Elizabeth Macarthur

In 1788 a young gentlewoman raised in an English vicarage married a handsome, haughty and penniless army officer. In any Jane Austen novel, that would be the end of the story, but for the woman who would play an integral part in establishing Australia’s wool industry, it was just the beginning. Elizabeth Macarthur landed at…

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Maria Lord

As time passes, most people fade into obscurity. Their names are forgotten, unless something is named after them or someone passes by their headstone. Their existence is forgotten until an ancestor digs them up (not literally, I hope), or a researcher starts poking around in the history of a place or object. Some people though…

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Ann & Catherine

Hobart Town Gazette, 6 November 1819 Ann and Catherine were both Norfolk Islanders who took up land around Hobart when the island settlement was closed. By 1819, both were widowed and responsible for the running of their respective farms. Ann Lucas (nee Howard) & her husband settled at Browns River, now Kingston. Ann Howard on State…

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Dolly

Sherwood Hall at Latrobe, home to “Thomas Johnson, a pioneer and settler who began life in Van Dieman’s Land as a convict and his wife Dolly Dalrymple Briggs, the first part aboriginal”. Australian Dictionary of Biography Bridging the cultural divide with Dolly Dalrymple

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Mary

So let’s go back to a time when bushranger meant bolter, bandit, runaway convict; and those that made the news were described with words like murderous, atrocious, vicious — no outlaw heroes here — and Mick Howe was the king of them all. Or should that be the governor of them all? Back to 1817,…

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Harriett

Probably I shouldn’t include Mrs Davis, because she doesn’t play an important part in the story, but you can’t expect me to pass on Brady & Co, and she is interesting — for something it’s claimed she didn’t do. This little notice appeared in the Hobart Town Gazette on the 8th July 1825: Brady and…

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