This book "is Sir Alick Downer's lively story of this well-known family since its first members arrived in South Australia in 1837"--Cover description.

Volume 17 of the Australian Dictionary of Biography contains 658 biographies of individuals who died between 1981 and 1990. The first of two volumes for the decade, it presents a colourful mosaic of twentieth-century Australian life. It contains biographies of well-known identities such as Sir Henry Bolte, Sir Robert Askin, Sir Reginald Ansett, Sir Macfarlane Burnet, Sir Raphael and Lady Cilento, Sir Arthur Coles, Robert Holmes-O-Court, Sir Warwick Fairfax, Sir Edmund Herring, Albert Facey, Donald Friend, Sir Roy Grounds, Sir Bernard Heinze and Sir Robert Helpmann. Eminent Australian women in the volume include Dame Elizabeth Couchman, Dame Kate Campbell, Dame Doris Fitton, Dame Zara Holt and Lady (Maie) Casey. Although many of the women achieved prominence in those professions conventionally regarded as the preserve of women, othersandmdash;such as Ruby Boye-Jones, coast-watcher; Ellen Cashman, union organiser; Elsie Chauvel, film-maker; Dorothy Crawford, radio producer; Ruth Dobson, diplomat; Mary Hodgkin, anthropologist; Margaret Kelly, restaurateur; and Patricia Jarrett, journalistandmdash;demonstrate that some women at least were breaking free of the constraints of traditional expectations. The lives of fifteen Indigenous Australians are included, as are those of a number of immigrants who fled from persecution in Europe to establish a new life in Australia.

Was Mounted Constable William Willshire really the cold-blooded killer of 'literally thousands' of Aboriginal people in Central Australia? Or was he the first white man to write a love poem to an Aboriginal woman? Was he both? Did the Finke River missionaries imprison and beat their recalcitrant converts, or did they mark out a future path for a people abandoned by South Australian society? Did the mission connive at the murder of the men who opposed them? Did they really convert anyone to Lutheran Christianity? And what did the people and governments of South Australia know and care about their northern frontier? Could a policeman be hanged for murder? This book goes beyond the stereotypes to answer these questions. It brings back to life some remarkable people.

Australia is one of the most ethnically diverse societies in the world today. From its ancient indigenous origins to British colonisation followed by waves of European then international migration in the twentieth century, the island continent is home to people from all over the globe. Each new wave of settlers has had a profound impact on Australian society and culture. The Australian People documents the dramatic history of Australian settlement and describes the rich ethnic and cultural inheritance of the nation through the contributions of its people. It is one of the largest reference works of its kind, with approximately 250 expert contributors and almost one million words. Illustrated in colour and black and white, the book is both a comprehensive encyclopedia and a survey of the controversial debates about citizenship and multiculturalism now that Australia has attained the centenary of its federation.

Funny, indiscreet, candid, touching and sharply observed, this second compilation from James Lees-Milne's celebrated diaries covers his life during his sixties and early seventies, when he was living in Gloucestershire with his formidable wife Alvilde. It vividly portrays life on the Badminton estate of the eccentric Duke of Beaufort, meetings with many friends (including John Betjeman, Bruce Chatwin and the Mitford sisters) and the diarist's varied emotional experiences. Having made his name as the National Trust's country houses expert and a writer on architecture, he now established himself as a novelist and biographer. With some misgivings he published his wartime diaries, little imagining that it was as a diarist that he would achieve lasting fame.