Touching hands with Anzacs: a re-evaluation of 1920s War Service Homes in NSW

Terry Kass

Australians make pilgrimages to Gallipoli for the dawn service and distant battlefields on Anzac Day or Armistice Day to commune with Anzacs. They often ignore evidence directly associated with Anzacs all around us, in capital cities, suburbs and country towns in the form of dwellings constructed by the War Service Homes Commission in the 1920s. This paper aims to provide a more balanced assessment of the work of the Commission than has been the case to date.

Beaumont & Waller’s Botanical & Zoological Gardens, at the Sir Joseph Banks Hotel, Botany Bay 1848–61

Mark St Leon

In 1848, William Beaumont, with the assistance of his business partner, James Waller, began to transform the gardens and grounds surrounding the Sir Joseph Banks Hotel at Botany Bay into a pleasure resort. The resort, named Beaumont & Waller’s Botanical and Zoological Gardens, would be quickly established as one of Sydney’s favourite outlets for public leisure and recreation. This article outlines its origins and development until its demise in 1861 in the context of early Sydney’s social and civic developments. The article concludes by identifying the resort’s three major legacies.

Ingleside Powder Works: ‘a curious colonial enterprise’

Keith Amos

The mysterious past of Ingleside Powder Works has never been fully explained due to conflicting interpretations about the motives of its 1880s designer and superintendent, Carl von Bieren. What brought him to Australia from the USA, and why did the works fail to produce gunpowder? This article contends the works were ostensibly built to produce explosives, but in reality, to facilitate an affluent lifestyle for the man who purported to be ‘Carl von Bieren’ and his supposed wife, Anna. Evident is a remarkable web of deceit spun by a 19th-century confidence man.

Thomas Wilson Esq and the natural history collections of First Fleet Surgeon John White

Matthew Fishburn

Thomas Wilson Esq, a Londoner, was the driving force behind the publication of three of the most important early Australian books, especially in terms of natural history: First Fleet surgeon John White’s Journal (1790), James Edward Smith’s Botany of New Holland (1793) and George Shaw’s Zoology of New Holland (1794). Although known to have joined the Linnean Society and to have employed the artists Sarah Stone and James Sowerby, Wilson has long been an enigmatic figure. This essay discusses the remarkable breadth of White’s collections on his behalf and reveals that Wilson was, in fact, a wealthy apothecary, not only a patron of White but an important supporter of Matthew Flinders, as well as being tangentially connected to two other surgeons associated with New South Wales, John Lowes and George Bass. Wilson was the central figure in an important professional network that was openly competing with the socially grander and far better-recorded coterie of Sir Joseph Banks.

Book Reviews

Robert Cox, Broken Spear: the untold story of Black Tom Birch, the man who sparked Australia’s bloodiest war, Wakefield Press, Mile End, SA, 2021, xxi + 299 pages; ISBN 9781743058671.

Anthony Webster, The Foundation of Australia’s Capital Cities: Geology, Landscape, and Urban Character, Lexington Books, Maryland, USA, 2022, xii + 327 pages; ISBN 9781498597951.

Heather Goodall, Georges River Blues: Swamps, Mangroves and Resident Action, 1945–1980, ANU Press, World Forest History Series, Canberra, 2022, 305 pages; ISBN 9781760464622.

Brendan Atkins, The Naturalist: the remarkable life of Allan Riverstone McCulloch, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, 2022, viii + 190 pages; ISBN 9781742237756.

Alan Atkinson, Elizabeth & John: The Macarthurs of Elizabeth Farm, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2022, xi + 500 pages; ISBN 9781742237565.

June Factor, Soldiers and Aliens: Men in the Australian Army’s Employment Companies during World War II, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2022, xvi + 327 pages; ISBN 9780522878585.

Joan Beaumont, Australia’s Great Depression: How a nation shattered by the Great War survived the worst economic crisis it has ever faced, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2022, ix + 565 pages; ISBN 9781760293987.

Joel Stephen Birnie, My People’s Songs: How an Indigenous Family Survived Colonial Tasmania, Monash University Publishing, Clayton, Vic, 2022, xxi + 231 pages; ISBN 9781922633187.

Patricia Clarke, Bold Types: how Australia’s first women journalists blazed a trail, National Library of Australia Publishing, Canberra, 2022, xv + 256 pages; ISBN 9781922507372.

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‘Extensive plans of immigration’: Governor Bourke and the beginnings of Australian assisted immigration, 1831-1838

Richard Reid

In that 299-word encomium on the public statue to the colony of New South Wales’ first Irish governor, Sir Richard Bourke, outside the State Library is the claim: ‘He raised the revenue to a vast amount, and, from its surplus, realised extensive plans of immigration.’ At a time when convicts were arriving in Sydney in unprecedented numbers, the reference here is not to the transportation of felons but the early development of that large program of government-assisted immigration, which within virtually ten years, changed the demographics of the colony from one based on convicts, emancipists and their children to one increasingly based on free immigrants. This article examines the extent to which Bourke can be credited with that change.

Bowral and the fraternity of ‘Noble Men’: Freemasonry in Bowral and the Southern Highlands of NSW

Alan Jacobs

Lodge Carnarvon is one of only two lodges that remain in existence in the Southern Highlands of NSW. The history of Lodge Carnarvon in Bowral is examined from its inauguration in 1888. Access to the internal records of Lodge Carnarvon and local newspapers enabled the author to make a detailed study of the membership, including demographics and professional backgrounds. The rise and fall of the membership of Carnarvon is placed within the context of the trajectory of all Freemasons under the United Grand Lodge of NSW. Lodge Carnarvon members exerted a decisive influence on the township of Bowral, but their membership of the fraternity usually was not disclosed or acknowledged. These men constituted the backbone of the business community and local government and helped to build the social capital of Bowral and its surrounds. In 1950 the Mayor (H.F. Venables) referred to one Carnarvon freemason (Joshua Stokes) as one of the Noble Four of Bowral. However, Stokes and the other Freemasons were not identified as members of the fraternity. Twenty-eight years later, the Shire President (Cr. Peter Reynolds) proclaimed that: ‘… members of the Council considered it an honour to accord to Lodge Carnarvon a civic reception in recognition of their support and involvement in the community for 100 years.’

Catholic Action, Sydney style: Catholic lay organisations from friendly societies to the Vice Squad

James Franklin

Sydney Catholics in the mid-twentieth century were organised into a large number of active and effective associations, from parish sodalities and professional guilds up to the Cahill government. Parish-based and larger organisations supplied a body of people accustomed to uniformity of beliefs and coordinated action in support of those beliefs, easily mobilised against Communism and in favour of Catholic moral and political positions. Pragmatic, informed by implicit moral views rather than explicit theory, and clerically controlled, Catholic Action in Sydney proved more able than its Melbourne counterpart in controlling the levers of political power. The Cahill government built on this organisational infrastructure to implement in law and policing a conservative moral agenda.

Protection or Persecution? Victoria’s Chinese Protectors

Rob Coutts

In 1855 the Victorian Colonial Government appointed Chinese Protectors. Taken as a whole, from 1855 to 1863, the Protectorate belied its name, but conversely, it is suggested that the British humanitarian movement influenced its creation and early implementation. A distinction is made between the Protectorate’s administration before and after the 1857 Chinese Residence Act. This Act aimed to charge (only) the Chinese a fee to continue living in Victoria or leave the country. The proposal is that the Protectorate was created and implemented with humanitarian intent until the 1857 Act re-purposed it into an instrument of revenue collection and persecution.

Thief or prostitute? Questioning the evidence against women transported to Australia

Kathrine M. Reynolds & Carol Liston

Accounts of women in Australia during the convict period are dominated by assumptions that many of the convict women had worked as prostitutes in Britain and continued to carry on their trade in the colony. The crimes that led to their transportation are overlooked or are assumed to involve prostitution. This paper investigates British sources about their crimes to understand the extent to which these crimes were associated with prostitution. Many of the women used the promise of sex to lure men into situations where they could be robbed. Building case studies around three convict ships, we trace the women’s crimes in Britain, seeking to determine if those crimes involved acts of prostitution and were the source of their designation as prostitutes.

Book Reviews

Robert Wainwright, Nellie: the life and loves of Dame Nellie Melba, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2021, 344 pages; ISBN 9781760878252.

Stuart Macintyre, The Party: The Communist Party of Australia from heyday to reckoning, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, 2022, xiv + 498 pages; ISBN 9781760875183.

Julian Casey, et al, Sub Tuum Praesidium: Marist Brothers in Australia 1872–2022, Marist Brothers Australia, Mascot, NSW, 2022, xiv + 563 pages; ISBN 9780646853253.

Jeff McGill, Rachel: Brumby hunter, medicine woman, bushrangers’ ally and troublemaker for good … the remarkable pioneering life of Rachel Kennedy, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2022, 324 pages; ISBN 9781760879983.

Jean Fornasiero and John West-Sooby, ‘Roaming Freely Throughout the Universe’: Nicholas Baudin’s voyage to Australia and the pursuit of science, Wakefield Press, Mile End, SA, 2021, 340 pages; ISBN 9781743058275.

Michael Shmith with research by Dr Stella Barber, Merlyn: The life and times of Merlyn Baillieu Myer, Hardie Grant Books, Richmond, Vic, 2021, xiv + 385 pages; ISBN 9781743798096.

Paul van Reyk, True to the Land: A history of food in Australia, Reaktion Books Ltd, London, UK, 2021, 288 pages; ISBN 9781789144062.

Gideon Haigh, The Brilliant Boy: Doc Evatt and the Great Australian Dissent, Scribner Australia, Cammeray, NSW, 384 pages; ISBN 9781760856113.

Anna Clark, Making Australian History, Vintage Books, North Sydney, 2022, xii +417 pages; ISBN 9781760898519.

Ian Hoskins, Australia and the Pacific, a History, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, 2021, 489 pages; ISBN 9781742235691.

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A Sojourn at Port Arthur in 1839: The eyewitness account of French explorer Captain Cyrille Laplace

Colin Dyer

The penal colony at Port Arthur had been in existence for less than a decade when Captain Cyrille Laplace paid his visit in February 1839 in the La Favorite. Already a very experienced traveller, this was his second round-the-world voyage, and his second visit to Tasmania. Laplace’s interest in correctional institutions led to visits to Hobart’s female convict prison and the Orphan School of New Town. In Volume 5, chapter 1 of the official account of his second voyage, Campagne de circumnavigation, Laplace describes in detail the changes he observed in Hobart since his first visit in 1831. This article includes the translation of these observations.

Canberra and the Frontier Wars

James McDonald

The nature of Aboriginal resistance in the Canberra district was different to elsewhere in New South Wales. Four factors affected how the Frontier Wars played out along the Molonglo: (a) the invasion followed the arrival of influenza and the small Aboriginal population had already been decimated; (b) Captain Bishop’s 1826 military expedition quashed a potential major rising; (c) Governor Darling was more intent than his predecessors on controlling the stockmen; and (d) relations with European pastoral workers in the district may have been less hostile.

Colonial Pioneers: The early industrial metal trades of Sydney, 1825-1875

Harry Cole and Drew Cottle

Little has been written of Sydney’s early tradesmen. Although numerically insignificant in early colonial Australia, by the end of the nineteenth century one group of these tradesmen, the metalworkers, had become crucial to the local economy. The metalworkers were one of the ‘new’ trades that had emerged with industrialisation. This article sets out to place the new metal trades in the city’s early metalworking industrial landscape and offers a brief glimpse into the role played by the metal trades workers in the economic development of nineteenth-century Sydney. It examines the artisanal nature of their workplaces before the transition to larger-scale industrial production.

This anomalous community: Dungog Magistrates’ Letterbook, 1834-1839

Michael Williams

This paper seeks to provide an overview and brief analysis of a rare convict period source that appears to have been largely overlooked by historians. The Magistrates’ Letterbook for the police districts of Dungog and Port Stephens, New South Wales, 1834-1839 is a single volume of the outward correspondence of Dungog-based magistrates at the high point of the convict system to local landowners, other magistrates, the Australian Agricultural Company, and to such Sydney based officials as the Superintendent of Convicts, the Colonial Storekeeper and the Colonial Secretary. The Letterbook, written mostly when Thomas Cook J.P. was Police Magistrate, provides an intimate snapshot of a period when such magistrates as Cook dealt with a vast range of matters and people, including local indigenous peoples, convicts and sly-grogers, bushrangers and landowners; all constituting a community perhaps rightly described at one point by Magistrate Cook as ‘anomalous’.

Book Reviews

Chas Keys, Maitland Speaks: the experience of floods, Floodplain Publishing, Maitland, NSW, 2020, vii + 486 pages; ISBN 9780646818757.

Adam Wakeling, A House of Commons for a Den of Thieves: Australia’s journey from penal colony to democracy, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2020, 306 pages; ISBN 9781922454140.

Douglas Newton, Private Ryan and the Lost Peace: a defiant soldier and the struggle against the Great War, Longueville Media, Haberfield, NSW, 2021, xx + 380 pages; ISBN 9780648973638.

Catherine Bishop, Too Much Cabbage and Jesus Christ: Australia’s ‘Mission Girl’ Annie Lock, Wakefield Press, Mile End, South Australia, 2021, xvi + 327 pages; ISBN 9781743058572.

Quentin Beresford, Wounded Country: The Murray-Darling Basin – a contested history, NewSouth, Sydney, 2021 432 pages; ISBN 9781742236780.

Matt Murphy, Rum: a distilled history of colonial Australia, Harper Collins Publishers, Sydney, 2000, 370 pages; ISBN 9781460713044.

Alexis Bergantz, French Connection: Australia’s cosmopolitan ambitions, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2021, 194 pages; ISBN 9781742237091.

Martyn Lyons, Dear Prime Minister: letters to Robert Menzies 1949–1966, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2021, 266 pages; ISBN 9781742237305.

Melissa Harper and Richard White (eds), Symbols of Australia: imagining a nation, NewSouth, Sydney, 2021, xi + 448 pages; ISBN 9781742237121.

Stephen Gapps, Gudyarra: the first war of Wiradyuri Resistance – The Bathurst War, 1822–1824, NewSouth, Sydney, 2021, xi + 276 pages; ISBN 97817422367111.

Doug Munro, History Wars: The Peter Ryan-Manning Clark Controversy, Australian National University Press, Acton, ACT, 2021, xxxvi + 193; ISBN 9781760464769.

Ashley Hay, Gum − the story of eucalypts & their champions, first published by Duffy & Snellgrove, 2002, 2nd edition published by New South, 2021; ISBN 9781742237534.

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Sydney, 1803: when Catholics were tolerated and Freemasons banned

James Franklin

In 1803, Governor King’s authority faced serious threats: from possible French invasion, from Irish convicts, and from officers and others with personal animosities fortified by freemasonry and republicanism. On Lord Hobart’s instructions, King allowed the convict priest Father Dixon to minister to Catholics, but masonic gatherings were banned. The reasoning behind these decisions is explained, in the light of the threats posed by each and the Irish background. Hobart’s earlier success in negotiating with Irish bishops and the perception that French and American revolutionary ideals were being spread through Freemasonry are essential for understanding developments in New South Wales.

‘A joy beyond any earthly pleasure’: Emily Paterson’s contribution to community mental health

Judith Godden

Emily Darvall Paterson’s life challenges us to rethink the history of disability in Australia. She was a blind woman whose abilities outshone her disability. She made a significant contribution to social welfare by founding, in 1907, Australia’s longest-serving mental health organisation, the After Care Association, now Stride Mental Health. Paterson’s achievement was, in large part, due to her commitment and ability to forge warm personal relations with those helped. It was also due to the support of her extended family, and local, legal, women’s and religious networks. Her legacy was both secured and threatened when After Care gained reliable government funding.

A Wet and Cold El Niño: the Tambora volcano’s impact in the Australian colonies

Don Garden

The cataclysmic Tambora volcanic explosion in April 1815 resulted in two or three years of cold and wet weather in much of the northern hemisphere which caused crop failure, famine, poverty and disease, among a range of repercussions. It also appears likely, through its impact on sea surface temperatures, to have triggered an El Niño event. This would normally result in hot and dry weather in the south-east of Australia, and potentially severe drought. However, the limited available proxy and documentary evidence indicates that in 1816 and 1817 the weather in NSW and VDL was wetter than average, especially in NSW, and quite cold in VDL. This climatic anomaly is not fully explained, but confirms that the repercussions from Tambora, while not as severe, were also experienced in the southern hemisphere.

Henry Dangar: dismissed as government surveyor in 1827 and a land appeal spanning 26 years

Jim Ritchie

This article considers Dangar’s dismissal from his position as assistant government surveyor and the following appeal process. His dismissal has been briefly dealt with by various historians, who have written (among other things) that Dangar: ‘was sacked by Governor Ralph Darling for misappropriating land’; ‘used his public position for private gain’; and ‘fraudulently used two land orders in other’s names and proposed a land trade-off being an attempted bribe’. However, the circumstances in which this dismissal occurred deserve closer consideration than has been given to date. The events leading up to this, including the charges laid against him, the hearing of those charges by the Land Board, the outcome of the hearing, whether Dangar was correctly dismissed, and his subsequent appeal to the Colonial Office (which in relation to the land decision spanned 26 years) are each examined.

‘Doovers’ in the rainforest: radar stations at Paluma, Mount Spec, during World War II

Linda Venn

This paper contends that the four radar stations based in unforgiving tropical rainforest at Paluma (‘Mt. Spec’, near Townsville) during the Second World War represent the evolution of radar technology in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA). Their histories demonstrate how challenges in lack of trained personnel and reliability of equipment were overcome by cooperation amongst members of the Allied forces. Trials at Paluma of camouflage (1942-44) and ‘tropic-proofing’ (1943-44) of prototype transportable Light Weight Air Warning (LW/AW) radar benefited radar stations throughout northern Australian and the SWPA. The critical importance of such experimentation for deployment to the SWPA is demonstrated by the success of two LW/AW radar units in Dutch East Indies and Borneo. Collectively, the men and women of these four radar stations are presented as players in this significant theatre of Australia’s military history.

Book Reviews

Ian Howie-Willis, VD: the Australian Army’s experience of sexually transmitted diseases in the twentieth century, Big Sky Publishing, Newport, NSW, 2020, 430 pages; ISBN 9781922387257.

Ken Inglis, Bill Gammage, Seumas Spark and Jay Winter, Dunera Lives: profiles, Monash University Publishing, Clayton, Vic, 2020, xxxii + 476 pages; ISBN 9781925835656.

Adrian Mitchell, Where Shadows Have Fallen: the unhappy descent of Henry Kendall, Wakefield Press, Mile End, SA, 2020, 228 pages; ISBN 9781743057483.

Murray Johnson, Australia’s Ancient Aboriginal Past: a global perspective, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, Vic, new edition 2020, xvii + 261 pages; ISBN 9781925003710.

Kate Bagnall and Julia T. Martínez (eds), Locating Chinese Women: historical mobility between China and Australia, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong, 2021, vii + 277 pages; ISBN 9789888528615.

Peter Edwards, Law, Politics and Intelligence: a life of Robert Hope, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, 2020, ix + 386 pages; ISBN 9781742235370.

Babette Smith, Defiant Voices: how Australia’s female convicts challenged authority 1788–1853, NLA Publishing, Canberra, ACT, 2021, 288 pages; ISBN 9780642279590.

Peter Prineas, Wild Colonial Greeks, Arcadia/Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, Vic, 2020, vii + 322 pages; ISBN 9781922454133.

Peter Dowling, Fatal Contact: how epidemics nearly wiped out Australia’s First Peoples, Monash University Publishing, Clayton, Vic, 2021; ISBN 9781922464460.

Catherine Fisher, Sound Citizens: Australian women broadcasters claim their voice, 1923–1956, ANU Press, Canberra, ACT, 2021, ix + 185 pages; ISBN 9781760464301.

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The Military Command of Maurice O’Connell 1838-1847​

Craig Wilcox

The first commander in chief appointed to Australia, Sir Maurice O’Connell led a military garrison from 1838 to 1847 with a larger budget than the New South Wales judiciary and post office put together and more people than lived in Campbelltown or Goulburn. His decisions, or more often his failure to make them, influenced the lives of thousands, including settlers and Māori in New Zealand where his troops fought two wars from 1845 to 1848. Remembered for his earlier tenure in Australia as a colonel under Governor Macquarie who married a daughter of Governor Bligh, O’Connell has otherwise escaped the attention of historians. His later and far more influential post as garrison commander is worth investigating.

‘Sorry We Cannot Supply’: Empire trade preference and its impact on Australian motor body builders

Justin Chadwick

This article explores the impact of the British Preferential Tariff and Trade Diversion policies of the Australian Federal Government on the motor car body building industry during the interwar period. It argues that the preferential system of trade within the British Empire, while benefiting Australian primary producers, was not always necessarily ideal for secondary industries, particularly mass-production motor body builders, such as General Motors-Holden’s and T.J. Richards & Sons. This is demonstrated as these body builders introduced the use of wide, long draw mild steel for the manufacture of the all-steel, Fisher body design in 1936. Although the local companies attempted to abide by the requests of the Government to use British-made steel, those manufacturers were unable, due to limitations of facilities and preparations by Britain for the impending war, to supply export markets. As sheet steel supplies dwindled the body builders were forced to lay-off workers until the government finally capitulated and allowed material from US steel makers.

Restoring Order in ‘The Present Scare’: the Bridge Street Affray in fin de siècle Sydney

Mark Hearn

Assaulting several police officers while attempting to flee an interrupted burglary, Charles Montgomery and Thomas Williams were convicted of the capital offence of intent to murder and hanged in Darlinghurst Gaol in May 1894. The Bridge Street affray reflected a fear of anarchy and breakdown in the social order and provided the pretext that armed the NSW Police. The affray and the ‘reprieve agitation’ exposed broader tensions at work in fin de siècle colonial society, as the state not only constrained the pathology of crime, but also the challenges of protest, working class radicalism and strike action.

Malta, the Nurse of the Mediterranean and Cottonera Hospital: the Australian connection

John Portelli

Cottonera Hospital, Malta, played a leading role in the treatment of the sick and war casualties, including many Anzacs, from the Gallipoli and Salonika Campaigns during World War I, when Malta became known as ‘The Nurse of the Mediterranean’. In the space of two years, Malta, with a population of just over 200,000, became one of the British Empire’s largest complexes of military hospitals that saw an influx of close to 125,000 patients. This was a national effort with the active participation of the civilian population. Distinguished consultants from Britain’s leading hospitals gave their services at Cottonera Hospital and the other 26 hospitals in Malta. Cottonera Hospital closed its doors in 1920 only to reopen again in 1929 as St Edward’s College. St Edward’s was founded by Lady Strickland, wife of Lord Gerald Strickland, at the time Prime Minister of Malta and formerly Governor of Tasmania, Western Australia and New South Wales.

The Irish Boys at Burnside Homes

Keith Amos

Between 1910 and 1970, through various government-approved child migration schemes operated by charitable and religious institutions, about 7,000 young Britons came or were sent to Australia. This article sheds light on the unique case of 22 Irish boys who were displaced from a Connemara orphanage in June 1922 during the Irish Civil War. They had been in the care of the (Anglican) Irish Church Mission Society and were offered refuge in Australia by Burnside Presbyterian Orphan Homes at North Parramatta.

Book Reviews

Mark Dunn, The Convict Valley: the bloody struggle on Australia’s early frontier, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2020, viii + 294 pages; ISBN 9781760528645.

Terry Irving, The Fatal Lure of Politics: the life and thought of Vere Gordon Childe, Monash University Publishing, Clayton, Vic, 2020, xxiv + 418 pages; ISBN 9781925835748.

Patricia Clarke, Great Expectations: emigrant governesses to colonial Australia, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2020, 247 pages; ISBN 9780642279620.

Geoffrey Travers, William Holmes: the soldiers’ general, Big Sky Publishing, Sydney, 2020, 447 pages; ISBN 9781922387004.

Max Solling and John Tracey, Going to the Dogs: a history of greyhound racing in New South Wales, Halstead Press, Sydney, 2020, 301 pages; ISBN 9781925043464.

Jill Roe, Searching for the Spirit: Theosophy in Australia, 1879–1939, Wakefield Press, Mile End, SA, 2020, xvi + 364 pages; ISBN 9781743056745.

Jenny Hocking, The Palace Letters: the Queen, the Governor-General, and the plot to dismiss Gough Whitlam, Scribe Publications, Melbourne, 2020, xvi + 265 pages; ISBN 9781922310248.

Grace Karskens, People of the River: lost worlds of early Australia, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2020, 678 pages; ISBN 9781760292232.

Ian W. Shaw, Pandemic: the Spanish flu in Australia 1918–1920, Woodslane Press, Warriewood, NSW, 2020, vi + 271 pages; ISBN 9781925868449.

Joy Hughes, Carol Liston and Christine Wright (eds), Playing their Part: vice-regal consorts of New South Wales, 1788–2019, Royal Australian Historical Society, Sydney, 2020, xi + 252 pages; ISBN 9780646811208.

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Spain and the Botany Bay Colony: a response to an imperial challenge

Robert J. King

The founding of the Botany Bay colony in 1788 was viewed with disquiet in Spain and its empire, accustomed as its rulers were for over three and a half centuries to view the whole Pacific as their exclusive preserve. Over the following two decades, as a titanic struggle played out between Britain and France for world dominance, a defensive Spanish empire had to consider how to react to the strategic challenge of the new colony. The immediate Spanish reaction was to include a visit to the colony in the itinerary of the 1789-1794 expedition commanded by Alexandro Malaspina.

Australia and the Dardanelles Commission, 1916-1917: a re-assessment

Jatinder Mann and Carl Bridge

Rupert and James Murdoch, who made appearances before the Leveson Inquiry into press corruption on 19 July 2011, were not the first in their family to appear before a commission of British Parliament. That ambiguous honour goes to Rupert’s father – another journalist and later newspaper proprietor and knight – Keith, who appeared before the Dardanelles Commission on 5 February 1917. From an Australian point of view, there were two key players in the Dardanelles Commission story: Andrew Fisher and Keith Murdoch; two Scottish Australians ‘on the make’. Fisher was the Australian Prime Minister who had committed Australian troops to the Dardanelles Campaign and Murdoch the journalist who was Fisher’s unofficial ‘eyes and ears’ at Gallipoli reporting back from that front confidentially at a crucial stage of the fighting.

Avoid Stigmatising Them by Name

Michael Williams

The Dictation Test is often held up as the symbol of the White Australia policy and for over 50 years after 1901 was the prime mechanism by which ‘undesirables’ were denied entry to Australia. This paper discusses the background, historical, political and ideological, to the developments that led to the creation of a fake test it was a crime to fail. In particular it looks at the 1897 Imperial Conference at which the colonial Premiers debated the mechanism of restriction with Joseph Chamberlain representing the British government. A discussion leading directly to the compromise that evolved into the Commonwealth’s Dictation Test. Many factors were involved ranging from considerations of empire, both internal and external, to questions of class, principle and concern over appearances. The compromise that became the uniquely unpassable Dictation Test was a contested one that Australia was to live with for the next two generations.

Living with the Hume Dam, 1919-2019

Bruce Pennay

Commemorative events in Albury-Wodonga to mark the centenary of the turning of the first sod for the Hume Dam prompted reflection on the history and heritage of the dam. This article traces some of the main stories that have been projected onto or read from the Hume Dam and the circumstances in which they appeared. It notes how the dam was acclaimed as a nation-building political achievement and an engineering triumph. It points to the emergence of concerns about the environmental impact of damming the Murray River. It outlines present-day concerns about how the water released from the dam best meets a balance of social, economic and environmental needs. It unravels some of the mystique that has developed about the place at the local level.

Book Reviews

Pauline Curby, Local Government Engineers’ Association: a centenary history, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, NSW, 2019, xi + 268 pages; ISBN 9781742236537.

Elizabeth Rushen, John Marshall: shipowner, Lloyd’s reformer and emigration agent, Anchor Books Australia, Melbourne, 2020, 206 pages; ISBN 9780648061663.

Denis Porter, Coal: the Australian story, Connor Court Publishing, Redland Bay, QLD, 2019, 403 pages; ISBN 9781925826609.

Sean Scalmer, Democratic Adventurer: Graham Berry and the making of Australian politics, Monash University Publishing, Clayton, Vic, 2020, xiv + 349 pages; ISBN 9781925835779.

Cameron Archer, The Magic Valley: The Paterson Valley – then and now, ACA Books, Lorn, NSW, 2019, iv + 410 pages; ISBN 9780646801650.

Christine Morton-Evans, Ellis Rowan: a life in pictures, NLA Publishing, Canberra, 2020, vi + 185 pages; ISBN 9780642279576.

Peter Browne and Seumas Spark (eds), ‘I Wonder’: the life and work of Ken Inglis, Monash University Publishing, Clayton, Vic, xiv + 32 pages, 2020; ISBN 9781925835717.

Richard Allsop, Geoffrey Blainey: writer, historian, controversialist, Monash University Publishing, Clayton, Vic, 2020, xiv + 294 pages; ISBN 9781925835625.

Michael Bennett, Pathfinders: a history of Aboriginal trackers in NSW, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, 2020, ix + 322 pages, ISBN 9781742236568.

Geoffrey Blainey, Captain Cook’s Epic Voyage: the strange quest for a missing continent, Viking, Hawthorn, Vic, 2020, xi + 324 pages; ISBN 9781760895099.

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