G. Robertson, c. 1913.

Sydney’s Garden Palace burns down, 22 September 1882 The fire terrifies Miss Flower Pockley, Ethel, Letter dated 22 September 1882 to her brother Frank, Royal Australian Historical Society Newsletter, August 1982, p. 1. Courtesy Pockley Family. A reporter sees kaleidoscopic colours in the flames ‘The Garden Palace Destroyed’, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 23 September 1882, p. 6. Philosopher Jawkins falls out of a tree A Gentleman Living in the Vicinity of the Garden Palace, ‘The Garden Palace Destroyed. Another Statement’, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 23 September 1882, p. 6.

The Brisbane floods of February 1893 A reporter sees and hears floating houses smashed like eggs ‘Disastrous Floods’, The Brisbane Courier, 6 February 1893, pp. 2–3. The curator’s residence disappoints the flood’s spectators ‘Disastrous Floods’, The Brisbane Courier, 7 February 1893, p. 2. A mighty hand plays chess with Rosalie’s houses ‘Milton, Rosalie and Bayswater’, The Queenslander, 11 February 1893, p. 248.

Bicycles and cyclists in Australia Mrs Maddocks is pained, 1897 Maddocks, Mrs, ‘Ladies’ Column’, The NSW Cycling Gazette, 10 April 1897. C.E.W. Bean sees shearers cycling to work, c. 1922 Bean, Charles Edwin Woodrow, On the Wool Track. Waterloo, N.S.W.: Eagle Press, 1925. Mrs Maddocks studies men’s legs, 1897 Maddocks, Mrs, ‘Ladies’ Column’, The NSW Cycling Gazette, 13 February 1897.

Federation occasions, 1901 A growling commentator watches the tawdry and magnificent parade, 1 January 1901 ‘The Pageant which Passes—and the Nation which Remains’, The Bulletin, 5 January 1901, p. 24.

‘Gouli-Gouli’ attends Australia’s birth, 1 January 1901 Gouli-Gouli, ‘A Woman’s Letter’, The Bulletin, 5 January 1901, pp. 12, 25. ‘Owen Deed’ marvels at Sydney by day and by night, 1 January 1901 Deed, Owen, ‘Australia United. “One Indissoluble Federal Commonwealth.” The Inaugural Ceremony in Sydney. The Sydney Side’, Punch (Melbourne), 3 January 1901, pp. 11–12. ‘Shellback’ seethes at the look and feel of Melbourne, May 1901 Shellback, ‘A Few Days in a Madhouse’, The Tocsin, 16 May 1901, p. 4. A Punch writer sees glory and then a crowd behaving like a can of worms, 9–11 May 1901 ‘The Opening of Parliament’ and ‘The Military Tattoo’, Punch (Melbourne), 16 May 1901, pp. 567–8 and p. 571.

Australians at the Boer War, 1899–1902 Gunner Sheedy sees the terrible way the Boers bury their dead, 1900 Sheedy, M.J., ‘The Transvaal War: Our Boys in Battle’, Queanbeyan Age, 21 April 1900, p. 2. ‘Banjo’ Paterson enjoys the shooting at human game with cannon, 1900 Paterson, A.B., ‘A Day under Fire. A Battlefield Sketch’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 August 1900, p. 7. Trooper Maunsell wants to come home, 1901 Maunsell, G., ‘From the Front’ (letter dated 9 July 1901), Queanbeyan Observer, 16 August 1901, p. 2. George Witton sees ‘Breaker’ Morant turned deathly pale, 26 February 1902 Witton, George, Scapegoats of the Empire: the Story of the Bushveldt Carbineers. Melbourne: D. W. Paterson, 1907.

Nellie Melba comes home to Melbourne, 1902 The Queen of Song is royally received in Melbourne ‘Madame Melba. Reception in Melbourne. Enthusiastic Crowds’, The Argus, 22 September 1902, p. 5. ‘Peter Quince’ is entranced by Melba the Enchantress Quince, Peter, ‘Melba: An Inspiration—A Reverie—An Experience’, Punch (Melbourne), 2 October 1902, p. 472.

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‘The Don’ finds Melba’s singing warm with the life of breathing womanhood The Don, ‘Melba! The Sovereignty of the Singer’, Punch (Melbourne), 2 October 1902, p. 492. Melba sings to her father ‘Fact and Rumour’, Punch (Melbourne), 2 October 1902, pp. 482-3.

The Yarrabah Aboriginal Mission at Cairns, 1903 and 1910

The diva has a day out Quince, Peter, ‘A Diva’s Day Out’, Punch (Melbourne), 13 November 1902, pp. 684–5.

A black choir shakes the rafters with ‘Rule Britannia’ ‘Aboriginal Concert. A Brilliant Success. A Big and Enthusiastic Audience’, Morning Post (Cairns), 14 August 1903, p. 7.

A photographer puts one blot on the diva’s day out Minetta, ‘Ladies Letter’, Punch (Melbourne), 13 November 1902, p. 692.

‘E.S.H.’ spends a day or two among the raw material at Yarrabah Mission, c. 1910 E.S.H., A Day or Two at Yarrabah. Melbourne: Century Press, 1900s.

The search for a site for the federal capital

Modesty at the beach, 20 October 1907

The senators visit a nice position for a federal cemetery, 1902 Neild, John, ‘In Search of a Capital Site’, The Town and Country Journal, 22 February 1902, p. 13. Mahkoolma lives up to the menace of its name, 1906 ‘Federal Capital Site. Members Visit Mahkoolma. Condemnatory Opinions. Coaches Stuck in the Mud’, The Argus, 13 August 1906, p. 4. The site at Canberra turns on the charm ‘Federal Capital Site. The Parliamentary Tour. Visits Round Queanbeyan. An Exhilarating Outing’, The Argus, 14 August 1906, p. 5. Elliot Johnson MP remembers Dalgety with a shudder Johnson, William Elliot, Speech to the House of Representatives, 23 September 1908, Parliamentary Debates; Senate and House of Representatives, Commonwealth of Australia. Printed and published for the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia by J. Kemp, 1902–1945.

Sandow the Magnificent performs in Melbourne, 1902 Two hundred gentlemen see a private anatomical display ‘Sandow the Strong. Reception by the Mayor. Private Anatomical Display’, The Argus, 6 September 1902, p. 17. A horse is led on stage ‘Sandow the Strong. First Appearance. A Great Reception’, The Argus, 8 September 1902, p. 7.

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Sandow’s audience gives an involuntary ‘Oh!’ ‘Sandow at the Opera House. A Great Reception’, The Age, 8 September 1902, p. 8.

A reporter joins the largest crowd ever to gather at Bondi Beach ‘Surf-Bathing. Anti-Skirt Demonstrations. Some Amusing Incidents’, The Australian Star, 21 October 1907, p. 5. A grotesque pageant unfolds at Bondi Beach ‘Bathers in Skirts. Bondi Beach Parade. A Grotesque Turnout. An Immense Crowd’, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 21 October 1907, p. 9. Screams of laughter are heard at Manly Beach Porpoise, ‘Fun on the Beaches: SurfBathing in Skirts’, The Sydney Mail, 23 October 1907, pp. 1074–1075.

A heatwave in 1908 and a (timeless) breaking of a drought ‘Johanna’ feels Melbourne’s air still burning at midnight, January 1908 Johanna, ‘Melbourne Chatter’, The Bulletin, 23 January 1908, p. 24. ‘Edyson’ sees the terror spread, January 1908 Edyson, ‘Society’, The Bulletin, 30 January 1908, p. 10. Bernard O’Reilly sees and smells that rain is coming at last O’Reilly, Bernard, Green Mountains and Cullenbenbong. Brisbane: Smith & Paterson, 1949.

Lonely patrols of the rabbit-proof fences

Australians go to the Great War, 1914–1918

Geoffrey Dell sees a hunted, driven look in Edward Farr’s eyes Dell, Geoffrey, ‘The Boundary Rider’, The West Australian, 21 March 1908, p. 5.

John Masefield sees a new kind of man Masefield, John, ‘Foreword’, in Rule, E. J., Jacka’s Mob. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1933.

Arthur Upfield sees a rabbit migration begin Upfield, Arthur, ‘The Vermin Fences of Western Australia’, Walkabout, 1 May 1949, pp. 17–30.

Trooper Bluegum sees his sweetheart’s portrait smile with approval Hogue, Oliver, Love Letters of an Anzac. London: Andrew Melrose, c. 1916.

The USA’s Great White Fleet visits Sydney, 1908

‘Tralas’ watches the girl he’s left behind until she’s out of sight Tralas, ‘The Girl I Left Behind’, The Kia-ora Coo-ee: Official Magazine of the Australian and New Zealand Forces in Egypt, Palestine, Salonica & Mesopotamia, 15 December 1918, p. 16.

Little Ted has an uncomfortable voyage Miller, Roman, Around the World with the Battleships, Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co., 1909. Sydney dresses its chimney tops ‘Society’, The Bulletin, 27 August 1908, p. 33. Alderman Thompson can’t see Queen Victoria’s face for filth ‘General News. We Haven’t Forgotten Queen Victoria’, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 3 July 1908, p. 6. Young men with accents like banjos Akenehi, ‘A Woman’s Letter’, The Bulletin, 27 August 1908, p. 20. ‘P’ is shamed by the pride of the Australian squadron ‘Society’, The Bulletin, 3 September 1908, p. 10.

Jack Johnson humiliates Tommy Burns, Boxing Day 1908 The crowd sees the supremacy of the white race go to the Devil ‘Sporting Notions’ The Bulletin, 31 December 1908, p. 28. Sydney becomes the City of Stoush Cabot, O.C., ‘A Song of Stoush’, The Bulletin, 31 December 1908, p. 32.

Harry Houdini sinks and then soars in Melbourne, 1910 Houdini disappears into the murk of the Yarra ‘Sensational Diving. Escape from Chains’, The Argus, 18 February 1910, p. 4. The great machine leaps into the air ‘Houdini Flies. Trials at Digger’s Rest. Three Successful Flights. Height of 100FT Reached’, The Argus, 19 March 1910, p. 18.

F.S. Kelly buries his friend Rupert Brooke Kelly, Frederick, Diaries of Frederick Kelly, October 1907–November 1916, Manuscripts Collection, National Library of Australia, MS 6050. Courtesy Carol Jones. On Gallipoli John Monash watches his men being humane and gentlemanly Monash, John, and Cutlack, Frederick (ed). War Letters of General Monash. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1935. Drawn and haggard faces on the first Anzac Day ‘ANZAC Anniversary. Church Services. St. Paul’s Cathedral. An Impressive Service’, The Age, 26 April 1916, p. 7. Tears are seen in a veteran’s eyes ‘In Memory—Anzac Day. The Immortal Dead. National Commemmoration. “Until the Work is Finished”’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 April 1916, p. 11. No-conscription women sing ‘We Hate You Billy Hughes’ ‘Women’s Procession’, The Woman Voter, 26 October 1916, pp. 1–2. ‘Banjo’ Paterson sees a vision among the dust Paterson, A. B., ‘The Army Mules’, The Kia-ora Coo-ee: Official Magazine of the Australian and New Zealand Forces in Egypt, Palestine, Salonica & Mesopotamia, 15 March 1918, p. 9. E.J. Rule sees his soldiers dress in beautiful chemises with pretty pink ribbons Rule, E. J., Jacka’s Mob. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1933.

Henry Lawson’s mates remember him Fred Broomfield sees an unmistakable figure on Hunter Street Broomfield, Fred, ‘Recollections of Henry Lawson’, in Bertha Lawson and John Le Gay Brereton (eds), Henry Lawson: By His Mates. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1931. Henry Boote looks into Lawson’s eyes Boote, Henry, ‘A Poet of Revolt’, in Bertha Lawson and John Le Gay Brereton (eds), Henry Lawson: By His Mates. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1931. Lawson peers into J. Le Gay Brereton’s eyes Le Gay Brereton, John, ‘In the Gusty Old Weather’, in Bertha Lawson and John Le Gay Brereton (eds), Henry Lawson: By His Mates. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1931. Father Tansey remembers a lank figure Tansey, Michael, ‘Stories’, in Bertha Lawson and John Le Gay Brereton (eds), Henry Lawson: By His Mates. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1931. W.E. Fitz Henry sees a look of misery on Lawson’s face Fitz Henry, W.E., ‘Afterwards’, in Bertha Lawson and John Le Gay Brereton (eds), Henry Lawson: By His Mates. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1931.

The provisional Parliament House is inaugurated, 9 May 1927 Canberra manages only a feeble cheer ‘A Woman’s Letter’, The Bulletin, 12 May 1927, p. 44. The permanent look of the provisional gilded halls ‘Federal City. Parliament House. Luxury and Comfort. Magnificent Furnishings’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 May 1927, p. 20. Someone raggedly picturesque attends the event ‘Canberra Ceremony. Historic Scene. Duke Opens Parliament House. Memorable Speeches. Small Public Attendance’, The Argus, 10 May 1927, p. 19. Dame Nellie Melba competes with aeroplanes ‘Canberra Ceremony. Historic Scene. Duke Opens Parliament House. Memorable Speeches. Small Public Attendance’, The Argus, 10 May 1927, p. 19.

A woman writer sees splendour in the Senate Our Woman Writer, ‘A Woman’s Impression’, The Argus, 10 May 1927, p. 20.

Harry Pugsley’s mate Billy has to dance by himself Pugsley, Harry, Confessions of a Dole Bludger. Brisbane: Boolarong, 1984. Courtesy Boolarong Press.

Hugh P. Hall sees a prima ballerina darn her own shoes, 1940 Hall, Hugh P., Ballet in Australia: from Pavlova to Rambert. Melbourne: Georgian House, 1948.

Melba’s diamonds shine brilliantly in the Senate ‘Pageant of Empire. Senate Ceremony. Duke Reads the King’s Message’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 May 1927, p. 15.

Hugh Clarke sees faces stamped with hopelessness Clarke, Hugh, The Broke and the Broken: Life in the Great Depression. Spring Hill, Queensland: Boolarong, 1982. Courtesy Boolarong Press.

How Canberra looks after everyone’s gone home Iford, ‘The Morning After’ (Society Column), The Bulletin, 19 May 1927, p. 13.

Blackened Bill Ryland slips into the darkness Ryland, Bill, Knockabout Boy: Tales and Songs of a Train Jumper, Manuscripts Collection, National Library of Australia, MS 6527. Courtesy Mary Ryland.

Tamara Tchinarova Finch faces life after the Ballets Russes Tchinarova Finch, Tamara, Dancing into the Unknown: My Life in the Ballets Russes and Beyond. Alton: Dance Books, 2007. Courtesy Dance Books, Anita Harrison and Tamara Tchinarova Finch.

Bert Hinkler flies alone from England to Australia in 1928 The conquering hero comes home to Bundaberg ‘In the Crowd. An Excited Populace. Human Touches Strong’, The Bundaberg Daily News and Mail, 28 February 1928, p. 8. Hinkler’s plane gallops up the straight at Melbourne’s Flemington Racecourse ‘Hinkler in Melbourne. Lands at Flemington Racecourse. Welcomed by 80,000 People. An Enthusiastic Reception’ , The Age, 19 March 1928, p. 11. Hinkler skims Flemington’s grandstand ‘Hinkler at Melbourne. Climax of Epic Flight. Welcome by 70,000 People. Great Demonstration at Flemington. Airman Makes Light of Feat’, The Argus, 19 March 1928, p. 19. Bert Hinkler looks small, shrewd and solid ‘Hinkler in Melbourne. Bert Hinkler. Pen Sketch of a Great Aviator. Small, Shrewd and Solid’, The Age, 19 March 1928, p. 11.

The Great Depression of the 1930s Hal Porter notices his pupils’ speckless fingernails Porter, Hal, The Paper Chase. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1966. Courtesy Estate of Hal Porter. Frank Huelin meets The Wild Man of Borneo on a train Huelin, Frank, Keep Moving. Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin Books, 1983. Courtesy Penguin Group Australia.

The building and opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, 1924–1932 Leon Gellert sees the hunched spine of steel completed, 1930 Gellert, Leon, ‘Foreword’, in Cazneaux, Harold, The Bridge Book. Sydney: Sydney Ure Smith for Art in Australia, 1930. C.J. Dennis and Captain Phillip marvel at the bridge, c. 1932 Dennis, C.J., I Dips Me Lid to the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Rhodes, N.S.W.: L. Berger, 1932. A columnist sees rearing dolphins ridden by mermaids, 19 March 1932 ‘A Woman’s Letter’, The Bulletin, 23 March 1932, p. 32. Private enterprise rears its envenomed head, 19 March 1932 ‘The Sundry Shows’, The Bulletin, 23 March 1932, p. 11. A spectacular example of Featurist irrationality Boyd, Robin, The Australian Ugliness. Melbourne: Cheshire, 1960. Courtesy Robin Boyd Foundation.

Ballets Russes in Australia, 1936–1940 Elisabeth George watches a constellation of brilliant little worlds George, Elisabeth, ‘Beauty and the Ballet. Famous Stars behind the Scenes’, The Advertiser, 12 October 1936, p. 13. Arnold Haskell eavesdrops in a bush pub Haskell, Arnold, Dancing round the World: Memoirs of an Attempted Escape from Ballet. London: V. Gollancz, 1937.

The Victorian bushfires of January 1939 Alexandria buries its dead ‘More Reports from Fire Ravaged Country Districts. Rubicon’, The Herald, 13 January 1939, p. 3. Mrs Mason’s dug-out fills with smoke ‘Reports from Affected Areas. Rubicon. Recited Prayer’, The Herald (Melbourne), 12 January 1939, p. 1. Mrs Cannon sees and hears heartbreaking things Cannon, D., ‘Brave Hearts Amid a Blackened Waste. Heroism in Grim Ordeal’, The Herald (Melbourne), 14 January 1939, p. 6. Norman McCance comes home to a sad black world McCance, Norman, ‘After the Fire had Passed—Ashes, Ashes, All Ashes’, The Australasian, 21 January 1939, p. 44.

Two air raids of the Second World War— Darwin 1942, London 1943 Hilda Abbott’s eyes seem to leap in their sockets Abbott, Hilda, Hilda and C.L.A. Abbott Papers, 1906–1971. Manuscripts Collection, National Library of Australia, MS 4744. Pat Forster has an unforgettable day Forster, Pat, The Navy in Darwin 1941–1943: A Graphic Record from a Sailor’s Sketchbooks. Darwin: Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory, 2003. Courtesy Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory. Norman Stockton sees the outline of the world’s most heroic city Stockton, Norman, Memoirs of Norman Stockton, c. 1942. Manuscripts Collection, National Library of Australia, MS 10069.

285

Francis Ratcliffe visits The Kingdom of the Dust, c. 1936 Francis Ratcliffe drives straight into a really juicy storm Ratcliffe, Francis, Flying Fox and Drifting Sand: The Adventures of a Biologist in Australia. London: Chatto and Windus, 1938. A willy-willie on a windless day Ratcliffe, Francis, Flying Fox and Drifting Sand: The Adventures of a Biologist in Australia. London: Chatto and Windus, 1938.

Hungarian athletes take the biggest gamble of their lives ‘Hungarians Sob as Athletes Go’, The Argus, 8 December 1956, p. 5.

Old Adaminaby is drowned for the greater good of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme

D.C. Parker beholds a marvellous sight Parker, D.C. ‘Percy Grainger’, The Grainger Journal, vol. 2, no. 1, July 1979, pp. 14–19. Courtesy Estate of D.C. Parker.

Bev Humphries goes for a ride in her house Humphries, Bev, ‘Old Adaminaby’, in Anita Stewart and Kathleen Cossettini (eds), The Drowning of Old Adaminaby. Khancoban, N.S.W.: Kathleeen Cossettini, 2000. Courtesy Kathleen Cossettini.

Thorold Waters hears something noisy and audacious Waters, Thorold, ‘Warriors. Grainger Startles. Audacity Grips’, Sun News-Pictorial (Melbourne), 27 October 1926, p. 23.

Nita Stewart goes back Stewart, Anita, quoted in Peter Read, Returning to Nothing: the Meaning of Lost Places. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Courtesy Anita and Leigh Stewart.

Grainger dresses for comfort ‘An Unassuming Genius. Mr. Percy Grainger’, The Advertiser (Adelaide), 8 July 1926, p. 17.

Roderick Shaw sees the waters reaching the window sills Shaw, Roderick, ‘Half a Mountain and the Last of a Town’, in Anita Stewart and Kathleen Cossettini (eds), The Drowning of Old Adaminaby. Khancoban, N.S.W.: Kathleeen Cossettini, 2000. Courtesy Kathleen Cossettini.

Percy Grainger

Frederick Delius is taken on an outing Delius, Jelka, Letter dated 4 August 1923, in Lewis Foreman (ed.), The Percy Grainger Companion. London: Thames, 1981.

The Melbourne Olympics, 1956 Dawn Fraser doesn’t like what she sees Fraser, Dawn, Dawn: One Hell of a Life. Sydney: Hodder Headline Australia, 2002. Courtesy Hachette Australia. Bruce Howard finds too much to look at Howard, Bruce, 15 Days in ’56: the First Australian Olympics. Pymble, N.S.W.: Angus & Robertson, 1995. Courtesy Bruce Howard. Bernhard Cecins says thank you to Shirley Cecins, Bernhard, ‘Women Athletes at the Melbourne Games’, in Keith Donald and Don Selth, Olympic Saga: the Track and Field Story, Melbourne, 1956. Sydney: Futurian Press, 1957.

286

New technology brings a reporter close to the Duke ‘TV Brought Great Spectacle to 200,000 Viewers’, The Age, 23 November 1956, p.7.

Paul Robeson sings at the Sydney Opera House while it’s being built, 1960 ‘S.W.K.’ hears a perfectly produced voice S.W.K, ‘Sundry Shows. Stage and Music. Paul Robeson’, The Bulletin, 16 November 1960, pp. 23–24. Faith Bandler sees Paul Robeson in a tearful rage Bandler, Faith, Interview for Film Australia’s Australian Biography Series 2: Faith Bandler, 1993, http:// www.australianbiography.gov.au/ subjects/bandler/interview1.html. ©National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.

Jørn Utzon imagines the Sydney Opera House Towering Utzon arrives in Sydney ‘Utzon Towers over Partner, Consul. Designer of Opera House Arrives, the Cheaper Way’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 July 1957, p. 1.

Utzon looks at clouds and a castle Rasmussen, Steen, and Jørn Utzon, ‘Utzon Talks: Why I Built the Opera House This Way …’, Sun-Herald (Sydney), 13 March 1966, pp. 45, 67–8. Peter Allen watches a scene unfold like a grand opera Allen, Peter, ‘Bird’s Eye View of the Festival’, Sun-Herald (Sydney), 21 October 1973, p. 2. The shells hypnotise Richard Weston Weston, Richard, ‘Monumental Appeal: Reflections on the Sydney Opera House’, in Anne Watson (ed.), Building a Masterpiece: the Sydney Opera House. Sydney: Powerhouse Publishing, 2006. Courtesy Richard Weston and Powerhouse Publishing. From a mess of traffic Peter Nicholson glimpses this amazing building Nicholson, Peter, ‘Winged Victory: The Sydney Opera House’, in Three Quarks Daily, 13 March 2006, http://3quarksdaily.blogs. com/3quarksdaily/2006/03/winged_ victory_.html. Courtesy Peter Nicholson.

Lake Pedder is lost Kevin Kiernan looks at his temple, soon to be ransacked Kiernan, Kevin, ‘I Saw My Temple Ransacked’, in Bob Brown (compiler), Lake Pedder. Hobart: Wilderness Society, 1985. Courtesy Dr Kevin Kiernan. Louis Shoobridge is converted Lake Pedder Committee of Enquiry, The Future of Lake Pedder: Report of Lake Pedder Committee of Enquiry, June 1973. Hobart: Lake Pedder Action Committee, 1973. Courtesy Lake Pedder Action Committee. Max Angus tries to describe what lost Lake Pedder was like Lake Pedder Committee of Enquiry, The Future of Lake Pedder: Report of Lake Pedder Committee of Enquiry, June 1973. Hobart: Lake Pedder Action Committee, 1973. Courtesy Lake Pedder Action Committee. Beverley Dunn is asked to put a price on Lake Pedder Lake Pedder Committee of Enquiry, The Future of Lake Pedder: Report of Lake Pedder Committee of Enquiry, June 1973. Hobart: Lake Pedder Action Committee, 1973. Courtesy Lake Pedder Action Committee.

INDEX Note: Bold page numbers refer to illustrations.

A

Abbott, Charles (Administrator of the Northern Territory) 225, 228 Abbott, Hilda (Administrator of the Northern Territory’s wife) 226 unpublished description of bombing of Darwin 225, 226–227 Aboriginal Australians Clarence River massacre 31 corroborees 6, 13–17, 14, 15, 16, 17 Myall Creek massacre 30–33, 32 Paul Robeson’s reaction to film showing life on a mission station 259 protest at opening of provisional federal Parliament House 187 superstitious of comets 48 Yarrabah Aboriginal Mission at Cairns 136–139, 138 Aboriginal children from Yarrabah Aboriginal Mission give concert 136–138 Adelaide, Ballets Russes 213, 214, 215 air raids on Darwin 224–229 on London 225, 230–231 Alary, G. 74, 75 Albury, NSW 128 Alexandria, Vic., Black Friday bushfires 220 Allen, Peter 264 Allport, Mary Morton 49 American Fleet, visit to Sydney, 1908 10, 154–159, 157 cover of The Bulletin 158, 159 crowd on Watsons Bay tram to observe 154 crowds observe Fleet from chimney tops 156 description of uncomfortable voyage to Sydney 156 dressing-up the city 156 harbour and ships’ lights 158 The Sons of Uncle Sam (welcome song) 158 souvenir medal 156 on the square-faced, pale young men with accents like banjos 155, 157 Anderson, George 31 Anderson, Joseph Ringland 212 Andrew, I.P. 238 Angus, Max 270–271 Anzac Day, first, 1916 171, 176

architecture Sydney Harbour Bridge 210 Sydney Opera House 261–264 Arnold, A.W. 70 Asquith, A.M. (Ock) 174, 175 Australian Alps 45 Australian soldiers, First World War 171 burial of a friend 174–175 characteristics 172 departure from Melbourne 174 humanity 176 love letters 173 aviators Bert Hinkler 9, 10, 190–195, 190 Harry Houdini 167, 169, 169 Avonsleigh, Vic., Black Friday bushfires 223

B

bagmen 200, 203 Baines, Thomas 3, 58 Ballarat goldfields 61, 62–63, 63, 65, 65, 66 Eureka Stockade 66–71 Ballets Russes companies touring Australia 212–217, 212, 214, 215, 216 Adelaide 213, 214, 215 Australian audiences’ enthusiasm for 215 backstage 216 Ballarat 217 Melbourne 212, 213, 214, 216 Bandler, Faith 259 Barnet, James 93 bathers and modesty, Sydney 140– 143, 140, 142 Bean, C.E.W. 101, 103 Becker, Ludwig 47, 50–51, 68 Begliakova, Irina 246 Bendigo goldfields 61, 64, 64 Bennelong 12 Bennett, Lowell 225 Bettmann, Otto 180, 181 bicycles and cyclists 100–105, 100, 102, 103, 104, 105 Mrs Maddocks studies men’s legs 104 Mrs Maddocks’ view on women riding bicycles 101, 102 riding costumes 104 shearers cycling to work 101, 103 Bigg, William Redmore 27 Bill, M.E. 223 Black Friday bushfires of Friday 13 January 1939 (Vic.) 219–223 Blainey, Geoffrey 61

Blandowski, William 6 Bluegum, Trooper (Oliver Hogue) 173, 173 bodybuilders, Sandow the Magnificent 132–135 Boer War, Australians at, 1899– 1902 114–119 Banjo Paterson’s news report 117 battlefields 116 ‘Breaker’ Morant death sentence 115, 119 burning of farm houses 118 cavalry and cannon warfare 117 Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York talk to soldiers 114 George Witton sees ‘Breaker’ Morant turn deathly pale 9, 115, 119 Gunner Sheedy’s letter home 116 hardships of soldiering 118 hospital ward decorated with flags 119 Trooper Maunsell’s letter home 118 Bondi Beach, NSW, demonstrations over skirted bathers 140, 142, 143 Boote, Henry 183 Borovansky Ballet 216, 217 Botany Bay, NSW, landing at 26 boxing, World Heavyweight Boxing Championship, Sydney, 1908 160–165 Boyd, Australian 210 Boyne, John 26 Bradfield, Dr J. 210, 211 Brady, E.J. 182 Brassac, Antonio 167, 169 Brereton, J. Le Gay 182 Brisbane floods, 1893 96–99, 96, 98, 99 houses smashed like eggs 98 newspaper reports 97–99 rescues, crowds and devastation 99 Brooke, Rupert 171, 174–175 Broomfield, Fred J. 182 Broomhall, Frank H. 148 Browne, W. Denis 174, 175 Browning, Colin Arrott 25, 27 Bruce, Robert 36 Bruce, Stanley 186, 187 Bundaberg, Qld 191, 192 Burke, Marie 259 Burn, David 25 Burns, Tommy 160, 162, 165 vs Johnson, Jack (World Heavyweight Boxing Championship, Sydney, 1908) 160–165, 160, 163 bush Christmas 35, 37, 38–39

bushfires, Vic., January 1939 218– 223, 218, 221 Alexandria 220, 221 Avonsleigh (near Emerald) 223 bushland turned into black desolation 223 deaths and homes lost 219 heartbreak stories 222 Icy Creek 223 Noojee 220, 222 survival and death in a dug-out 221 Byrne, Joe 87, 88, 91

C

Caire, Nicholas 103 Calvert, Samuel 36, 38 Cameron, Keith 53, 58 Campbell, James P. 170 Canberra provisional Parliament House 184–189, 184, 189 senators visit as possible site for federal capital 130, 130 as site for federal capital 126, 127 Canning, Surveyor 150 Cannon, Mrs D., heartbreak stories of Black Friday bushfires 222 Canny, Michael 69 Carboni, Raffaello 67 Carey, John 7, 8, 10 Cavalchini, Alfred 202 Cazneaux, Harold 11, 205, 210, 211 Cecins, Bernhard D. 246 Chevalier, Nicholas 36 Chief Protector of Aborigines for Queensland reports 136, 137, 139 Christmas bush 35, 37, 38–39 colonial Australia 34–39, 34, 36, 39 goldfields 38–39, 39 Sydney, 1839 36 on Victorian-era sea voyage to Australia 56 wattle gathering 36, 37 Christmas Bush 35 Christmas Card with Australian Wildflowers and a Butterfly 34 Clarence River massacre 31 Clarke, Hugh V., sees faces stamped with hopelessness, Great Depression 202–203 Clarke, Paddy, runs bookshop and library, Great Depression 197, 202 Clarke, Ron 247 Clements, Jimmy (King Billy) 187 Clendinnen, Inga 13 Collingridge, Alexander 194 comets 46–51, 46, 48, 50, 51

287

conscription, First World War 171, 178 convict ships 25 death of convict on 29 schooling on 27 convict uniform 28 convicts 24–30 executions 25, 29, 30 Corkhill, William Henry 105 corroborees 6, 13–17, 14, 15, 16, 17 Costello, Tom 115, 116 Cousins, Thomas Selby 38 Crapp, Lorraine 244 Crawford, Alex 149, 150 Crook, Christopher 71 Cruikshank, Robert 23 Cummins, J.A. 147 Cutler, Alfred 157 cyclists see bicycles and cyclists

D

Dalgety, NSW 127, 131 dances Aboriginal see corroborees Great Depression 200 Dangar, Henry (artist) 16 Dangar, Mr (Myall Creek) 31, 32 Darwin, air raid on, 1942 224–225, 228 Charles Abbott’s memoir 225, 228 death toll 225 Hilda Abbott’s unpublished description 225, 226–228 ships bombed 224, 225, 227, 229 Signal Station duties to spot and report bodies 229 Darwin, Charles 13, 14 de Groot, Capt. 208 Delius, Frederick 241 Delius, Jelka 241 Dell, Geoffrey 149, 150–151 Dennis, C.J., ‘I Dips Me Lid’ to the Sydney Harbor Bridge (poem) 205, 207 dole bludgers 200 dole queues 202 Donati’s Comet of 1858 47, 48, 50–51, 51 observations 50, 50 poem about 51 Dowsett, Jesse 90 Doyle, John Thomas 78 drought 147 breaking of, 1908 145, 147 Federation 128 Dugdale, Carl T. 234 Dunbar (passenger ship), wreck of, Sydney 10, 76–81, 76, 78, 80 funerals 80 James Johnson, sole survivor’s account 77, 78 reporter’s accounts 79, 80 rescue of the sailor 81 scene in the Gap 79 Dunn, Beverley 273 Dunne, Frank 190 Dupain, Max 196, 262

288

Durrell, Gerald 19 dust storm Melbourne 232–233, 232, 235 New South Wales 234, 234 Dwyer, Constable 89

E

Earle, Augustus 52 Edwards, Rev. Thomas 19 escapologists, Harry Houdini 166– 169, 166, 168 Eureka Stockade 66, 67–68, 68, 69, 70 background to dispute 67 eyewitness account of events 67–68 reminiscences of 69–71 Exhibition Building, Melbourne, Federation events 106, 107, 112 explorers, Ernest Giles 82–85, 82, 83, 84, 85

F

Failes, Laurie 250 Farr, Edward (boundary rider on rabbit-proof fence) 150 federal capital, search for a site for 126–131, 126, 128 during heatwave 127, 129 Eliot Johnson remembers Dalgety 127, 131 newspaper reports 129–130 senators bathing in Snowy River at Dalgety 131 senators visit Albury and Wagga 127, 128, 128 senators visit Canberra 130, 130 senators visit Mahkoolma 129 federal Parliament opening, Melbourne 106, 107, 112 provisional, Canberra 184–189, 184 Federation occasions, 1901 106–113 crowds at Melbourne events 112 grand parade and crowds, Sydney 108, 110 news reports Melbourne 111–112 Sydney 109–110 official ceremony, Sydney 107, 109 opening of federal Parliament, Exhibition Building, Melbourne 106, 107, 112 street arches and decorations, Melbourne 111, 113 Fikotova, Olga 246 Finch, Tamara Tchinarova 213, 216, 217, 217 Finlay (Finelly), John (Port Arthur, Tas.) 24 fire, Sydney Garden Palace 92–95 First World War 170–179, 172 Anzac Day, first, 1916 171, 176 Australian soldiers 171, 172–176, 179 burial of Rupert Brooke on the way to Gallipoli 171, 174–175

conscription 171, 178 departure from Melbourne 174 enlistment pleas and poster 177, 177 Gallipoli 171, 176 Kia-ora Coo-ee (magazine cover) 174 trenches 170 Trooper Bluegum letters 173, 173 Villers-Bretonneux, France 171, 179 Western Front 171 Fitz Henry, W.E. 183 Fitz Roy, Capt. 14 Fitzpatrick, Jim 101 Flannery, Tim 83 Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne, Hinkler lands at 193–194 Flinders, Matthew 19, 21 floods, Brisbane, 1893 96–99, 96, 98, 99 Flynn, John 102, 234 Forde, Helena 20, 34 Forster, Adam 40 Forster, Pat 229 Francis, Thomas (Port Arthur, Tas.) 24 Fraser, Dawn 244 television appearance 244 Fryberg, Lt. Commander 175

G

Gallipoli, Turkey 171, 176 Garfield, Garnet, The Transvaal War 117 Gellert, Leon 206 George, Elizabeth 213, 214 George Rose (firm) 111 Gerard-Novak, Eva 245 German air raids on London, 1943 225, 230–231, 230, 231 Gibbs, May 172 Gibbs, Shallard & Co. (firm) 92 Gibney, Rev. Matthew 91, 91 Gilbert, John 19, 22 Giles, Ernest (explorer) 82–85, 82, 83, 84 map showing routes travelled 85 Gill, Henry Pelham 124 Gill, Samuel Thomas 33, 62, 64, 78 Gilmore, Mary 31 Gipps, Sir George 3, 26, 31, 32 Glenelg, Lord 31 gold rushes 60–71, 60, 62, 64, 65 Ballarat and Bendigo, 1851–1854 61, 62–3, 64, 64, 65, 66–70 Kalgoorlie, 1895 61, 64 goldfields Christmas on 38–39, 39 Eureka Stockade 66–71 Goossens, Colette 245 Graham, Harold J. 146 Grainger, Ella 238

Grainger, Percy (musician and composer) 236–241, 236, 238, 240, 241 D.C. Parker recalls an impromptu recital 238 dresses comfortably 240 noisy and audacious sound of ‘The Warriors’ 240 personal appearance and characteristics 237 takes Frederick Delius on an outing 241 ‘The Warriors’ (music) 239 Gratton, John and David 249 Great Comet of 1843 47, 48, 48, 49, 49 as seen on board H.C.S.V. Victoria 46 Great Depression of the 1930s 196–203, 196 dole queues 202 and enlistment, Second World War 203 Hal Porter’s observations 198 Hugh Clarke’s sees faces stamped with hopelessness 202–3 memoirs 199–200 ‘train jumpers’ stories 197, 199– 200, 203 unemployment 197–203, 198, 200, 201 Great War see First World War Grimwade, John F.T. 198 ‘Gumnut Corps’ (Gibbs) 172

H

Hall, Hugh P. 214, 216 Ham, Thomas 63 Handcock, Lt. 115 Hart, Steve 86, 87, 88 Harwood, W.C. 73 Haskell, Arnold L. 213, 215 Hayes, Catherine (soprano) performance in Melbourne 72, 73–75 performance in Sydney 74 Variations (music) sung by 75 heatwave Melbourne, 1908 144–146, 144, 146 southern NSW, 1906 127, 129 Henderson, John Black 69 Heysen, Nora 18 Hindmarsh, John S. 53, 56–57 Hinkler, Bert (aviator) 190 being pulled on to Monument of Fame by Smith and Lindbergh (cartoon) 192 Certificate of Air Worthiness 193 flies from England to Australia 9, 10, 190–195, 190, 193, 195 comes homes to Bundaberg 191, 192 lands at Melbourne’s Flemington Racecourse 193–194 personality and characteristics 195

Hobbs, William 7, 31 observations of Myall Creek massacre site 33 Hogue, Oliver (‘Trooper Bluegum’) 173, 173 Hopetoun, Lord 107, 109 Hopkins, Livingston 39 Houdini, Harry (escapologist and aviator), in Melbourne 166–169, 166 aeroplane flight at Diggers Rest 167, 169, 169 plunges into Yarra River 167, 168, 168 Howard, Bruce 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249 Howarde, Louis L. 158 Howson, Walter 70 Huelin, Frank, meets the Wild Man of Borneo 199 Hughes, Billy 171, 178, 186 Humphries, Bev 254 Hungary invaded by Soviets 253 Hunt, Capt. (Boer War) 115 Hunter, Alberta 259 Hunter, Capt. John 7, 13, 15–17 Hurley, Frank 252, 253

I

Icy Creek, Vic., Black Friday bushfires 223 Igloi, Mihaly 248

J

Jackson, Harry 70 Japanese air raid on Darwin, 1942 224–229, 224, 227, 228, 229 Jessup, Frank 183 Johnson, Jack 160, 162, 165 see also Burns, Tommy vs Johnson, Jack (World Heavyweight Boxing Championship, Sydney, 1908) Johnson, James (survivor of Dunbar wreck) 77, 78, 78, 80 Johnson, William Elliot, MP 131 Joshua, John Michael 179

K

Kalgoorlie gold mines 61, 64 Kangaroo Island 21 kangaroos 18–23, 18, 20, 120 behaviour when threatened 22, 22 exhibited in London 23, 23 hunting of 21 poems about 20 Kealey, E.V. 210 Kelly, Dan 86, 87, 88 Kelly, Frederick Septimus 171, 174–175 Kelly, Ned 86, 87, 88, 89, 90 Kelly Gang and siege at Glenrowan 86–91, 86 at Mrs Jones’ hotel 87, 88, 88 capture of Ned Kelly 90 Constable Dwyer’s evidence 89

James Reardon’s testimony 88 Jesse Dowsett’s testimony 90 John Sadlier’s recollections 90, 91 Rev. Matthew Gibney’s evidence 91 Kemp, Rev. C.C. 80 Keneally, Tom 67 Kern, Jerome 259 Kerry Photo (firm) 162 Kertesz, Alice 248 Kiernan, Kevin 268 King George Sound, WA 13, 14 Kirsova, Hélène 212, 214 Kohler, Gisela 246

L

Lacy, George 22 Lafrenz, Anne-Catherine 246 Lake Eucumbene, NSW 251, 253 Lake Pedder, Tas. 266–273 Beverley Dunn puts a price on 272–273 Committee of Enquiry testimony reports 267–273 Kevin Kiernan reflects on what was lost 268 loss through flooding for hydroelectric scheme 267–273 Louis Shoobridge’s testimony 269 Max Angus describes what the Lake was like 270–271 Olegas Truchanas 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273 Lalor, Peter 68, 68 Lang, Jack 208 Lawrence, D.H. 19, 20 Lawson, Henry 9, 10, 180–183, 180, 183 with E.J. Brady at Mallacoota 182 Fr Tansey’s recollections of 183 Fred Broomfield’s recollections 182 ‘Ghosts of Christmases past’ 38–39, 38 ‘The Ghosts of Many Christmases’ 35 Henry Boote’s thoughts 182 peers into Le Gay Brereton’s eyes 182 recollections of, by people who loved him 181–183 W.E. Fitz Henry sees a look of misery on Lawson’s face 183 Leech, Faith 245 Lichine, David 214 Lidji, Jacques 213 Lindsay, Norman 160 Lister, Charles 175 Lister, W. Lister 126 London, German air raids on, 1943 225, 230–231, 230 Longstaff, John 10 Luke, Edward Thomas 127, 128, 131 Lycett, Joseph 15 Lyne, Sir William 128

M

Macarthur, James 41, 42 McCance, Norman 223 McCrae, George Gordon 88 McGlennon, Felix, Sons of Australia (music) 116 McIntosh, Hugh D. (entrepreneur and boxing referee) 161, 163 McMurdo, Don 265 Maconochie, Capt. Alexander 25, 26 McRae, Tommy 17 Maddock, Mrs (NSW Cycling Gazette) on men’s and women’s riding costumes 104 studies men’s legs 104 on women riding bicycles 101, 102 Mahkoolma, NSW 129 Maiden, J.H. 35 Manly, NSW, demonstration over skirted bathers 143 Marony, Patrick William 90, 91 Masefield, John 171 Mason, George W. 72, 74 Mason, Mrs (Black Friday bushfires) 221 Maunsell, Trooper G. (Boer War) 118 May, Edith 259 Melba, Dame Nellie (Melbourne concerts) 7, 8, 120–125, 120, 124 annoyed by photographer 125 crowds greet her arrival in Melbourne 121 illuminated address at public reception 122 newspaper reports 122–4 ‘Peter Quince’ reports 121, 123, 124 singing national anthem at opening of Parliament drowned out by aeroplanes 185, 187, 187 ‘The Don’ describes her voice 123, 133 visit to Lilydale 124–125, 124, 125 Melbourne Ballets Russes 212, 213, 214, 216 beer drinking and bathing during 1908 heatwave 146 Bert Hinkler lands his plane at Flemington Racecourse 193 Catherine Hayes musical performance in 73–75 crowds at Federation events 112 Donati’s Comet 50–51 dust storm 232–233, 232, 235 Exhibition Building, opening of federal Parliament 106, 107, 112 Harry Houdini (escapologist and aviator) 166–169 heatwave, 1908 144–146, 144, 146 impact of gold rush on 61 Nellie Melba crowds and performance 121–125

Olympic Games, 1956 242–249, 242, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249 Sandow the Magnificent (bodybuilder) performs in 133–135 street arches and decorations, Federation 111, 113 Melbourne Bicycle Club 103 Meredith, Louisa Anne 7 observations on Catherine Hayes performance in Melbourne 73, 74 observations of Great Comet 49 Sydney Christmas, 1839 36 Mereweather, Rev. John 53, 54 Mildenhall, William James 186 Miller, Roman H. (crewman with US Fleet) 155, 156 Mitchell, Nellie see Melba, Nellie Molineaux, Thomas (Port Arthur, Tas.) 24 Monash, General John 171, 176 Monte Carlo Russian Ballet Adelaide 213, 214 Melbourne 212 Moore, Edward Charles 54 Moore, Teddy 68, 69 Morant, Harry ‘Breaker’ 9, 115, 119 Mount Kosciuszko 44, 45 ascent of 42 Europeans reach peak of 41–45 Strzelecki reaches summit 41, 42, 45 view from summit 43 wildflowers 41 Murrow, Edward R. 225 musicians, Percy Granger 236–241 Myall Creeek massacre 30–3, 32 description of capture of Aborigines 32 observations of massacre site 33

N

Neild, Senator Colonel John 127 New Adaminaby, NSW 251, 252 Nicholson, Peter 265 Nicholls, Peter 84 Nilsson, Birgit 257 Noojee, Vic., Black Friday bushfires 220, 222 Norfolk Island penal colony 25, 26 condemned convict’s stories 29 executions 25, 29 treatment of convicts 26

O

Old Adaminaby, NSW 250 being flooded 252–253, 252, 253 drowned by creation of Lake Eucumbene 250–251 relics appear during 1983 drought in Lake Eucumbene 255 transportation of houses from 254 Old Jimmy (guide on Giles expedition) 84

289

Olympic Games, Melbourne, 1956 242–249, 249 medal ceremony 246 opening ceremony, colour and fashion 245, 245 Ron Clarke runs into stadium with Olympic Torch 247 Russia vs Hungary spiteful water polo match 242 swimming event 244 tearful departure of Hungarian athletes after 248 tears of joy and disappointment 246 television coverage 244, 247 opera singers, Nellie Melba 7, 8, 120–125 Ordogh, Zsuzsa 248 O’Reilly, Bernard 8, 145, 147

P

Palmer, Nettie 100 Parker, D.C. 238 Parliament House (provisional), Canberra, inauguration 184– 189, 186, 189 crowds and Aboriginal protester attend opening 187, 187 Dame Nellie Melba singing national anthem drowned out by aeroplanes 185, 187, 187 furnishings 186 The Morning After (poem) 189 opened by Duke of York 188 Senate chamber 188 small crowd greet Duke and Duchess of York 186, 186 woman’s impression of the opening 188 Paterson, A.B. ‘Banjo’ Boer War reports 115, 117 writes from Egypt, WWI 178 pawnshops 198 Peele, Richard 46 penal system 24–30 Petroff, Paul 215 Phillip, Capt. Arthur 207 Phillips, Nat 195 Picton, Lt. 115 Pike, B.E. 177 Pockley, Ethel 94 Poignant, Axel 240 politicised events Paul Robeson champions workers’ causes by singing at Sydney Opera House 257–258, 258 Soviet forces invade Hungary 243 Ponomaryeva, Nina 246 porpoise 59 Port Arthur penal colony, Tas. 25 description of convicts at 28 men at 24 Port Jackson, NSW 13, 15–17, 23, 25 Porter, Hal 53 Postle, Cliff 9 Potter, Mrs Foster (Black Friday bushfires) 221

290

Potts, David 197 Powerful (Australian squadron flagship) 158 Price, Julius M. 61 prison hulks 27 Proimos, Alex E. 260 Pugsley, Harry 197, 200

Q

‘Quince, Peter’ 121, 123, 124

R

rabbit-proof fences, WA 148–153, 148 country along 153 hardships of boundary riders 150–151 lonely patrols of 149–151 and rabbit migrations 152 surveying to mark out line of 150 rabbits, loaded on motor lorry 151 rain’s arrival following drought 145, 147 Raistrick & Co. (firm) 207 Ranunculus lappaceus 40 Rasmussen, Steen 263 Ratcliffe, Francis 8, 233, 234, 235 Rattray, Alan M. 158 Reardon, James 88 Rhodes, Jon 12 Riabouchinska, Tatiana 214, 215, 216 Roberts, Tom 106, 107 Robertson, Daniel (child) 58 Robeson, Paul 256, 259 angered by film showing treatment of Aboriginal people on mission station 259 champions workers’ causes by singing at Sydney Opera House while under construction 257–258, 258 Faith Bandler meets 259 Rogers, Rev. Thomas 25, 29 Rolland, H.M. 184 Roosevelt, Theodore 155 Roper, Edward 39 Rostoff, Dimitri 215 Rozsavolgyi, Istvan 248 Rubicon forest, near Alexandria, Vic., Black Friday bushfires 220, 221 Rubinstein, Martin 217 Rule, E.J. 171, 179 Russel (Myall Creek massacre) 32 Ryland, Bill, train jumping 203

S

Sadlier, John 90, 91 Sandow, Eugen (Sandow the Magnificent, bodybuilder), performs in Melbourne 132–135, 132 bemuscled right arm 133, 136 fold-out page from his book 133, 135

private anatomical display 134 programs for his tour of Australia 134 shows off muscles and strength 134–135 school students, Great Depression 198 sea voyages to Australia (Victorian era) 52–59, 52, 56, 57 Christmas Day at Sea (poem) 56 death of child and burial at sea 58 description of life on board migrant ship 54, 55 emigrants armed against attack from another vessel 55 Moonrise (poem) 57 newspapers 53, 58 passing an iceberg 58 porpoises aglow with phosphorescent light 59 reception for an albatross 54 Storm (poem) 57 wreck of the Dunbar 76–81, 76, 78, 80 Searle, Edward William 189, 206, 208, 209 Second World War 224–231 enlistment after Great Depression 203 German air raid on London 225, 230–231, 230, 231 Japanese air raid on Darwin 224– 249, 224, 227, 228, 229 Seselja, Loui 263 Shaw, Roderick 251 shearers, cycling to work 101 Sheedy, Gunner (Boer War) 116 Shoobridge, Louis 269 singers Catherine Hayes, soprano, performs in Melbourne 72, 73–75 Nellie Melba 7, 8, 120–125, 120 Sleap, F.A. 68 Smith, Rev. Thomas 23 Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme 251, 254 Southern Cross flag 66, 67, 68, 71 Soviet forces invade Hungary 243 sport, Olympic Games, Melbourne, 1956 242–249 squatters, attack on Aboriginal camp 33 Staniland, Charles Joseph 55 Steane, Capt. 79, 80 Stewart, Anita 251, 255 Stewart Dawson & Company (firm) 183 Stockton, Norman 225, 230–231 Stretton, Leonard 219 Strickland, Shirley 246 Strutt, William 53, 55, 61 rushes to Ballarat goldfields 62–63 Strzelecki, Count Paul Edmund de 41, 42, 45

Stuart, Richard Wingfield 104 sussoes 198 Sutherland (Port Arthur, Tas.) 24 Sweyd, Irene 245 swimsuits and modesty, Sydney 140–143, 140, 142 Sydney beachwear and modesty 140–143, 140, 142 Catherine Hayes performance in 74 Christmas, 1839 36 crowds at Federation parade 110 heatwave, 1908 145 official ceremony and parade, Federation 107, 108, 109 US Great White Fleet visit, 1908 10, 154–159, 157, 157, 158, 159 World Heavyweight Boxing Championship, 1908 160–165, 160, 163, 165 wreck of the Dunbar 10, 76–81, 76, 78, 80, 81 Sydney Garden Palace 94, 95 Sydney Garden Palace fire 92–95, 92, 95 crowds watch 95 news reporter’s description of 94–95 schoolgirl Ethel Pockley’s letter to her brother 94 trees nearby baked by 95 Sydney Harbour Bridge 204–211, 204, 207, 211 building 205, 205, 206, 211 C.J. Dennis’ poem about 205, 207 as example of Featurist irrationality 210 Great Arch completed 206 as image of Australia 210 opening 9, 11, 205, 208–209, 208, 209 private enterprise at opening 209 Sydney International Exhibition of 1879–1880 93, 94, 95 Sydney Opera House 260, 263 Birgit Nilsson first grand star to sing at 257 with boats in foreground 265 on the geometry of the shells 264 Jørn Utzon’s design 261–263, 264 models 264 opening 264 Paul Robeson champions workers’ causes by singing for construction workers at 257–258 under construction 262 Utzon as scapegoat for its many problems 261 Synnot, Walter 48

T

Tabori, Lazlo 248 Tansey, Fr Michael 183 Taylor, Thomas John Domville 33

Tchinarova, Tamara see Finch, Tamara Tchinarova television, Melbourne Olympic Games 244, 247 ‘The Don’ 123, 133 Thomson, Alderman Lindsay 156 Thornton, George 80 Thrower, Norma 246 ‘train jumpers’ stories, Great Depression 197, 199–200 train jumping 203 transportation (convicts) 25, 27 Truchanas, Olegas 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273 Truelock (convict, Norfolk Island) 29 Twain, Mark 59

U

unemployment, Great Depression 197–203, 198, 200, 201 Upfield, Arthur 149, 152, 152 US Fleet, visit to Sydney, 1908 10, 154–159, 154, 157, 158, 159 Utzon, Jørn (Sydney Opera House architect) 261–263, 264 inspiration for Sydney Opera House based on Kronborg Castle at Elsinore 261, 262, 263 personality 262

V

Van Diemen’s Land penal colonies 25, 26 Vaughan, E. 70 Victoria, Queen 156 Victoria, bushfires, January, 1939 219–223, 218, 220, 221, 222, 223 Villers-Bretonneux, France 171, 179 von Guerard, Eugene 43, 44

W

Wagga Wagga, NSW 128 war Boer War 114–119 First World War 170–179 Second World War 203, 224–231 Waters, Thorold 240 Western Australia, rabbit-proof fences 148–153, 148 Western Front 171 Weston, Richard 264 Westwood, William (‘Jackey Jackey’) 25, 29 Wheeler, Roy 227 Whiting (convict, Norfolk Island) 29 Wilcox, Craig 115 wildflowers 40, 41 willy-willies 235 wind erosion 233

Wise, Capt. 67, 69 Witton, Lt. George (Boer War), sees ‘Breaker’ Morant turn deathly pale 9, 115, 119 Woizikovsky, Sonia 214 women cyclists 101, 102 World Heavyweight Boxing Championship, Sydney, 1908 (Tommy Burns vs Jack Johnson) 160–165, 160, 163, 165 A Song of Stoush (poem) 164 crowd sees supremacy of the white race go to the devil 162–163 promoted as White versus Black races 161 World War I see First World War World War II see Second World War

Y

Yarrabah Aboriginal Mission at Cairns 136–139, 138 Chief Protector of Aborigines for Queensland reports 137, 139 clergyman’s report on visit to 139 concert and choir 138 Yonge, Charles Maurice 138 York, Duke and Duchess of 107, 186, 186, 187, 188 Younger, Montague 10

291

A

australian  history live!

IAN WARDEN is an essayist and journalist who writes a daily column, with a historical bias, for The Canberra Times. He lives in Canberra with his wife Sandra Lauffenburger and a cast of dogs and cats. Ian’s inspiration for this book came from a dream of time travel — to watch history being made — and from his deep respect for writers, often journalists, who write beautifully in spite of frenzied deadlines.

ustralian History Live! presents an intriguing and entertaining look at our nation’s past, from early colonial times to the late twentieth century. The book is a collection of vivid descriptions of Australian events, great and small, written by the people who were there—a priest sharing the last night on earth of three condemned convicts, an explorer nearly dying of thirst in the desert, a soldier writing home during the First World War, a journalist covering the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Chosen from scores of letters, diaries, memoirs, books, magazines and newspapers for their ability to bring the past powerfully to life, these eyewitness accounts will transport you back in time. You are there with the rebellious diggers as the battle for the Eureka Stockade unfolds, with police as they move in to capture Ned Kelly, with terrified men, women and children as a deadly bushfire bears down on them, and with architect Jørn Utzon as he imagines his new opera house. Nellie Melba, Bert Hinkler, Breaker Morant, Henry Lawson and Dawn Fraser are among the cast of characters. But it’s not only the famous who feature here. These accounts also record the minor moments usually forgotten by history—like the joyous breaking of a long drought, or a new settler adapting to Christmas far from ‘home’. Lavishly illustrated with hundreds of photographs, cartoons, paintings and drawings held by the National Library of Australia, Australian History Live! takes you on a richly rewarding journey into a past that feels as real as the present. These stories have been collected and introduced by Ian Warden, who has brought his journalist’s eye to bear when choosing the significant, quirky, moving and passionate eyewitness evidence of our past.

australian history live! Eyewitness accounts from the past

Selected and introduced by Eyewitness Australia

ISBN 978-0-642-27778-7

http://bookshop.nla.gov.au

Australian history

IAN WARDEN