Camden Park House

Camden Park House Source: Adventures in Biography Took my family to Sydney for the weekend, ostensibly for a quick sightseeing stopover but actually so that we could attend the annual open day at Camden Park House. We were lucky with the rain, and managed to explore the house and extensive gardens before it poured. * * * * * During the first week of June 1805 the signal was made at Sydney Harbour's South Head and Elizabeth’s prayers were answered. John Macarthur, having left NSW for England in [...]

2018-03-25T13:09:33+11:00September 26th, 2016|Colonial History, Work in Progress|7 Comments

Elizabeth Macarthur’s Quilt at the National Gallery of Victoria

The gallery had sold out of the glossy, colour catalogue for Making the Australian Quilt: 1800–1950 by the time I saw the exhibition last week. But I had a terrific chat with the young woman serving at the museum shop while I placed an order to have the catalogue mailed out (at a discounted rate, no less). "Isn't it interesting," she said, "how contemporary some of those quilt designs are. It's amazing to think they predated modernism by decades.  But not acknowledged, of course." She gave me a gorgeous, wry [...]

Australian Colonial Dance

Serendipity used to mean flicking through a dictionary and finding interesting and unusual words. But now it means stumbling across fascinating websites.  Like this one: Australian Colonial Dance. It's a lovely little blog about dance and music in colonial Australia, with interesting information and (crucially) bibliographic lists of sources. Of course my favourite post is the one describing Australia's first piano. Surgeon George Worgan, thirty-three, had improbably managed to bring a piano with him on the First Fleet.  In 1790 he gallantly began to tutor Elizabeth Macarthur, telling her [...]

2018-03-24T22:48:58+11:00October 21st, 2015|Colonial History|8 Comments

Catchy Titles are Crucial

Original Illustration by ColinThompson - find out more at www.colinthompson.com What is it about a catchy book title?  What makes us pick up this book, instead of that one?  I don't think it's just the title but it's not nothing, either. Off the top of my head, some of my favourite Australian titles (not my favourite books, just the titles) include: Monkey Grip (surely the best title in the history of the world?) The Tyranny of Distance Possum Magic Tomorrow, When the War Began Power Without Glory Cloudstreet [...]

2018-03-25T00:50:04+11:00September 20th, 2015|Work in Progress, Writing|0 Comments

Marsden Online Archive

Samuel Marsden. Picture source: Wikimedia Commons It still amazes me that I can sit on my couch of an evening (fire crackling, tv blaring, #1 son immersed in the XBox) and yet the miracle that is the Internet means I can read a journal from 1814 in the original. Shall we pause for moment to consider how brilliant that is? The particular journal I found belonged to one Rev Samuel Marsden.  In Australia he was more or less reviled as the flogging parson but apparently he was (and, [...]

Maligning Mr Leach – the gaps are where the mysteries lie

Someone asked me the other day if the biography I'm working on will contain any fictional elements. Um, no. If it did it, wouldn't it be a work of historical fiction, and not a biography? And yet, I do confess, the temptation to create fiction - to fill in the gaps - is strong. Occasionally within the text of my manuscript I offer some brief conjecture.  But I'm careful to make it very clear that conjecture and guess-work (albeit educated guess-work) is all that it is.  However sometimes my conjecture [...]

HARDCOPY Professional Development Program – the preparation

The flights and accommodation are booked.  Several work meetings and dinner with a colleague are all lined up.  The suitcase is out of the shed and waiting to be filled with too many shoes.  I always pack too many shoes but how can I possibly know in advance which ones I'll need...? The HARDCOPY program organisers have asked each participant to bring 5 copies of the first 5 pages of our manuscript.  Hmmmm. The first 5 pages of my manuscript have been in existence for so long that they have [...]

2018-03-21T14:55:37+11:00May 27th, 2015|Writing|9 Comments

Saying Goodbye to your Children

This week I waved my son off to camp - he'll be away for nine days.  Elizabeth Macarthur waved her young sons off too, to be educated in England, for years at a time.  I don't think I can imagine how she felt.  Or can I? Inga Clendinnen explored the problem at length in The History Question: Who owns the past? (Quarterly Essay, Issue 23) We cannot post ourselves back in time. People really did think differently then – or at least we must proceed on that assumption...It is true that [...]

Raffles and Marsden

This was going to be the best blog post ever.  Well, best post since the last one anyway. I was going to include some photos of Fort Canning Park, in Singapore, which is near where I'm staying (yes, another work trip). Photo: Adventures in Biography And then I was going to mention how this park in the heart of downtown Singapore is where Raffles' original house was built, on a small hill overlooking the river. I hoped to say something witty about how plain old Thomas Raffles started [...]

2018-03-21T14:55:40+11:00February 10th, 2015|Colonial History, Life|0 Comments

Never just a farmer’s wife

I'm often asked what sparked my interest in Elizabeth Macarthur. Harriett Pettifore Brims (1864-1939), Harriett Brims' photographic studio and residence, Ingham, Queensland, ca. 1894-1900. Image courtesy of John Oxley Library through Picture Queensland: 146939. Many years ago I managed a government grants program and had the privilege to work with some grant applicants from outback Queensland - including a group of women farmers.  I was very green and the farmers were very kind.  They took the time to explain to me that there was no such thing - [...]

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