This true life adventure story is the saga of four ordinary Englishmen—a pair of banished, first-time petty thieves and a couple chosen to be settlers—who charted a course that led them to help build and mould an infant country on the remotest continent in the known world. Two of their offspring united to continue the adventure. Vivid first-hand accounts have been pried from the daily, hand-written journals and writings of first-class passengers, crew, and one of the convicts aboard the small wooden sailing ships, as they battled winter storms on the treacherous North Atlantic and Southern Oceans and endured scorching doldrums in the equatorial region. Mutinies, inventions, discoveries, and wars have been chronicled to provide a backdrop of the prevailing international, societal, and interpersonal relationships of the period. Characters from history’s stage weave their way through these pages—figures including James Cook, Horatio Nelson, Robert Emmet, Jonathan Swift, William Bligh, Lachlan Macquarie, Samuel Marsden, Walter Lawry, Alfred Howitt, and some long-forgotten souls like the tragic Margaret Sullivan. Artwork of the period is included to help stimulate the imagination and help place the reader beside the characters as they toiled to eke out an existence. The primary objective of this biography is a quest to achieve a broader, deeper understanding and appreciation of the typical person—including their struggles, challenges, and contributions—in early colonial New South Wales, Victoria, and New Zealand. The goal is to further the development of a robust comprehension of the Life and Times that these Six Australian Pioneers experienced, as well, the millions of other pioneers just like them. This book will also appeal to those with an interest in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Australian, European, and New Zealand history; late eighteenth-century ocean voyages; and those with an interest in artwork of the period.

Frontiers were not confined to the bush, backwoods, or borderlands. Towns and cities at the farthest reaches of empire were crucial to the settler colonial project. Yet the experiences of Indigenous peoples in these urban frontiers have been overshadowed by triumphant narratives of progress. This book explores the lives of Indigenous peoples and settlers in two Pacific Rim cities � Victoria, British Columbia, and Melbourne, Australia. Built on Indigenous lands and overtaken by gold rushes, these cities emerged between 1835 and 1871 in significantly different locations, yet both became cross-cultural and segregated sites of empire. This innovative study traces how these spaces, and the bodies in them, were transformed, sometimes in violent ways, creating new spaces and new polities.

The engrossing real life story of how Queen Victoria's favourite son, Prince Alfred, undertook the most ambitious Royal tour, only for Australia's overwhelming joy of having the first Royal on its shores jolted by his decadent behaviour, then shocked by an attempted assassination by a man trained as a priest. The British Empire's youngest and most distant outpost found itself at the epicentre of a new crime and empirical fears about the first inter-continental terrorist group, a conspiracy and a 'lone wolf '. In a resulting 'reign of terror' extraordinary steps were taken to safeguard security with laws on treason and sedition which even the Queen felt went too far, and the would-be assassin was hastily executed in a miscarriage of justice led by opportunistic politicians. This is an extraordinary and atmospheric weaving of the stories - some detailed for the first time - of royal intrigue, sexual appetite, religious bigotry, patriotic vengeance, naked ambition, national security and moral panic. They are stories of royals, immigrants, archbishops, republicans and the founding fathers of Australia and issues that remain with us today. Drawing on Royal, British and Australian archives, the compelling narrative embraces a pivotal time in the evolution of Australia, and on the 150th anniversary reveals how a minute of madness rocked the country to its foundations, with a legacy which helped shape Australia's history and continues to influence and challenge us today. Revelations & insights in The Prince and the Assassin:- Prince Alfred's spare heir upbringing as 'the chosen one' and prospective King of Australia- Sexually decadent royal behaviour- An historic tour which became the model for 50 subsequent royal tours to Australia- Religious bigotry, violence and death in early Australia- How a young migrant trained and destined to be a priest became an assassin- How the biggest crime in Australia shocked, shamed, terrorised and divided the country- How Henry Parkes, 'founder of federation', suppressed and doctored evidence, hired private spies and criminals for political advantage- Australia suppressing civil liberties, even making it a crime of treason to discuss republicanism and to not drink a toast to the Queen- Australian Catholics accused of disloyalty and an Archbishop conspiring against the Government- Australia's most sensational trial, one of injustice and vengeance for a crime not on the Empire's capital list- Alfred appealing for his would-be killer to not be executed- An Australian Government accused of promoting fear for political advantage and committing treason and fraud

In 1835 an illegal squatter camp was established on the banks of the Yarra River. In defiance of authorities in London and Sydney, Tasmanian speculators began sending men and sheep across Bass Strait - and so changed the shape of Australian history. Before the founding of Melbourne, British settlement on the mainland amounted to a few pinpoints on a map. Ten years later, it had become a sea of red. In 1835 James Boyce brings this pivotal moment to life. He traces the power plays in Hobart, Sydney and London, the key personalities of Melbourne's early days, and the haunting questions raised by what happened when the land was opened up. He conjures up the Australian frontier - its complexity, its rawness and the way its legacy is still with us today.

A guide to the public statuary of Melbourne, based on two walks around the inner city. Many public monuments are often just accepted as part of the scene, but each statue or memorial has a story to tell whether about the sculptor, or the person or event it commemorates, and all of them represent a small piece of Melbourne history.