#SouthAustralia History Festival program released today. Events 1-31 May, #Adelaide etc. #historyAU
#HistoryAU
#ArtDeco bedroom suite made in Sydney 1927/28. Made from Queensland #silkyOak by Standardised Furniture Ltd, Marrickville and retailed by Symonds' of Pitt Street. #1920s #historyAU #vintageFurniture
New (personal) article:
Identifying and dating my grandfather’s suite: https://coombe.id.au/personal/bedroom-suite.htm
Toot suite!
I think "Ms & Mrs Gould" would've benefited from more editing. I skimmed parts. I'd call it narrative non-fiction more than I'd call it history.
A simple timeline can be history; adding context makes it more of a story. But when you add context to context to context you risk drifting away from what you know and can also lose the reader.
For example the author writes: the surveyor-general Colonel William Light “came down with a fatal dose of tuberculosis and Charles Sturt had taken his place". This misses the whole survey controversy and Light's resignation - something well known to #SouthAustralia’ns. #historyAU #Adelaide
Big oops on #ABCRN this morning. In trying to explain #AustraliaDay, renowned historian Michelle Arrow erroneously said Arthur Phillip claimed the eastern half of Australia on 26 January 1788. No, that was James Cook in 1770.
An unhelpful slip in the context. #historyAU #InvasionDay
Hear 1 minute into this 11 minute listen:
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/saturdayextra/australia-day-history/104857568
Finally releasing this research into the wild. Years ago I was deep into horse racing results from 1839 to 1845 using #TroveAU and it paid off. No back to the future wins 👀 but recovering forgotten historical context for a watercolour of the Adelaide Races by John Michael Skipper.
I identify this picture as a race for "gentlemen riders" on New Year's Day 1839 featuring a uniformed Captain Charles Berkeley. (This is a side outcome of the #S_T_Gill project.)
#Adelaide #historyAU #colonialArtAU #sportsHistory #horseRacing
New Article: https://coombe.id.au/1840s_South_Australia/New_Year_Races_by_Skipper.htm
Welcome to my project on arguably Australia's most recognisable colonial artist, Samuel Thomas Gill. It's a blend of #catalogueRaisonné, biography, historical narrative and map atlas. The scope is from Gill's arrival in #SouthAustralia in 1839 up to his early time at the Victorian gold diggings in 1852-53.
Project update: Six articles on the diggings are now complete except for pending visits to Sydney and Adelaide to check on some undigitised sources. Good progress on at least two articles for 1839-1844 gap.
Later this year I'll write some more reflective material and some of particular interest post 1853.
You can follow the hashtag #S_T_Gill for updates - you don't need to follow me.
#historyAU #1840s #1850s #VictoriaAU #colonialArtAU #historicalMapping #catalogueRaisonne #biography
https://coombe.id.au/S_T_Gill
A reaction from me to today's article on Ferdinand von Sommer by Professor Alexandra Ludewig (UWA) in The Conversation:
Genius or charlatan? The strange tale of a 19th-century polymath who left a trail of controversy across colonial Australia.
#1840s #historyAU #DutchEastIndies #miningHistory #vonSommer #SouthAustralia #WesternAustralia #1850s
(1/5) ... /2
#ABCNewsAU today had an article on a fugitive slave, John Swanson Jacobs, who journeyed to the Victorian diggings.
In May 1852 is this report on success on the diggings by a particular team of 5 African-Americans.
At this very same time #S_T_Gill pictured a black man on the diggings: https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-148465469/view. #historyAU
@wragge Taking @wragge 's #Trove newspaper issues by state and year (CSV), I further looked into the impact of the 1852 Victorian #goldRush on newspapers. (It was hard to get staff with so many at the diggings.) From this data there is a big impact on #SouthAustralia and #Victoria itself and a smaller impact on #Tasmania.
WA Cawthorne (1824-1897) was a school teacher and amateur artist. His #1840s diaries and pictures are among the most valuable records of Aboriginal culture made by a South Australian colonist. He's known for helping with George French Angas' "South Australia Illustrated" project. My new article mainly concerns his relationship with #S_T_Gill, his art master from February 1845 and shows his development as an artist. The article identifies further Gill works, plus six Cawthorne portraits of #AboriginalAustralians in the British Museum.
My new article: https://coombe.id.au/S_T_Gill/S_T_Gill_and_W_A_Cawthorne.htm
#S_T_Gill #colonialArtAU #historyAU #W_A_Cawthorne #SouthAustralia #colonialArt #Aboriginal
“The Colonial Kangaroo Hunt” by Ken Gelder & Rachael Weaver, 2020. #LibrariesACT
Just finished reading this highly insightful book ranging widely over territories: Aboriginal, settler, history, art, literature, culture, economics. Understandably grim in parts. #historyAU
Leader of the Free Press.
"Australia owes its press freedom to a former convict, whose battle with local authorities to publish without censorship ultimately ruined him but paved the way for others." (#TheSaturdayPaper, April 27-May 3 2024)
#Canberra'ns Sally Bloomfield and Craig Collins continue to work on this research project: "Andrew Bent, Father of the Free Press in Australia": https://andrew-bent.life/
Sometimes one extra data point makes a lot of difference to the cataloging.
The identity of "EJ" has been a mystery to me for 5 years but now I have a pretty good theory. The new data point was an #S_T_Gill sketch titled "Australian warfare, native skirmish" which I can now slot into the Gill catalogue. The EJ theory has a ripple out effect on some other artworks.
#cataloging #catalogueRaisonne #1840s #SouthAustralia #historyAU
ARTICLE: https://coombe.id.au/S_T_Gill/S_T_Gill_and_John_Napier_Magill.htm
A narrative for 1840s #SouthAustralia from the point of view of well-known artist #S_T_Gill.
A new point of entry into my online project - highlighting the narrative aspect.
A new blog article on the “Scandinavian Seamen’s Mission” in Stockton, NSW. A possibly previously unknown outpost of Scandinavian social/religious life in Australia. https://stocktonnsw.blogspot.com/2024/02/scandinavian-mission.html #historyau #history
Photography in Australia began in 1841 in Sydney as an indirect result of the failed expedition of the French ship Oriental-Hydrographe. What happened to that first Daguerreotype in Australia?
Who was South Australia's first photographer? Previous authorities haven't harmonised.
Revealed: A poster in a shop window changes the history of photography in Australia.
This is history redone and made possible by digitised newspapers.
#historyOfPhotography #daguerreotype #historyAU #SouthAustralia #Adelaide
New article (narrative & analysis): https://coombe.id.au/1840s_South_Australia/Daguerreotype_and_Early_Photography.htm
In 1842 a 28 gun French warship arrived at #Adelaide #SouthAustralia to enquire how the government was going with its seizure of the French trader "Ville de Bordeaux". (No pressure of course!) #historyAU
[This is a sidetrack to check a possible alternative explanation for the arrival of French photography in SA - that article to come today or tomorrow.]
Newspaper: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27443236
This death notice appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald in 1851. This was George Goodman, Australia's first professional photographer. The thing is - he wasn't actually dead.
This is an old article of mine from 2019 - an offshoot of my Gill project - but I've just reformatted it to suit mobile devices. (I'll soon be referencing it from a new article about the beginnings of photography in South Australia.)
"Klemzig, Angas, a German Hay Wagon and Chickens"
In 2019 I tried to see this sketch in the National LIbrary - was there anything on the back to help understand its context? But it was offsite at an exhibition, then another, then the pandemic, then another exhibition, then the storm damage, and now this week, more than 4 years later, we finally met up!
My new article further evolves the story of S T Gill as a ghost artist for George French Angas in 1844-45.
1847 was the year S T Gill produced many of his most recognisable watercolours - and on a vast range of subjects.
This article is an overarching outline of 1847 with links to catalogue articles on Gill's major efforts that year. I’ve also built in more “timeline” navigation to give a better feel of narrative.
#SouthAustralia #historyAU #1840s #19thCentury #catalogueRaisonné #S_T_Gill
My new article: https://coombe.id.au/S_T_Gill/S_T_Gill_1847.htm
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