colonial

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KANGAROO HUNTING IN COLONIAL AUSTRALIA A new book explores how the kangaroo became a quarry, a resource and a point of violent conflict between settlers and Australia’s Aboriginal people By Professor Ken Gelder and Dr Rachael Weaver, University of Melbourne In 1848, the Scottish explorer Thomas Mitchell wrote “fire, grass, kangaroos, and human inhabitants, seem all dependent on each other for existence in Australia; for any one of these being wanting, the others could no longer continue”. This is a strikingly modern, ecological observation, establishing the link between humans, agency, species and the shaping of the environment that some Australians are only beginning to understand today. All kinds of native Australian species were co-opted into the machinery of colonisation, but kangaroos have a pre-eminent place here. The struggle over kangaroos as a resource led to both small and large-scale conflicts between Aboriginal people and settlers – who brought their dogs, horses and guns to the hunt. Watkin Tench was a young lieutenant in the Marine Corps; in his 1793 book A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson, he noted the two ‘standard’ methods of killing kangaroos: “either we shot them, or hunted them with greyhounds”. Hunting clubs were established in New South Wales in the 1820s and, in Victoria, in the late 1830s. Hunting for recreation was a way of consolidating settler ownership of large pastoral properties; it was a triumphant announcement of the absolute dispossession of Aboriginal people and the end of the frontier. Networks of settlers hunted together, often turning the hunt into a festive social occasion. In fact, the kangaroo hunt became a much sought-after colonial activity, attracting many notable visitors from overseas. Charles Darwin joined a hunt in 1836 and was famously unsuccessful, while the English novelist Anthony Trollope fell off his horse while hunting in the early 1870s. Source: pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/kangaroo-hunting-in-colon...

Interesting to compare what we see of Kirribilli in the 1870s American and Australasian Photographic Co. pic with this ca. early 1920s aerial pic...if you zoom in you can see there are a couple of survivors... www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/30131493137/ trove.nla.gov.au/work/13375982 - Wotonga and Woodlands also appear in the distance in this 1850s George Peacock painting of Government House, etc...

covid convict Thanks for the ID on the baker's cart, those loaves of bread on top look rather precarious!

Blue Mountains Library, Local Studies they certainly do! Looks like if one loaf fell off they'd all go.

Two years later in 1875 Patrick Freehill, baker applied for insolvency. IN INSOLVENCY. (1875, August 27). New South Wales Government Gazette (Sydney, NSW : 1832 - 1900), p. 2651. Retrieved February 9, 2024, from nla.gov.au/nla.news-article223687501 In 1868 Patrick Freehill, baker received 9 months with hard labour for embezzlement of 15/-. SYDNEY QUARTER SESSIONS.—TUESDAY. (1868, February 5). Empire (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1875), p. 3. Retrieved February 9, 2024, from nla.gov.au/nla.news-article60850111 And.. "A warrant has been issued by the Water Police Bench for the arrest of Daniel M‘Namara, charged with embezzling 10s., the money of his master, Patrick Freehill, baker, No. 109, George street, north. He is about 21 years of age, 5 feet 6 inches high, stout build, fair complexion, no whiskers, light hair, good looking; slightly deaf; an Irishman; frequents billiard-rooms. Has a brother at Mudgee." Offences not otherwise described. (1867, August 7). New South Wales Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime (Sydney : 1860 - 1930), p. 240. Retrieved February 9, 2024, from nla.gov.au/nla.news-article251748702

Strangely, I've just come back from looking at the massive old map of Sydney that they have in Customs House, and noticed the Horse Ferry to Milsons Point marked on it. Now I can see what the Horse Ferry looked like..