Charles
Dickens was a 20-year-old journalist
in 1832, the year 14 -year-old Joseph Evans was tried
at Old Bailey for picking pockets. Great grandfather Evans was sentenced to
transportation to Australia for 14 years. The circumstances of the
two incidents that led to his conviction were almost identical to
those described by Dickens in Oliver Twist published in 1837. Includes links to Old Bailey records
John Scott was an innkeeper in
Caputh, Perthshire, Scotland before he and his wife, Margaret,
decided to migrate to Australia in 1825. Twenty years later, he and
his family made an epic journey through rugged south eastern
Australia to take up land in the newly explored country that became
known as Gippsland. The Scotts of Delvine.
The Hobart Town
Gazette in Oct 1842, printed a "List of Servants arrived Hobart
Town per
Apolline, Saturday October 1st, 1842 ." John
Whitbourn and his wife (nee Jane Charter) brought seven of their
eight children to Hobart. Early in 1843, John's
wife, Jane, died and the following year he married Elizabeth Cross
with whom he had a further twelve children. Three of the first
family married children of John and Margaret
Scott. The Early days.
On June 1st
1858, the Shanklys with five surviving children left Scotland aboard
the S.S. Conway for Melbourne. Three years later, when living at
Oakleigh, Victoria, they lost three little boys aged 6.4 and 2 to
diphtheria. in just two days. More children were born, one of
whom, James McFarlane Shankly married Mary Ann Donovan, a newly
arrived migrant from County Cork. Mary Ann was the only one of my
grand parents not born in Australia. The Irish Connection.
These, my
forebears, contributed not only to my physical attributes but also
to the principles and opinions that I hold so strongly. Does that
matter? Only that I was privileged to represent the people of
Gippsland East in the Parliament of the State of Victoria from 1961
to 1992 and I was expected to express my opinions. Members of
my family have been associated with Gippsland since the beginning of
European settlement. They were a mixture of English, Irish and
Scottish origins who 'did it tough' in a harsh and strange
environment.
Australia is a land of wide open spaces but the
vast majority of its citizens live in overcrowded, gridlocked and
crime ridden cities while country communities struggle to survive. In this land of “droughts and
flooding rains”, there are reasons for this greatest paradox of all.
It is hard to believe what Australian governments are doing to
country residents. It is said that
democracy only works if voters are well informed. Information
has never been so readily available as it is today through the
Internet. It is a veritabe goldmine, but like gold, if you don't
look for it, you are unlikely to find it. The press,
both hard copy and electronic, metropolitan and
country, fail in their tresponsibility to report what
is happening fairly and objectively. The bias
is so massive that I had difficulty in
believing the figures although for decades I suspected there was a huge undisclosed
sum of money involved. The subsidies for public transport for Melbourne and
Sydney - are they $2 million, $20 million, $200
million , $2,000 million? The actual figure is available
on government web sites but no one seems able to
see it. Is it because they don't look or because those responsible are ashamed to
admit to the truth. It is not an argument that our
cities should not have the infrastructure they need - it is a
question of who should be bearing the costs. The greatest threat.
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