Table of contents for Edition 10, 2020 in Traces

Unlike other war memorials dotted across Australia, there are no names etched into the hard granite memorial that stands outside Eaglehawk Town Hall; however, testament to the commitment made in the Great War by the people of ‘the Borough’ is the one line firmly etched onto the bronze mountings: ‘Over 900 served, over 100 dead’. The Borough of Eaglehawk, five miles south-east of Bendigo in Central Victoria, had been a self-governing municipality since 1862 and, by the turn of the 20th century, had grown fiercely independent of its much larger and more prosperous municipal rival, the City of Bendigo. The challenges of surviving on the edge of the harsh, dry scrubland of northern Victoria, and the economic boom and bust of goldmining, had galvanised the community with a ferocity that…

Born on 10 August 1871, Martha Rendell was reported to be the kind of stepmother that would put Cinderella’s to shame. Convicted in 1908 for murdering her de facto husband’s 15-year-old son, Arthur, and suspected of killing her two young stepdaughters, Rendell’s trial was sensationalised in the media, with the press calling her a ‘scarlet woman’ and ‘evil stepmother’. Yet, more than 100 years on, Rendell’s execution remains controversial. The beginning of the end Our tale begins with an affair. Thomas Nicholls Morris and his wife, Sarah, had what she described as an unhappy and quarrelsome marriage, with Thomas having ‘kept’ a mistress: Martha Rendell. Looking for a fresh start, the family moved from Adelaide to Perth; however, little did they know that this was the beginning of the end,…

MyHeritage France • Military Death Index, 1914–1961: more than 5,000,000 indexed records added to a new collection Germany • Hesse, Marriage Index, 1849–1931: more than 4,700,000 indexed records added to a new collection • Hesse, Birth Index, 1874–1911: more than 3,700,000 indexed records added to a new collection United States • Florida Newspapers, 1901–2009: more than 8,000,000 indexed records added to a new collection • Illinois Newspapers, 1840–2009: more than 83,000 indexed records added to a new collection • Minnesota Newspapers, 1902–2009: more than 92,000 indexed records added to a new collection • Montana Newspapers, 1890–2009: more than 155,000 indexed records added to a new collection • Oklahoma Newspapers, 1927–2009: more than 500,000 indexed records added to a new collection • Tennessee Newspapers, 1870–2009: more than 66,000 indexed records added…

THEN Located on Bridge Street in the Sydney CBD, this stately building was constructed in 1877 for the New South Wales Department of Lands, and was used as the organisation’s administrative head office. The Department played an especially significant role during the rapid expansion of settlement during the late 1800s. The three-storey building was designed by colonial architect James Barnet and built in two stages – the first between 1876 and 1881, and the second between 1888 and 1892 under colonial architect Walter Vernon’s supervision. The builder, John Young, was the first person in Sydney to build with ferro-cement – concrete slabs reinforced with metal mesh or rods. At the time of its construction, the Department of Lands building boasted the latest office technology and features, including spiral stairs, speaking…

Located around 16,000 kilometres from both Darwin and Adelaide, and 110 kilometres east of Alice Springs, Arltunga was the first European settlement in Central Australia. The town was named after the Arrernte Indigenous Australians, who had been living in the area for at least 20,000 years before South Australian explorer David Lindsay reported that he had found rubies there in 1887. Later that year, explorers discovered gold in a dry creek bed, and the town that would be Arltunga sprung to life. At its peak, Arltunga was home to around 300 residents. Indigenous Australians, miners, foremen, engine drivers, cooks, blacksmiths, carpenters, housekeepers and many others made the town a hub of activity. In the 1880s, the gold rush settlement was only accessible by foot, but there were many people who…

Late last year, I found myself in Amsterdam for a few days. I was on holiday, and I had spent the previous few weeks exploring European castles and Christmas markets. As a historian, I am well suited to winter holidays. I spend them pottering around in museums and enjoying the emptiness of grand sites that are usually crowded in summer with no room to just stop and stare at the strange details only a historian could love. But on arriving in Amsterdam, my brain ticked back into action and insisted I address some of the family history mysteries of my Dutch heritage. I only ever met one of my grandparents – my maternal grandmother. She was a feisty Belfast woman who sometimes hinted at wild stories (and had several unexplained…

May Hennessy was born in 1894 in Castlemaine and grew up in nearby Bendigo. Daughter of James and Helen Hennessy, May was the eldest of six children, with three younger sisters – one of which died in infancy – and two younger brothers, who would both go on to fight in World War II. May went to Longlea State School where some of her cousins also attended. A number of her cousins would also volunteer for service in World War I, with four losing their lives. At the age of 19, May began her training as a nurse at Gippsland Hospital, Sale. Why she went all the way to Sale for her training when Bendigo and Melbourne both had nurse training hospitals is unknown. Maybe this was her trying to…

Research funding for Australian society, history and culture The Morrison Government is funding a new research program to recognise the importance of research into Australian society, history and culture. Minister for Education Dan Tehan announced $12 million for academics to pursue research on Australian issues, focusing on Australian culture, society and history. ‘The scheme will look at the way in which we live today, and how the past has contributed to Australian society and culture, including how our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture is understood, and has impacted modern Australian society. ‘We hope this new initiative will bring a greater understanding of our Australian Indigenous history, our heritage and the success of multiculturalism.’ Treasures of the Natural World landing in Melbourne Some of the world’s biggest, rarest,…

There is a classic narrative in Australia that convicts spent their days in penal colonies like Port Arthur and Norfolk Island, which struck fear into the hearts of convicts and settlers alike. But what many people don’t know is that many convicts weren’t even lucky enough to end up there. With prisons overflowing and convicts continuing to be transported to the colonies, former seagoing vessels were quickly modified to accommodate inmates. To understand why these vessels were used in the colonies, it’s important to gain an understanding of what life was like in the United Kingdom in the 18th century. Prisons in Britain were dangerously overcrowded, and after the American Revolutionary War prevented Britain from transporting any more criminals off shore to the United States, British officials were stuck –…

At 11.40 pm on 14 April 1912, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic and sank less than three hours later, resulting in the loss of more than 1500 lives, but while there have been hundreds of books and dozens of movies about that night, what has been overlooked is the heroic role played by an Australian. Albert Nichols was born in July 1864 on Lord Howe Island. He was the eldest son of Thomas Nichols, a whaling captain from Hobart, and Mary Nichols, the only daughter of two of the island’s pioneers, Thomas and Margaret Andrews. After a violent falling-out with his parents, 17-year-old Albert fled from Lord Howe to Sydney, where he got a job on the ferries. Sometime in the late…

During and after World War II, grief for lost loved ones was often kept private. One small medallion, however, represented a public token of silent suffering. The Mothers’ and Widows’ Badge was awarded to women whose husbands or children had been ‘killed in action, or died of wounds or from other causes whilst on service’ in the Mercantile Marine, Royal Australian Navy, Royal Australian Air Force, Australian Army or Australian Army Nursing Service. A seven-pointed star hung below the badge for each relative who died. Thankfully, few women wore three maudlin stars beneath their Mothers’ and Widows’ Badge. Among them was South Australian mother Ellen May ‘Nellie’ Young, born in 1884. Marrying James Jarvis, 17 years her senior, this Catholic couple had nine children between 1902 and 1921: Daisy May…

One of the great challenges of writing history – whether creatively or academically – is dealing with the inherent biases and gaps in the records. Inevitably, historical records tend to favour the record keepers – the literate, the wealthy and the powerful. Those who do not leave written records – the poor or uneducated, the oppressed and marginalised, and those from non-literate cultures – find themselves either misrepresented or missing from the historical record. Worse still, this misrepresentation and omission in the primary literature perpetuates and expands itself over time in the secondary accounts. So, how can we overcome this gap in the historical record? For our anthology, The First Wave, we asked contributors to develop innovative and creative ways to re-examine Australia’s early coastal contact history to provide a…