Previews - Non-fiction
The Larrikins of Lavender Bay
The Story of the Phoenix Hulk
Author: Beverley Earnshaw
ISBN: 0 9593925 21
Publisher: North Shore Historical Society
Address: PO Box 325, Cammeray, NSW, 2062
Another interesting episode in the convict history of Australia, "The
Larrikins of Lavender Bay" documents the story of the Phoenix Hulk.
Commonly used in England to supplement prison accommodation, hulks in Australia's
prison history are not so well known. This is the story of the only prison
hulk ever to operate on the Australian mainland. It anchored off the shores
of Lavender Bay for eleven years from 1826.
Hulks did not seem a likely solution to the overcrowding in Sydney's prisons
at the beginning of last century. Any ship which had been condemned overseas
would never make the trip. But just as prison accommodation was reaching
crisis point, the Phoenix ran aground on the Sow & Pigs Reef just inside
the harbour entrance.
There she remained stuck for 24 hours. The survey found her damaged beyond
repair and thus she was to finish her days as home to three categories of
prisoner, all of them male - those en route to penal settlements elsewhere
in the colony, those in a "weakly" state and witnesses waiting
to testify in criminal cases.
As with all prisons, the Phoenix had its share of drama, ruining some men's
lives in scandals of mismanagement, bolstering the careers of others, and
of course was a home of discontent for prisoners and the location of many
unsuccessful and some successful escapes.
Charles Sculthorpe was an escapee who was never returned to the hulk. Whether
he made it remains a mystery. Only his leg irons were found after he jumped
from the hulk to swim to shore.
In the early hours of June 1837, she started taking water. Although sinking
was avoided it spelt the beginning of the end and the following year the
Phoenix was decommissioned and sold for scrap. She was the first and last
hulk to house prisoners in Australia.
"The Larrikins of Lavender Bay" is a well researched and interesting
record of a little known part of Australia's convict history.
The Thirty Pounds Club
The History of Petersham Bowling Club 1896-1996
Author: Geoff Howe
ISBN: 0 646 28306 5
Publisher: Petersham Bowling Club
Address: Brighton Street, Petersham, NSW
An account of the history of a bowling club, "The Thirty Pounds
Club" documents far more than that - it documents the changing face
of a suburb as wider forces shape and mould it. Depression, wars, and times
of prosperity all influence Petersham and as its demographics change so
does the Bowling Club.
It is also a glimpse into how a Sydney community functioned at the end of
last century and how it has developed over the years.
Just as Sydney erupted not so long ago at the thought of having to pay to
go to the beach, sentiments ran high at the end of last century over the
public's rights to public parks. Bowling greens could not be put in a public
park as was being proposed.
That feeling was running high on the subject was clearly evidenced by editorials
of the time: "One of the most unhappy parks in the suburbs seems to
be that belonging to Petersham. Like a New Zealand volcano, it's always
more or less in a state of eruption - only it emits red clay and cart tracks
in place of smoke and ashes" noted the Standard in somewhat less heated
tones that those in a column some three months earlier: "If anyone
can prove that they've ever encountered a project with a bigger junk of
idiocy hanging around it than the proposition to form a bowling green on
the public park, we hereby solemnly agree in view of the approaching hot
weather that upon such proof being shown, we'll forfeit our only pants and
join apostle of nakedness McDonald in a tour round the southern Hemisphere."
From such stormy beginnings, the club quickly grew - not within the park
- to be one of the most successful in New South Wales.
As is clear from above, this history is not only entertaining but very well
researched. Through its first golden years to the war years to years of
change and more war years and on into the present, this history documents
the club, its politics, its social and community work, its leading players
and members. As social history it records a changing community and changing
social interests and activities.
Christmas presents have been solved if you have a family member with any
association with the club. But for others interested in bowling in Australia,
it should prove a fascinating read and for those who know nothing about
bowling but find social history rivetting this history of Petersham seen
through its bowling club could prove to be of interest
Guilty or Not Guilty
Author: Pamela Sheldon
ISBN: 0 646 27139 3 (Vol 2)
Publisher: Pam Sheldon
Address: 2/43 Blues Point Road, McMahons Point, NSW, 2060
These are the records of some 11,000 cases where people were committed
and fined before the various courts in the Colony of New South Wales between
1846 and 1850. A valuable resource for those researching the period or for
those undertaking family histories.
The information was obtained from the pages of the Sydney Morning Herald
and Supplement for the period.
The Courts included are the Police Court - Sydney and Country; The Supreme
Court - Criminal Jurisdiction, Sydney; Country Assizes; Sydney Quarter Sessions
and Country Quarter Sessions.
Included in the lists are the names of those convicts who had their tickets
of leave cancelled for various misdemeanours, ill health, being absent from
their districts or who had committed a crime and had been brought before
the one of the courts.
What at first glance seems a dry record of interest only to those with a
particular research need emerges as a fascinating insight into the changing
face of the colony.
The period covered saw great changes in sentencing due mainly to the gradual
decline in convict transportation which raised the question of what to do
with those in the colony who committed first degree crimes such as horse
stealing, rape and manslaughter.
It was a time of huge gaol building to cope with prisoners who were now
going to 'stay at home' and saw the construction of gaols notorious to this
day - Berrima, Goulburn, Bathhurst and Maitland. It was also a time where
prisoners were often committed to work on the roads and later on the roads
or public works rather than sent to a gaol - a strategy that saw a vast
expansion in the provision of public utilities.
This record also reflects the increasing introduction of socially rather
than criminally instigated legislation with people being prosecuted for
a range of offences. Allowing a dog to roam was prosecuted under the Dog
Act, obstructing the passageway to a market was prosecuted under the Markets
Act.
Concern about the welfare of children is seen in the police efforts to care
for deserted children, unfortunately with imprisonment for their protection
often being a necessary short term solution.
With all entries listed alphabetically by surname, it is well set out and
meticulously researched. Each entry includes the name, offence, court, sentence,
term, the district in which the offence was tried, the date the person came
before the court and Sydney Morning Herald reference date.
The Grecian Pagoda and the Architecture of Eryldene
Author: Zeny Edwards
ISBN: 0 646 25568 1
Publisher: Zeny Edwards
Address: 32A Warrongo Street, Turramurra, NSW, 2074
Inspired by the seeming folly of the Tea House at Sydney's beautiful
Eryldene prompted Zeny Edwards to explore and research the history, architecture
and philosophy that guided the design of the group of buildings that is
this National Trust listed property.
The Tea House, a Georgian-Chinese-Grecian pagoda, with its bright Oriental
colours, its pagoda-style roof, ornamented with allegorical motifs of bats
and peaches, elephants and dragons, is a symbol of architect William Hardy
Wilson's "unified citizens of the world" ideology.
Hardy Wilson believed that if fusing Eastern and Western styles of architecture
to form a whole could be achieved, perhaps the principles and philosophies
that he advocated architecturally could be applied universally in other
ways in the quest for harmony.
In Professor E.G. Waterhouse, Hardy Wilson found a friend and client who
shared his views.
Professor Waterhouse and his family resided at Eryldene for sixty three
years and it was his wish, and that of many others, that Eryldene should
survive unscathed and that the house and garden be made accessible for all
to enjoy.
"The Grecian Pagoda" is the story of this house, its gardens and
its various buildings - the garden study, the pigeon house, the temple,
the moon gate and the tea house.
It is a tribute to its principal architect, Hardy Wilson, and his clients
Professor E.G. Waterhouse and his wife Janet Waterhouse, enhanced by the
exquisite black and white photographs of Harold Cazneaux.
If Only You Knew
Authors: Sandre E. French-Hixon & Joan Katherine Victoria Green
ISBN: O 646 24892 8
Adress: 9 Kimberley Grove, Rosebery, NSW, 2018
A collection of sayings of the authors' mothers, both of Irish descent,
causes the reader to wonder how they survived, let alone with any sense
of self esteem in tact! When I first glanced at the cover I misread the
by-line as "Germs of Wisdom from our Mothers" rather than as printed
as "Gems". And by and large germs is how I am sure my daughter
would dub them. Rather than the trite and precise sayings that I remember
from my Irish Scottish influenced upbringing, that stoppped short of the
abusive derogatory parenthesis, this is warts and all - more like a verbal
barrage where the underpinning philosophy must have been batter them into
shape, abuse them and accuse them, keep them in their place and never let
them grow too big for their boots.
Amongst the astonishing flood of diatribe there are some of the old familiar
kernels: "If people ask you your business, you're entitled to tell
them lies" and "You're entitled to a mistake, even roses have
thorns". However, more often the words of wisdom are couched within
vitriolic motherly self-serving attack: "Money doesn't grow on trees,
you know, but that is something you'd never understand" and "I'm
telling you life isn't that way - but could I ever get that through to you?
- No, not you" and "I've only ever done my best - but you would
never understand that." But amongst the barrage from which the toughest
would shrink are the occassional ones with a touch of gentle irony: "Luck
never seemed to be on your side. If it were raining mansions, you'd be hit
with a shithouse".
And so on through childhood to puberty and young adulthood, marriage and
children: "You've never had anyone good; I don't know what you see
in him", "I'll never leave you in my will as long as you're with
him" and on to "Don't ever give me an ugly grandbaby, I don't
want to have to take it out at night with mittens on its hands and a big
bonnet on its head." And to a self-centred old age: "My days on
earth are nearly finished. The things that I've had to put up with with
you, it's no wonder I'm in the state I'm in."
A somewhat terrible but nonetheless familiar ring to it all, if not from
personal experience of an Anglo Irish background then certainly familiar
to most people with a passing understanding of English from years of British
film and television.
As you turn the final page, you realise that in a very short space of time
you have traversed an upbringing, an insight into lives lived and characters
formed. From bitterness and regret albeit mixed with love and concern, translated
into long suffering with which to inflict misery on their daughters, it's
no wonder the daughters coped by dealing with it with an affectionate sense
of humour, undoubtedly knowing that they would survive as their own mothers
had survived the same upbringing at the hands of their grandmothers and
so on presumably into the misty Irish past.
Today's champions of child rights would quake in their boots at this litany
of verbal abuse. This potted history of child raising certainly makes a
startling contrast to the tomes of doctors of philosophy (have they ever
changed a nappy or had a child answer back or a teenager laugh in their
face?) that now carpet the shelves at most bookshops.
If only as reassurement when your own acid tongue has got the better of
you that others have done it before you and the results weren't automatically
catastrophic, this book is worth a look.
- If you'd like to purchase a copy of one of the books listed above please
contact the publisher directly. Their address is just under the title's
listing.
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