Return to Contents. Return to Bibliography. Return to Home Page.
Australia
This is a novelised version of the true story of Mary Bryant.
Mary committed what was no more than a stupid prank and yet for this she was sentenced to be transported to the new penal colony in Botany Bay for seven years.
First of all she was held in one of the overcrowded, filthy disease ridden prison hulks before being transferred to the convict ship which was to take her to Australia. Here conditions were much better because the ship had a good captain. On the voyage Mary gave birth to a little girl as she had been raped aboard the hulk. Once in Australia Mary’s luck continues to hold. She marries Will Bryant, a convicted smuggler. Will is put in a position of trust. He is in charge of the colony’s fishing, something which was much needed to supplement the meagre food supplies. He is given a large hut at the top of a hill and Mary makes a garden. But Will abuses his trust. He keeps back some of the fish and sells it. On being caught he is sentenced to a savage flogging and he and Mary lose their big hut.
There is also the problem of finding food. Land has to be cleared and the colonists have to learn how to grow crops in what is to them an alien environment. At first they are dependent on supplies from England Then supplies begin to run out and no new ships arrive from England. Rations are cut to an absolute minimum. Eventually there are only enough left for a few months. Then at long last the supply ships arrive and full rations are restored.
Rather surprisingly, it is at this point when the worst is over, that Will and Mary decide to try to escape. This is even more remarkable as they would have been free in two years anyway.
But they carry out their plan. They escape in the fishing boat –– Will, Mary, Mary’s two children and a few other convicts. In a voyage vaguely reminiscent of that of William Bligh they make their way northwards up the Australian coast. They were in an open boat and an old boat at that but it was not the ocean or the elements which were the main dangers. No it was the native Aborigines. They had to put ashore from time to time for water and supplies and to repair the boat and it was then that they faced the risk of attack.
But they reached the north of Australia and sailed across to Timor. But this did not prove the safe haven they had hoped. They posed as survivors from an American shipwreck but while drunk Will revealed the truth and they were sent back to England to another trial.
This book has been carefully and extensively researched and there is an impressive list of acknowledgements. Use was made of contemporary articles, and the journals of the captain of the transport ship, of Will Bryant and also of another escaper and much more.
Comes with a historical note and a map.
Superb background giving vivid pictures of English prisons, the prison hulks, the transport ships and the difficulties of carving out a colony in a strange land. This book also shows what can be achieved by human determination to overcome almost impossible difficulties and perils.
Well worth reading.
12 to adult
This is a sequel to Powder Monkey. Despite being pressed into the navy Sam Witchell is beginning to settle down and actually like it. He even has dreams of becoming an officer. Then everything begins to go wrong. Sam accidentally overhears a conversation between the Purser and one of his accomplices. The Purser is responsible for a number of swindles and, if discovered, he could be hanged. To protect himself the Purser tricks Sam and his friend fellow Richard and makes it appear as if they were guilty of cowardice during the Battle of Copenhagen. Sam and Richard are sentenced to death but the sentence is later commuted to transportation to Australia.
Then follows a description of Sam and Richard’s experience on one of the dreaded prison hulks and then they are sent aboard the ship which is to take them to New South Wales. Here they are lucky. The captain is stern but fair and the boys share a small cabin with Dan, a doctor. Later the boys are allowed to take part in sailing the ship.
When they finally arrive in New South Wales Paul Dowswell crafts the story skillfully so that the reader has a wide picture of the emerging colony. At first Sam and Richard are actually much better off than they were in the Navy. They share a hut with Doctor Dan and work in repairing and maintaining the Navy’s vessels. Then they fall foul of an officer in the New South Wales Corps and they are sent to work for a farmer on the Hawkesbury River settlement. At first things are not too bad because the overseer is not a harsh man. Then the overseer is killed and the boys hear that the new overseer is to be their old adversary Lewis Tuck. They know he will have no mercy with them so, with two other convicts, they escape to the bush.
There they face great dangers –– danger from poisonous snakes, danger from the unpredictable natives, danger from disease with no medical care, danger from starvation and, worst of all, danger from a fellow convict with cannibalistic tendencies.
And there seems there is no escape from all this. They had heard that there was a white settlement somewhere up north and then they find out that this is a myth. Even if they can learn to survive in the bush could they put up with the relentless boredom? And if they return Sydney they face a flogging which could cripple them for life if not kill them.
Many may consider this an exciting boys’ adventure story but it is really far more than this. It illuminates the harshness and severity of the age and the way in which savage and brutal treatment of young boys was just accepted. Nowhere is this made more clear than the scene in which Sam and Richard stand with hoods over their heads and the hangman’s ropes around their necks. Then at the last minute the hoods and ropes are removed. Sam and Richard have been reprieved.
This book has been very well researched and it comes with historical notes and note on sources. I(t has very attractive endpapers which mimic a contemporary sketch of Sydney harbour.
An exciting story which brings out the cruelty of the age and the dreadful way in which people were treated then.
11+
Kathleen Sutton is a happy, carefree
Australian teenager. She is musical and is learning to play the
piano. She also is also a member of a group with some of her friends
and makes tapes for the school funds.
Then she is diagnosed with leukaemia and her long treatment begins.
And a strange thing happens. Kathleen's grandmother has just died
and Kathleen starts to have dreams about her grandmother. It is
as if her grandmother is reaching out to her and is trying to
send her an urgent message. Kathleen tries to tell people about
these dreams but when she sees their reaction she wisely decides
she is better keeping them to herself.
The family know very little about her grandmother's early life.
That is because she was unhappy when she was growing up and it
upset her to talk about it. But they do know that she was sent
out from England at the age of ten with a group of Barnardos'
children. She arrived in Australia in 1937.
Kathleen's first dream is very short. It shows her grandmother
first meeting her grandfather. The second dream is longer and
shows her grandmother aboard the ship taking her to Australia.
At first all goes well and there are shore trips such as when
the children are shown Gibraltar. Later there are the traditional
ceremonies when they cross the Equator.
And then things start to go wrong. In the children's home in England
grandmother (also called Kathleen) was asked to look after a new
girl, the rather wild girl Enid. They become firm friends. Now
when the ship reaches Australia Enid steals an opal brooch and
Kathleen is implicated too. She is severely punished and branded
a thief. The second dream ends with Kathleen aboard a truck taking
her to her new home -- and being torn away from Enid.
The next dream shows Kathleen at the home at Mowbray Park. At
first she has a sympathetic housemother and she does well and
puts her former troubles behind her. Then she gets a new housemother
and everything starts to go wrong again.
The next dream goes further back and describes Kathleen's life
in the home in England. The last dream is shorter. It shows Kathleen
just after the death of her mother when she was only four. It
also shows her being taken away from her twin brother.
That is the end of the dreams. Then Kathleen, the grand daughter,
finally realises the meaning of the dreams and the message her
grandmother was trying to get across. Kathleen is told that she
needs a bone marrow transplant. But none of her immediate relatives
have the correct tissue match. But Kathleen now knows she may
have relatives in England. She has the knowledge she gained from
the dreams. To this she adds knowledge gained in a more conventional
way from the internet.
Can she find her English relatives? And will one of them be a
match? Just as important, will she find them in time because she
does not have long.
Many parts of this book are emotional and poignant. We sympathise
with the plight of the little orphan girl sent to Australia. Grandmother's
song about the emigrant children is particularly touching. It
starts with the lines,
But above all the spirit of the young Kathleen shines through
and helps to lighten the sadder parts.
This book throws more light on enforced juvenile emigration. It
is given a further dimension by Kathleen's illness and the resulting
urgency to trace her relatives.
Very highly recommended.
Young adult.
This is the fictional diary of a young
girl transported to Australia. She is sent out with the First
Fleet which arrived in January 1788. This first group of convicts
experienced great hardship. The land on the coast where they landed
was infertile and they had to rely for food on supplies brought
by the ships. This diary covers the two months just before the
arrival of the Second Fleet which brought the supplies without
which most of the early settlers would have died.
The diary starts with Elizabeth working for her master in his
hut on Rose Hill. This is some distance inland on the Paramatta
River where the land is more fertile than the land around Sydney
Cove and it is possible to grow vegetables. Even so the convicts
and their supervisors are never far from starvation and there
are harsh laws about stealing food.
Elizabeth has a younger brother back in England and she keeps
this diary for him. She hopes that one day she will be able to
send it to him. She buys the blank book for it by stealing two
onions - a crime for which she could have been punished by one
hundred lashes - a flogging from which she would probably have
died.
The day to day life of the settlement at Rose Hill is described
in detail and then Elizabeth is sent to Sydney to look after the
little daughter of a surgeon and she experiences the harsher conditions
there.
The reader learns of her earlier life in England and how she came
to be transported because the surgeon gets her to tell her story
in the evenings.
This book gives a good picture of the early days of the convict
settlements in Australia and the struggle just to keep alive.
In many ways the severity of the times is toned down for young
readers. For example there is no actual description of a brutal
flogging, just the statement that Elizabeth could have been flogged.
And then there is reference to the coarseness of the adult convicts
but again nothing explicit. They make rude remarks to Elizabeth
and that is all we are told. And Elizabeth is warned to avoid
groups of men.
Comes with historical notes, a timeline and contemporary illustrations.
Informative and readable. And young Elizabeth comes across as
a very sympathetic heroine.
10-14
Return to Contents. Return to Bibliography. Return to Home Page.