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| ====== 'Roxburgh Castle' memoir ====== | ====== 'Roxburgh Castle' memoir ====== |
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| TLM-P wrote his 'Draft memoirs of a voyage from London to Sydney on the Roxburgh Castle', c.1879((MLMSS6576, copied from Praed papers, QJO)) for his daughter Rosa Praed to use in her planned 'sketch of colonial life'. He wrote it, he explained, while suffering from lumbago (lower back pain) which left him unable to do physical work. He was relying on his memory of events over 40 years ago, so this evidence must be treated with caution. As well, as with most memoirs, he highlights the aspect of his youthful self he most admired and wished his daughter to appreciate. The anecdotes he chooses to tell his daughter reinforce the perception of a young man full of high spirits: his toasting the Catholic reformer Daniel O'Connor in response to an Orangeman's toast; shooting bottles then albatrosses; and defying Captain Cumberland by diving off the //Roxburgh Castle// to swim, disbelieving warnings of sharks until one was caught by the crew.\\ | TLM-P wrote his 'Draft memoirs of a voyage from London to Sydney on the Roxburgh Castle', c.1879((Praed notebook, Praed papers, Box 3/item 125, Unpaginated, QJO; copy in Sydney's Mitchell Library, MLMSS 6576)) for his daughter Rosa Praed to use in her planned 'sketch of colonial life'. He wrote it, he explained, while suffering from lumbago (lower back pain) which left him unable to do physical work. He was relying on his memory of events over 40 years ago, so this evidence must be treated with caution. As well, as with most memoirs, he highlights the aspect of his youthful self he most admired and wished his daughter to appreciate. The anecdotes he chooses to tell his daughter reinforce the perception of a young man full of high spirits: his toasting the Catholic reformer Daniel O'Connor in response to an Orangeman's toast; shooting bottles then albatrosses; and defying Captain Cumberland by diving off the //Roxburgh Castle// to swim, disbelieving warnings of sharks until one was caught by the crew.\\ |
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| TLM-P recalled that there were some 20 to 30 in the first class accommodation (cabin class); 'several' passengers in second class accommodation; and 'about 200 emigrants' jammed into the third class accommodation. They also picked up new passengers when stopped at Cape Town. While he deplored his father's financial recklessness and was aware his mother had scrimped to provide money for him, he takes it for granted that he sailed 'cabin' class. Class divisions were strong and he showed no interest in those who could not afford first class. Despite his disregard, the white population of NSW was so small that he would have encountered them in later life: emigrants like 21-year-old Jane McCormick who, a decade later, had married and, with her husband, ran a major store at Singleton in the Hunter Valley.((Catherine Bishop, //Minding her own Business. Colonial Businesswomen in Sydney//, Sydney: NewSouth, 2015, p.146.))\\ | TLM-P recalled that there were some 20 to 30 in the first class accommodation (cabin class); 'several' passengers in second class accommodation; and 'about 200 emigrants' jammed into the third class accommodation. They also picked up new passengers when stopped at Cape Town. While he deplored his father's financial recklessness and was aware his mother had scrimped to provide money for him, he takes it for granted that he sailed 'cabin' class. Class divisions were strong and he showed no interest in those who could not afford first class. Despite his disregard, the white population of NSW was so small that he would have encountered them in later life: emigrants like 21-year-old Jane McCormick who, a decade later, had married and, with her husband, ran a major store at Singleton in the Hunter Valley.((Catherine Bishop, //Minding her own Business. Colonial Businesswomen in Sydney//, Sydney: NewSouth, 2015, p.146.))\\ |
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| The Rev Clarke described how it was decided that the //Roxburgh Castle// did not harbour any contagious disease, so the next day it sailed to Darling Harbour, anchoring adjacent to [[wp>Goat_Island_(Port_Jackson)|Goat Island]]. TLM-P's memoir unfortunately ends with him disembarking, so we have no information about his first impressions of Sydney people or how he found employment. If he was like the Rev Clarke, it was a kaleidoscope of competing impressions including of gangs of convicts working with their chains clanking and bushrangers in the outlying areas of white settlement. Some there were drought-breaking violent thunderstorms which rendered many of the roads hazardous mudslides.((Elena Grainger, //The remarkable Reverend Clarke: the life and times of the father of Australian geology//, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p.75-85.)) By then, TLM-P had likely found his first employment gaining colonial experience, to the north of Sydney in the Hunter Valley. | The Rev Clarke described how it was decided that the //Roxburgh Castle// did not harbour any contagious disease, so the next day it sailed to Darling Harbour, anchoring adjacent to [[wp>Goat_Island_(Port_Jackson)|Goat Island]]. TLM-P's memoir unfortunately ends with him disembarking, so we have no information about his first impressions of Sydney people or how he found employment. If he was like the Rev Clarke, it was a kaleidoscope of competing impressions including of gangs of convicts working with their chains clanking and bushrangers in the outlying areas of white settlement. Soon after they landed, here were drought-breaking violent thunderstorms which rendered many of the roads hazardous mudslides.((Elena Grainger, //The remarkable Reverend Clarke: the life and times of the father of Australian geology//, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p.75-85.)) By then, TLM-P had likely found his first employment in the colony, to the north of Sydney in the Hunter Valley. |
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