by Paul Collins
For the drowning of Cuthbertson see Lemprière, pp. 11–12, and the Hobart Town Gazette, 2 January 1824.
6 The Death of a Cannibal
For the fullest report of the trial of Pearce see the Hobart Town Gazette, 25 June 1824. For John Lewes Pedder see ADB, II, pp. 319–20. See Also M. C. I. Levy, Governor George Arthur: A Colonial Benevolent Despot, Melbourne: Georgian House, 1953, pp. 43–5. For Joseph Tice Gellibrand see ADB, I, pp. 437–48.
For the Rev. Philip Conolly see Father W. T. Southerwood’s Lonely Shepherd in Van Diemen’s Isle: A Biography of Father Philip Conolly, Australia’s First Vicar General, George Town, Tas: Stella Maris Books, 1988. See especially p. 75 (for Pearce), pp. 59–63 and 67–8 (for friendship with Knopwood). For Arthur’s opinion of Conolly see Arthur to Bathurst, 1 February 1826. HRA, III, Vol. V, p. 93. For the close relationship between Knopwood and Conolly see the parson’s Diary, passim.
For the story about the Irish version of the scaffold confession see Patrick Francis Moran, History of the Catholic Church in Australasia, Sydney: Oceanic Publishing Company, no date but 1894, p. 243.While Moran is not necessarily unreliable, he never quotes sources, so we do not know where he got this story. He is also incurably pro-Irish and anti-English. His anti-Englishness is also directed against any English priests or bishops, including the English Benedictines who put the Australian mission on its feet. For the foundation period of Australian Catholicism see my unpublished PhD thesis William Bernard Ullathorne and the Foundation of Australian Catholicism 1815–1840, Canberra: Australian National University, 1988.
For the rituals of hanging see Richard P. Davis, The Tasmanian Gallows, pp. 14–25. For information on Bock and reproductions of his crayon drawings of Pearce’s head see Diane Dunbar (ed.), Thomas Bock, pp. 25–6. For Pearce’s skull see Sprod, pp. 127–29. I am also grateful to Dr Janet Monge, Keeper of Skeletal Collections at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, an expert on Neanderthal man, for her email on 29 March 2002 with information on Pearce’s skull.
For James Goodwin’s statement concerning his 1828 escape with Thomas Connolly see AOT CSO 1/276/6658. I am indebted to Dr Jon Marsden-Smedley for providing me with a copy of this statement. See also Binks, pp. 29–37 for a good discussion of the Goodwin–Connolly escape. It needs to be noted that in a letter from the Police Office at Launceston accompanying Goodwin’s Statement, it says that Connolly also came per the Lord Hungerford, whereas Binks says he arrived in 1819 on the ship Admiral Cockburn. Here I have followed Binks.
For the Broughton escape and cannibalism story see Stephan Williams, The Awful Confession and Execution of Edward Broughton,Woden, ACT: Popinjay Publications, 1987.The accounts of the escape, the killings and cannibalism are based largely on the statement of Broughton (written down by Bedford) which is quoted verbatim in the Colonial Times, 10 August 1831. The Hobart Town Courier (13 August 1831) also pretty much quotes the statement verbatim, but also adds a commentary and a little more information.
7 A Personal Postscript
For the quotation from Eric Reece see Roger Green (ed.), Battle for the Franklin: Conversations with the combatants in the struggle for South West Tasmania, Melbourne: Australian Conservation Foundation, 1981, p. 33.
For the Pedder and Franklin campaigns see Roger Green (ed.), Battle for the Franklin, and Brian Walters, ‘How the Franklin Was Won’, Wild, Summer 2002, pp. 46–7. Several useful discussions of the notion of ‘place’ can be found in George Seddon’s interesting book Landprints: Reflections on Place and Landscape, Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Henry Hellyer’s description is quoted in James Bishoff’s Sketch of the history of Van Diemen’s Land and an account of the Van Diemen’s Land Company, 1832. Sir John Franklin’s journey is described in florid and at times tiresome detail by a participant in the party that accompanied the Franklins. His name was David Burn. See his Narrative of the Overland Journey of Sir John and Lady Franklin and Party from Hobart Town to Macquarie Harbour, 1842, first published in 1843 and edited and printed in full by George Mackaness in Sydney in 1955. For the mountain ash see Tom Griffiths’s splendid new book Forests of Ash: An environmental history, Cambridge University Press, 2001.
The quotation from William Strickland comes from his Journal of a Town of the United States of America 1794–95, reprinted 1971, New York Historical Society.
The quotation from the poem ‘The Lost Man’ of Judith Wright is taken from A Human Pattern: Selected Poems (Sydney: ETT imprint, 1996). Used with permission.
For Jorgen Jorgenson see ADB,Vol. II, pp. 26–8. Also see the section of his memoirs describing the ‘black line’ edited by J. F. Hogan, The Convict King, being the Life and Adventures of Jorgen Jorgenson, Monarch of Iceland, Naval Captain, Revolutionist, British Diplomatic Agent, Author, Dramatist, Preacher, Political Prisoner, Gambler, Hospital Dispenser, Continental Traveller, Explorer, Editor, Expatriated Exile, and Colonial Constable, Hobart: J. Walch, 1891, pp. 193–97. Recently Dan Sprod has published a biography of Jorgenson, The Usurper: Jorgen Jorgenson and his turbulent life in Iceland and Van Diemen’s Land, 1780–1841, Hobart: Blubber Head Press, 2001. John Connor’s The Australian Frontier Wars 1788–1838, UNSW Press, 2002, pp. 84–101, also describes the attack on the Aborigines and their response.
For George Augustus Robinson see ADB,Vol. II, pp. 385–87. See also N. J. B. Plomley, Friendly Mission: The Tasmanian Journals and Papers of George Augustus Robinson, 1829–34, Hobart: Tasmanian Historical Research Association, 1966. Lyndall Ryan also draws on Friendly Mission, pp. 124–73 in her description of Robinson’s work. The quotation from Calder is recorded in Reynolds, Fate of a Free People, p. 206. Robson (History) deals with the Aboriginal wars and G. A. Robinson on pp. 210–53. See also Reynolds’s other books, especially The Other Side of the Frontier (Penguin, 1981) and Frontier: Aborigines, Settlers and Land, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1987.
For the Kutikina Cave see John Mulvaney’s letter of 7 December 1981 to the Senate Select Committee on Southwest Tasmania, a copy of which he kindly sent me. See also Mulvaney and Johan Kamminga, Prehistory of Australia, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1999, pp. 180–88.
For Calder see ADB, I, pp. 193–95. I am indebted to Dr Jon Marsden-Smedley for drawing my attention to the existence of Calder’s letter to Governor Denison (21 July 1847) concerning uncontacted Aborigines, and for providing me with a copy of it. It concerns groups of Aboriginal survivors still free in the southwest. It can be found at AOT CSO 24/24/579. It is referred to in passing by Reynolds in Fate of a Free People (p. 54).
For a discussion of ‘A Tale They Won’t Believe’ see Jeremy Mouat, ‘Making the Australian Past/Modern: The Music of Weddings, Parties, Anything’, in Australian and New Zealand Studies in Canada, 6, 1991.
