Book Reviews Iola Hack Mathews with patten maker and merchant, explorations of the northern Chris Durrant, Chequered owning a handsome estate lands across to the Gawler Lives: John Barton Hack and substantial funds at his ranges and north beyond Lake and Stephen Hack and the death, leaving ten children. Torrens. Later in life he lived early days of South Australia, These were the classic ‘anxious for a while in South Africa, middle classes’ who sought and back in England, before Wakefield Press, Adelaide, to prosper in a world of again trying rural life in SA. 2013, pp.xii+291, illus, rrp expanding opportunities, but $29.95 pbk The Hacks were undone by one full of dangers. Barton Barton’s careless financial Hack, in part for his health, optimism when the depression determined to make in fortune of the early 1840s hit the colony. in South Australia, drawing Their ruin was exacerbated brother Stephen with him. by the neatly conspired sharp Accompanied by his loyal practice of their former school and extremely competent friend and fellow Quaker wife Bridget, who bore him merchant, Jacob Hagen. Their fourteen children, Barton Hack principal resource was the land began in Adelaide in 1837. He they had taken up around what engaged in importing goods became Echunga: ‘Echunga and then stock for sale, Bridget Springs’ was Barton’s answer to ran a dairy, then among other his father’s country estate. But ventures he invested in the Hagen was the more astute Encounter Bay whale fishery, business man, with better and pressed for special surveys financial contacts, and he took The papers of the Hack to permit him and his brother it all. I celebrated my birthday brothers have teased researchers Stephen to take up their recently in the Echunga inn in Adelaide for many years. country acre entitlements. which symbolised his success, They include diaries, letters the Hagen Arms. and complex financial records Much turned on the family stretching over many years. trust in England providing While Stephen continued Now at last they have been the brothers credit, and their restless for the remainder of his skilfully unravelled by Iola brother-in-law Gates Darton days, Barton Hack continued Hack Mathews, aided in a kept meticulous and sober to seek prosperity as his family fruitful partnership by Chris accounts, unlike Barton’s grew. He tried a stint on the Durrant. The outcome is a confused, optimistic valuations Victorian goldfields which readable family history of early and expenses. Barton ran up yielded temporary relief, then merchant venturers in South debts that continued to grow, dairying on the Coorong. Australia, men who both with mortgages hanging off Not surprisingly in all this prospered and failed and, in everything. he and Bridget buried several the case of Barton Hack, who Stephen meanwhile was more children, eventually losing all stayed the course to become an restless, preferring the outdoor five daughters. honoured Old Colonist. life. He was an early overlander In all this both Barton and The Hacks came from a Quaker of stock from southern NSW Bridget maintained their merchant family of Chichester, to the Hentys at Portland and Christian faith, first with the in Southern England. Their then shipping to Adelaide. Quakers (to whom Barton father Stephen prospered as a He engaged in some useful gave the land for their Meeting 122 Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia No 42 2014 Book Reviews House on Pennington Terrace), attractively-illustrated, well- documents, photographs, and later with the Bible researched, and written with heritage studies and published Christians. There is a hint that love and care. This is more histories, and state and local the controversy over the role of than another coffee table book. archival collections in weaving the Bible in Quaker life that together Robe’s story. This affected his mother in England Liz Harfull introduces the wide range of sources is fully was also significant in this book with her childhood documented in the References change of allegiance for Barton recollection of ‘entering a section, and set out chapter by Hack. Eventually he settled magical place’, a sense shared chapter, although I consider down to city employment as by many other visitors, that an actual bibliography an accountant, ending his days including me. She also draws should also have been as a senior financial officer with on a personal connection provided, even if only a select the SA railways, gaining end- with Kathleen Bermingham, bibliography as otherwise it of-life fame for his well-written whose local histories fostered takes a long and patient search and optimistic memoirs of the that sense of a beguiling to locate particular references. early days of Adelaide. place, and nourished Harfull’s On the other hand, the detailed own history book many years Iola Hack Mathews is frank in referencing may also draw later. The book is dedicated to attention to – and perhaps her assessments of the Hack Bermingham’s memory. brothers, especially her forbear even voluntary help with – the Barton, but she is also incensed Almost an island comprises a local history collection held at at Hagen’s sharp practice. She substantial 19 chapters divided Robe. shows us some of the people into four main sections, titled I have been told that Almost an who helped establish a good The Early Years, Life, Work Island is leaping off the shelves society in the new lands of and Play. The author’s main in Robe as it is purchased by South Australia. historical narrative is supplied locals and visitors, but the in the first section, beginning book deserves also a wider Brian Dickey with Nicolas Baudin’s readership. This is a well- Flinders University exploration in 1802, but researched, well-written and the entire book interweaves beautifully-illustrated history Liz Harfull, Almost an Island: long-distant and recent as well as a pleasure to browse. the story of Robe, Wakefield histories. Harfull includes Not least this may induce a Press, Adelaide, 2013, pp. many recorded oral histories, new generation to enjoy the 288, illus, rrp $49.95, hbk especially documenting her town and treasure its heritage. main theme of ‘play’ in this summer place. Susan Marsden President, History Council of The book is well set out South Australia with a readable font with substantial pages of text at the same time generously illustrated with historic and recent photographs and reproductions of paintings, drawings and postcards, in colour and black-and-white. Interest is also piqued by The seaside town of Robe in the boxed and illustrated South Australia’s South East is stories, both historical and a small place with a beguiling contemporary. history set in a beautiful location. This book does justice Harfull makes a highly to both as it is nicely designed, competent use of recollections, Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia No 42 2014 123 Book Reviews Janis Sheldrick, Nature’s Line: Goyder’s importance in her research in 1993, and George Goyder: surveyor, shaping the entire pattern twenty years later we have environmentalist, visionary, of rural settlement in South Nature’s Line. Australia in the second half Wakefield Press, Adelaide, The difficulty of the 2013, pp. xiv + 457, illus, rrp of the nineteenth century has, of course, been recognised undertaking is reflected by the $45, hbk by historians and historical length of time taken for the geographers for decades and research and writing. Although numerous pieces of research a prominent and powerful and writing have illuminated figure in his public life, just how influential he was. At Goyder kept his personal life a time when state governments intensely private. Almost all were notoriously unstable and of his known writings take the rose and fell with monotonous form of official departmental regularity, Goyder provided correspondence, annual a rock-like stability, and his reports and parliamentary intelligence, managerial skills papers. For a biographer and extraordinarily high energy seeking to understand and levels ensured that the process portray the man this presents of rural land survey, release real difficulties. There can and sale would be carried out be no doubt that the author to a very high standard. has meticulously probed the George Woodroffe Goyder records, Goyder and his Line was Surveyor General of South Something of a polymath, being the topic of her Deakin Australia for 33 years, and a he was highly respected, University PhD in 2000, but measure of the man can be his expertise and interests at the end it all Goyder the gauged from the numerous extending to weather and private man remains elusive. references to him which climate, mining, railways, continue to the present. artesian bores, forestry and Given the dearth of the private Among other things, we have a hydrological engineering. And record, this situation may South Australian electorate of his work was not confined to never change, but it does not Goyder (as does the Northern South Australia; Northern significantly detract from Territory), a regional council Territorians remember and the importance and worth of of Goyder, Goyder Highway, celebrate him as the founder of this work: it is well written, Goyder Lagoon, the Goyder Darwin. meticulously researched and Institute for Water Research, documented, much new Mt Woodroffe in the Musgrave Curiously, the most prominent material has been uncovered Ranges – South Australia’s scholarly researchers of Goyder and the analysis and discussion highest peak – and the list have come from outside South is first class. Which is not to say could go on. Most importantly, Australia, even if much of their the work is flawless – colour though, we have Goyder’s research has been conducted plates of some of the key early Line, his 1865 demarcation here.