DOCSLIB.ORG

Contemporary Life Writing Methodologies and Practice

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Contemporary Life Writing Methodologies and Practice OFFSHOOT: CONTEMPORARY LIFE WRITING METHODOLOGIES AND PRACTICE 3220_Offshoot.indd 1 18/01/2018 3:32 PM 3220_Offshoot.indd 2 18/01/2018 3:32 PM OFFSHOOT: CONTEMPORARY LIFE WRITING METHODOLOGIES AND PRACTICE EDITED BY DONNA LEE BRIEN AND QUINN EADES 3220_Offshoot.indd 3 18/01/2018 3:32 PM First published in 2018 by UWA Publishing Crawley, Western Australia 6009 www.uwap.uwa.edu.au UWAP is an imprint of UWA Publishing a division of The University of Western Australia This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, 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. Copyright © Donna Brien, Quinn Eades et.al. 2017 The moral right of the author has been asserted. <insert CIP logo> Typeset by J&M Typesetting Printed by Mcphersons Printing Group Cover image: courtesy of Jamie James 3220_Offshoot.indd 4 18/01/2018 3:32 PM This book is dedicated to the lives that remain unwritten, were deemed not important enough to write in the first place or lost before they could be written, as well as those who are attempting to stem this tide. 3220_Offshoot.indd 5 18/01/2018 3:32 PM 3220_Offshoot.indd 6 18/01/2018 3:32 PM CONTENTS Acknowledgements x Contemporary Life Writing Methodologies and Practice Donna Lee Brien and Quinn Eades Life Writing, Truth, History and Speculation 11 Conjectural and Speculative Biography: Convict and Colonial 13 Biographies Donna Lee Brien Narrative Structure – Is It Making Us Liars?: Truth and 31 Autobiography in She Played Elvis Shady Cosgrove The Truth Is Like Truth: Grey 42 Jeri Kroll Strange Hybrids: Telling the Truth and Other ‘Lies’ 47 About Fiction and Life Writing Camilla Nelson Out 60 Lia Incognita ‘True Histories’: Using Fiction in Writing Lives 63 James Vicars Biographical Forms and Ways of Writing Lives 81 Profiling the Biography of the Contemporary 83 Political Figure in Australia Patrick Mullins Gatherers 98 Jeanine Leane 3220_Offshoot.indd 7 18/01/2018 3:32 PM Offshoot The Frame and the Score: Knowing a Subject Differently 102 Through Poetic Biography Jessica L. Wilkinson Unleaving, Leaving 119 Gail Pittaway ‘I Felt This Landscape Knew I Was There’: The Lake’s 121 Apprentice and Ecobiography Jessica White Stepping across Space and Time: Writing a Life from 135 Long Ago and Far Away Janine McVeagh Brolga Clan 145 Phillip Hall Life Writing and Self-Making 147 Queer Life Writing as Self-Making 149 Dallas J. Baker Les Fées S’écrivet: Wrestling with Women’s Life Writing 164 Nike Sulway Quickening 180 Dominique Hecq (Snippets of) Littoral Freedom: Collecting Nostalgic 182 Remnants on the Distant Shores of Childhood Zoe Thomas Memory Gardens 193 Jen Webb and Paul Hetherington Genealogy & The Sea 196 Robyn Ferrell viii 3220_Offshoot.indd 8 18/01/2018 3:32 PM Contents Mind as Hive 207 Kevin Brophy Blogging as Art: Life Writing Online 209 Lucas Ihlein Embodiment, Experiment and Fictocritical Modes 223 Writing the Self (The Body) as mer-mer 225 Francesca Rendle-Short Vivarium 243 Anna Gibbs this poem is not a panic (v.000) 251 Virginia Barratt How Is Staying Here Going? 253 Quinn Eades I Have Nothing To Say About Love (Fictocritical Fragments) 264 Stephen Abblitt Blood. Sex 278 Ellen van Neerven Waterspout, or, Queering Traumatic Fall-Out 279 Marion May Campbell girl body boy body 294 Quinn Eades Life Writing Futurities: No Future/Every Future and 295 What We Can See in the Horizon Quinn Eades and Donna Lee Brien Life Writing Bibliography 312 Contributors 326 ix 3220_Offshoot.indd 9 18/01/2018 3:32 PM ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We conceived this project over cups of tea when, at a creative writing conference in 2014, we noticed how many of the delegates were researching and producing interesting work about life writ- ing. This led to discussions about the lack of current, locally inflected resources about life writing, and, especially, method- ologies for writing and researching life writing. Questions about what writers and scholars were producing in this field, and what would be useful for students, teachers and writers soon followed, and spurred us on to find some possible answers. It soon became apparent that others were also making similar enquiries, and the idea for this collection was born. Very soon in those discussions, moreover, we decided that we wanted to include creative work and, specifically, poetry about life writing, in order to not exclude its vital contribution to this subject. We would like to acknowl- edge, therefore, the foundational contribution of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs in terms of providing venues for scholars, researchers, students and writers to come together to have such important disciplinary conversations, and for paving the way for creative writing to be accepted as a valid means of express- ing research findings in Australia and internationally. Many of the contributors to this volume are members of that association. Of course, this book is the sum total of the work of all those contributors, whose hard work and commitment to the project made this book possible. Sincere thanks, too, to the many peer reviewers of the creative and the critical works herein, and whose astute and generous comments improved each piece in this volume. Due to the double-blind reviewing process, we cannot name these reviewers, but their input is evident throughout. A 3220_Offshoot.indd 10 18/01/2018 3:32 PM Acknowledgements warm thank you, too, to Terri-ann White, Publisher at UWA Publishing, who supported this project from its inception, and has never been anything but the most good-humoured of publishers, and whose input made this editorial journey creative as well as enjoyable. We would like to also gratefully acknowledge our universities – Central Queensland University and La Trobe University – for supporting the research that has resulted in this book, and for believing in our collaboration. A special thank you to the School of Education and the Arts and the cross-disciplinary research Centre for Regional Advancement of Learning, Equity, Access and Participation at Central Queensland University for their ongoing support of this research; and to La Trobe University’s Disciplinary Research Program in English, Theatre and Drama that supports critical and practice-led scholarship, which has a particular focus on biography and autobiography, and generously provided financial support for this project. Heartfelt thanks are due to the many colleagues, friends and members of our families who have offered their encouragement over the past two and a half years that we have worked on this project. We extend an extra special thank you to Alice Ewing, whose botanical drawings open each section of the book, and to James Photographic Services for assisting us in translating Alice’s beau- tiful drawings into digital form. Thank you, too, to Wes Hicks, who also helped with some digital image wrangling and intern assistant editors Brodie Smart and Virginia Birt, who joined us in the very final stages of the project, but whose help was invaluable. A sincere thank you to editor Katie Connolly for editing and Kate Pickard for shepherding this manuscript, and us, to publication. Finally, we both want to thank each other. As very different individuals, with quite different scholarly and creative approaches xi 3220_Offshoot.indd 11 18/01/2018 3:32 PM Offshoot and networks, and at different stages of our careers, working together has been one of the great pleasures of this project and, we both believe, at the core of its strength. xii 3220_Offshoot.indd 12 18/01/2018 3:32 PM CONTEMPORARY LIFE WRITING METHODOLOGIES AND PRACTICE Donna Lee Brien and Quinn Eades Over the past decades, life writing has evolved into both a form of creative production that is popular with authors and readers, as well as a diverse, inclusive and seemingly ever-expanding field of academic study. Attracting scholarship from those working in the disciplines of creative writing and literary studies, and a wide range of other fields including women’s, gender and sexuality studies, life writing as both a description of genre and a form of practice has displayed considerable potential to bring together a range of varied perspectives. Starting from the premise that life writing is a significant component of both contemporary artistic practice and scholarship, we felt it was necessary in putting this collection together to re-evaluate life writing in both those areas of enquiry, and to take account of its contemporary subgeneric incarnations and the range of methodological and practical approaches that are currently in use and circulation. In thinking through how to approach this, we kept returning to the organic, hybrid and rhizomic nature of much of the new and experimental life writing scholarship and practice occurring now in the second decade of the new millennium, seeing this evidenced not only in traditional areas such as biography and memoir (and enquiry into these forms), but also in emerging areas of research and practice. Offshoot: Contemporary Life Writing Methodologies and Practice thus focuses in on this pairing of contemporary life writing scholarship 3220_Offshoot.indd 1 18/01/2018 3:32 PM Offshoot and practice, consciously bringing together a wide range of rel- evant perspectives and approaches. Throughout the process of conceiving this collection, and piecing it together, we have concentrated on balancing both crit- ical and creative modes of research enquiry and production, and providing a forum where these modes could speak to, and across, each other. This collection aims to represent not only a wide range of subgenres and approaches current within life writing and creative writing studies, but to also offer varied and multifaceted readings of life writing, recognising the importance and impact of subgeneric differences and experimentation on life writing.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • FILE 770:38 2 Editorial Rambling Science Fiction Writer Mack Reynolds Died of Cancer January 31, According to Rick Katze
    t YE OLDE COLOPHON FILE 770 is edited by Mike Glyer, at 5828 Woodman Ave. #2, Van Nuys CA 91401. This newzine serving science fiction fandom is published less often than Charlie Brown recommends, and more often than Andrew Porter can keep count (see item else­ where this issue), but to be more specific, shows up about every six weeks. While F77O can be obtained for hot news, sizzling rumors (printable or not), arranged trades with clubzines and newzines, and expensive Inng-distance phone calls (not collect), subscriptions are most highly prized. Rates: 5/$3 (US) will get your issues sent first-class in North America, and printed matter overseas. $1 per issue covers air printed matter mailing overseas. Direct those expensive, long-distance calls to (213) 787-5061. I’m never home Tuesday nights, so don’t kill yourselves trying to reach me then. I do have a message machine, if it comes down to that... Want back issues? Send request for info. Thanks for production help last issue to: Anne Hansen, Fran Smith, Dean Bell, Debbie Ledesma.______________________ ______ ROUNDMGS mihe glyer ~ — ORIENTATION FOR NEW READERS : Why is this fanzine titled FILE 770? Late in ‘■"z 1977, when I was nerving up to start a fannish newzine to succeed KARASS, I found it difficult to find a title that had not been previously used. I looked through dictionaries, and the Thesaurus. I scanned Bruce Pelz’ voluminous fanzine index. I declined offers to revive titles like FANAC and STARSPINKLE. It became my contention that all the good sf story references usable as newzine titles had been taken.
    [Show full text]
  • Endeavour Anniversary
    Episode 10 Teacher Resource 28th April 2020 Endeavour Anniversary Students will investigate Captain Endeavour History Cook’s voyage to Australia on 1. When did the Endeavour set sail from England? board the HMB Endeavour. Students will explore the impact 2. Who led the voyage of discovery on the Endeavour? that British colonisation had on 3. Describe James Cook’s background. the lives of Aboriginal and Torres 4. What did Cook study that would help him to become a ship’s Strait Islander Peoples. captain? 5. Fill in the missing words: By the 18th Century, _________________ had been mapping the globe for centuries, claiming HASS – Year 4 ______________ and resources as their own. (Europeans and land) The journey(s) of AT LEAST ONE 6. Who was Joseph Banks? world navigator, explorer or trader 7. Why did Banks want to travel on the Endeavour? up to the late eighteenth century, including their contacts with other 8. The main aim of the voyage was to travel to… societies and any impacts. 9. What rare event was the Endeavour crew aiming to observe? 10. What was their secret mission? The nature of contact between 11. Who was Tupaia? Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and others, for 12. After leaving Tahiti, where did the Endeavour go? example, the Macassans and the 13. What happen in April 1770? Europeans, and the effects of 14. Complete the following sentence. Australia was known to Europeans these interactions on, for at the time as New___________________. (Holland) example, people and environments. 15. Describe the first contact with Indigenous people.
    [Show full text]
  • EORA Mapping Aboriginal Sydney 1770–1850 Exhibition Guide
    Sponsored by It is customary for some Indigenous communities not to mention names or reproduce images associated with the recently deceased. Members of these communities are respectfully advised that a number of people mentioned in writing or depicted in images in the following pages have passed away. Users are warned that there may be words and descriptions that might be culturally sensitive and not normally used in certain public or community contexts. In some circumstances, terms and annotations of the period in which a text was written may be considered Many treasures from the State Library’s inappropriate today. Indigenous collections are now online for the first time at <www.atmitchell.com>. A note on the text The spelling of Aboriginal words in historical Made possible through a partnership with documents is inconsistent, depending on how they were heard, interpreted and recorded by Europeans. Original spelling has been retained in quoted texts, while names and placenames have been standardised, based on the most common contemporary usage. State Library of New South Wales Macquarie Street Sydney NSW 2000 Telephone (02) 9273 1414 Facsimile (02) 9273 1255 TTY (02) 9273 1541 Email [email protected] www.sl.nsw.gov.au www.atmitchell.com Exhibition opening hours: 9 am to 5 pm weekdays, 11 am to 5 pm weekends Eora: Mapping Aboriginal Sydney 1770–1850 was presented at the State Library of New South Wales from 5 June to 13 August 2006. Curators: Keith Vincent Smith, Anthony (Ace) Bourke and, in the conceptual stages, by the late Michael
    [Show full text]
  • Ghosts of Ned Kelly: Peter Carey’S True History and the Myths That Haunt Us
    Ghosts of Ned Kelly: Peter Carey’s True History and the myths that haunt us Marija Pericic Master of Arts School of Communication and Cultural Studies Faculty of Arts The University of Melbourne November 2011 Submitted in total fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts (by Thesis Only). Abstract Ned Kelly has been an emblem of Australian national identity for over 130 years. This thesis examines Peter Carey’s reimagination of the Kelly myth in True History of the Kelly Gang (2000). It considers our continued investment in Ned Kelly and what our interpretations of him reveal about Australian identity. The paper explores how Carey’s departure from the traditional Kelly reveals the underlying anxieties about Australianness and masculinity that existed at the time of the novel’s publication, a time during which Australia was reassessing its colonial history. The first chapter of the paper examines True History’s complication of cultural memory. It argues that by problematising Kelly’s Irish cultural memory, our own cultural memory of Kelly is similarly challenged. The second chapter examines Carey’s construction of Kelly’s Irishness more deeply. It argues that Carey’s Kelly is not the emblem of politicised Irishness based on resistance to imperial Britain common to Kelly narratives. Instead, he is less politically aware and also claims a transnational identity. The third chapter explores how Carey’s Kelly diverges from key aspects of the Australian heroic ideal he is used to represent: hetero-masculinity, mateship and heroic failure. Carey’s most striking divergence comes from his unsettling of gender and sexual codes.
    [Show full text]
  • Stgd/Ned Kelly A4 . March
    NED KELLY Study Guide by Robert Lewis and Geraldine Carrodus ED KELLY IS A RE-TELLING OF THE WELL-KNOWN STORY OF THE LAST AUSTRALIAN OUTLAW. BASED ON THE NOVEL OUR SUNSHINE BY ROBERT DREWE, THE FILM REPRESENTS ANOTHER CHAPTER IN NAUSTRALIA’S CONTINUING FASCINATION WITH THE ‘HERO’ OF GLENROWAN. The fi lm explores a range of themes The criminals are at large and are armed including justice, oppression, relation- and dangerous. People are encouraged ships, trust and betrayal, family loyalty, not to resist the criminals if they see the meaning of heroism and the nature them, but to report their whereabouts of guilt and innocence. It also offers an immediately to the nearest police sta- interesting perspective on the social tion. structure of rural Victoria in the nine- teenth century, and the ways in which • What are your reactions to this traditional Irish/English tensions and four police was searching for the known story? hatreds were played out in the Austral- criminals. The police were ambushed by • Who has your sympathy? ian colonies. the criminals and shot down when they • Why do you react in this way? tried to resist. Ned Kelly has the potential to be a very This ‘news flash’ is based on a real valuable resource for students of History, The three murdered police have all left event—the ambush of a party of four English, Australian Studies, Media and wives and children behind. policemen by the Kelly gang in 1878, at Film Studies, and Religious Education. Stringybark Creek. Ned Kelly killed three The gang was wanted for a previous of the police, while a fourth escaped.
    [Show full text]
  • Yarnupings Issue 1 March 2018
    March 2018 Issue 2 Aboriginal Heritage Office Yarnupings www.aboriginalheritage.org In this Edition: ∗ NSW Aboriginal Knockout in Dubbo 2018 ∗ It’s a Funny World ∗ Is it possible? ∗ Kids page... Nature Page ∗ Crossword & Quizerama ∗ Book Review: A Fortunate Life by A.B Facey ∗ This Months Recipe : Chicken Pot Roast ∗ Strathfield Sites ∗ YarnUp Review: Guest Speaker Tjimpuna ∗ Walk of the Month: West Head Loop Mackerel Beach -West Head Loop Shell Fish -Hooks Page 2 For at least the last thousand years BC (Before Cook) the waters of Warringá (Middle Har- bour), Kay -ye -my (North Harbour), Weé -rong (Sydney Cove) and other Sydney estuaries were the scenes of people using shell fish -hooks to catch a feed. With no known surviving oral tradition for how and who would make the fish -hooks and use them in this area, the historical and archaeological records become more important. What do we know? Shell fish -hooks were observed and reported on by a number of people from the First Fleet. They mention being made and used by local women. “Considering the quickness with which they are finished, the excellence of the work, if it be inspected, is admirable”, Watkin Tench said on witnessing Barangaroo making one on the north shore. First Fleet painting of fish -hook (T. Watling) The manufacturing process involved the use of a strong shell. So far the only archaeological evidence is from the Turbo species. Pointed stone files were used to create the shape and then file down the edges to the recognisable form. Use -wear analysis on files has confirmed that they were used on shell as well as wood, bone and plant material.
    [Show full text]
  • Ten Pound Poms : a Life History of British Postwar Emigration to Australia
    TEN POUND POMS : A LIFE HISTORY OF BRITISH POSTWAR EMIGRATION TO AUSTRALIA Author: A. James Hammerton Number of Pages: 400 pages Published Date: 28 Sep 2012 Publisher: MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS Publication Country: Manchester, United Kingdom Language: English ISBN: 9780719071331 DOWNLOAD: TEN POUND POMS : A LIFE HISTORY OF BRITISH POSTWAR EMIGRATION TO AUSTRALIA Ten Pound Poms : A Life History of British Postwar Emigration to Australia PDF Book In thoroughly discussing this well-known subject, while providing 124 new exercises, Knuth continues to build a firm foundation for programming. From the launch of Amazon's third-party seller program to their foray into enterprise services, he witnessed it all-the amazing successes, the little-known failures, and the experiments whose outcomes are still in doubt. Cardiff hailed the miners when they gave them the Freedom of the City in 1995. Tantalizing clues to the alien timetable for revealing their plans here. One step at a time, long-time Crystal Reports insiders take you from the basics through advanced content creation and delivery using Xcelsius, Crystal Reports Server, crystalreports. Introduction to Policing Research brings together a range of leading scholars who have a wide range of experience conducting police research. You will learn how to develop your own clients using Java, Python, and C. In these examples, a picture is worth a thousand words, bringing to life the concepts developed in the text.C. Instead, some goods are intrinsically public; their value hinges on their public provision. Additional subjects include partial fractions, mock theta functions, Hermite's method, convergence proof, elementary functional relations, multidimensional Poisson summation formula, the modular transformation, and many other areas.
    [Show full text]
  • Notes on Contributors Has Had Poems Published in Australian Women's
    Notes on Contributors Notes on Contributors Chris Adler lives in Elvina Bay, an off-shore community iust outside Sydney. She was born in Mill Valley, California and moved to Australia in 1994 to study at the University of Wollongong. She has been writing poems since she was a child as a way of capturing life on the page, similar to a photo or painting. She has had poems published in Australian Women's Book Review, The West Pitt.'ater Perspective, POETALK (Berkeley, California) and others. Jordie Albiston was born in Melbourne in 1961. Her first poetry collection Nervous Arcs (Spinifex 1995) won first prize in the Mary Gilmore Award, second in the Anne Elder Award, and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Award. Her second book was entitled Botany Bay Document: A Poetic History of the Women of Botany Bay (Black Pepper 1996). Her most recent collection, The Hanging of Jean Lee (Black Pepper 1998), explores the life and death of the last woman hanged in Australian in 1951. Jordie was recipient of the Dinny O'Hearn Memorial Fellowship in 1997. She holds a PhD in literature and has two teenage children. Lucy Alexander grew up in a family of English teachers, with too many books in their lives. As a result she began to write from an early age. It seemed like the only alternative to teaching. She was encouraged in her endeavours by becoming a finalist in the Sydney Morning Herald Young Writer of the Year Award in 1992. At the end of her university degree she was published by Five Island Press in Fathoms a collection of the poetry of three student writers.
    [Show full text]
  • Student Activity Sheet H20.3: Convict Clothing
    EPISODE 20 | 1818: CHARLES Unit focus: History Year level: Years 3–6 EPISODE CLIP: FENCING ACTIVITY 1: ESCAPE! Subthemes: Culture; Gender roles and stereotypes; Historical events The remoteness of Australia and its formidable landscape and harsh climate made this alien land an ideal choice as a penal settlement in the early 19th century. While the prospect of escape may initially have seemed inconceivable, the desire for freedom proved too strong for the many convicts who attempted to flee into the bush. Early escapees were misguided by the belief that China was only a couple of hundred kilometres to the north. Later, other convicts tried to escape by sea, heading across the Pacific Ocean. In this clip, Charles meets Liam, an escaped convict who is attempting to travel over the Blue Mountains to the west. Discover Ask students to research the reasons why Australia was selected as the site of a British penal colony. They should also find out who was sent to the colony and where the convicts were first incarcerated. Refer to the My Place for Teachers, Decade timeline – 1800s for an overview. Students should write an account of the founding of the penal settlement in New South Wales. As a class, discuss the difficulties convicts faced when escaping from an early Australian gaol. Examine the reasons they escaped and the punishments inflicted when they were captured. List these reasons and punishments on the board or interactive whiteboard. For more in-depth information, students can conduct research in the school or local library, or online.
    [Show full text]
  • A Study of British Migration to Western Australia in the 1960S, with Special Emphasis on Those Who Travelled on the SS Castel Felice
    University of Notre Dame Australia ResearchOnline@ND Theses 2007 From Dream to Reality: A study of British migration to Western Australia in the 1960s, with special emphasis on those who travelled on the SS Castel Felice Hilda June Caunt University of Notre Dame Australia Follow this and additional works at: http://researchonline.nd.edu.au/theses Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Copyright Regulations 1969 WARNING The am terial in this communication may be subject to copyright under the Act. Any further copying or communication of this material by you may be the subject of copyright protection under the Act. Do not remove this notice. Publication Details Caunt, H. J. (2007). From Dream to Reality: A study of British migration to Western Australia in the 1960s, with special emphasis on those who travelled on the SS Castel Felice (Master of Arts (MA)). University of Notre Dame Australia. http://researchonline.nd.edu.au/theses/34 This dissertation/thesis is brought to you by ResearchOnline@ND. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of ResearchOnline@ND. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INTRODUCTION To construct this unique contribution to the history of Western Australia I have used the words of over 100 British migrants who came here in the 1960s. Over a million people left the British Isles to migrate to Australia during the 1960s1. Over one hundred thousand migrants, not all of whom were British, came to Australia on the Castel Felice between 1959 and 1969. 2 She was one of the many ships travelling the route between Europe and Australia in the great post-war movement of peoples.
    [Show full text]
  • JBR 57 2 Pre-1800 Book Reviews 363..403
    384 ▪ Book Reviews historically grounded and gritty blow-by-blow account of a new brand of military colonialism launched by Cromwell in the mid-seventeenth century,one that discloses England’s weaknesses as much as its strengths on the international stage during this time. Christine Walker Yale-NUS College [email protected] DIANA PRESTON. Paradise in Chains: The Bounty Mutiny and the Founding of Australia. New York: Bloomsbury, 2017. Pp. 352. $30.00 (cloth). doi: 10.1017/jbr.2018.14 This well-written work retells the story of the mutiny on the Bounty (April 1789) and details the early years of the colony of New South Wales (January 1788–1808) and the daring escape from that colony in March 1791 by convicts William and Mary Bryant, their two children, and seven others. Diana Preston’s title implies a link between the founding of New South Wales and the Bounty mutiny. It is true, as Preston states, that part of the original plan was for one of the convict transports, after depositing its human cargo on the east coast of Australia, to travel to New Zealand for flax and then to Tahiti for breadfruit plants. However, this plan was abandoned before the First Fleet sailed. There was in fact no direct link between the two events. Both were simply part of a larger British government strategy. The Australian historian Alan Frost has clearly shown how the British government’s aim was to expand its commerce in the Indian and Pacific Oceans (see, especially, Botany Bay: The Real Story, 2011).
    [Show full text]
  • Mary Ann Bugg – “Captain Thunderbolt's Lady.”
    Mary Ann Bugg – “Captain Thunderbolt’s Lady.” Adapted with permission by Barry Sinclair, from an article written in1998 by Andrew Stackpool There were two “female bushrangers” in Australia, Mary Ann, wife, & chief lieutenant of Fred Ward and “Black Mary”, companion of Michael Howe, notorious bushranger in Tasmania in the early 1800’s. While much is made of and written about the partners of the other bushrangers, little is recorded on the life of our female bushrangers. In the case of Mary Ann, she is responsible for Fred Ward being at large for so long. Her distinct femininity and her Aboriginal heritage were probably the reason for Fred’s dislike of using firearms. She certainly taught him to read and write, and her skills developed, as part of her aboriginality, served them both well in their life in the bush. The blending of Aboriginal and European features in Mary Ann created a remarkable beauty, which was commented on many times during her career. Mary Ann Bugg was born near Gloucester/Stroud in New South Wales. Her father was a shepherd named James Brigg (who subsequently changed his name to Bugg). He was born in Essex in England in 1801 and on 18 July 1825 was transported for life for stealing meat. He arrived in Sydney on the ship “SESOSTRIS” on 26 March 1826 and on 15 January 1828 was assigned to the Australian Agricultural Company as Overseer of Shepherds. He was successful in his duties and in 1834 was granted a Ticket of Leave. This meant he was technically a free man who could own property but could not leave the Colony.
    [Show full text]