Posts Tagged “newspapers”

Back in the day, when the government wanted to count the population they didn’t stand for any nonsense. You had to be what you said you were, and your answers would be checked. If you couldn’t prove that you were free or entitled to work for yourself you would be hauled back to government work.

Here is a transcript of a piece I found in the Sydney Gazette of Saturday 16 November 1816 on page 1 which searching Trove for news of a particular convict. You can find the original here, but I have included the full transcript, for which I’d like to thank those wonderful people who correct the text on Trove, particularly cjbrill, who corrected this one. I have changed nothing except the spacing.

WHEREAS, during the late General Muster of the Inhabitants of this Colony, several Persons who had originally come into it as Convicts reported themselves at the said Muster as free, either by Servitude or by Pardon, or as being allowed to  employ themselves for their own Benefit by the special Permission of His EXCELLENCY the GOVERNOR; and whereas several of the Persons  who thus reported themselves did not produce any Certificate, Free Pardon, Emancipation, or Ticket of Leave, without which the Truth of their said Statements could not be satisfactorily ascertained; and there being much  Reason to believe that Imposition is frequently practised in this Respect, the Names of those Persons who at the late Muster did not produce any Certificate, Free Pardon, Emancipation, or Ticket of Leave, but who represented themselves absolutely free, or conditionally so, by Virtue of one or other of the above named Documents, is now published, in Order that each of these Persons may be apprised that unless he or she do, in the Course of Six Months from the present Day, obtain at the Secretary’s Office, either a certified Copy of such Certificate, Free Pardon, Emancipation, or Ticket of Leave, as they represented  themselves to have been once possessed of in the Event of his or her having actually lost the Original, they will be considered as Impostors, and immediately recalled to Government Work as Convicts still under the Sentence of the Law.

No. Name. Ship came in. Residence. Occupation.

1. Richard Hawke Alexander Sydney -

2.  Anthony Rope ditto Castle. Landh.

3.  John Cross ditto Port H. ditto

4. Mary Clark diito 2d. Sydney -

5.  John Glade  Atlantic ditto -

6. James Hague  ditto Windsor Landh.

7. Richard Ridge ditto Hawksb. -

8. Christ. Dodding ditto ditto -

9. Richard Verrier Active Sydney -

10. Timothy Doyle Nepean Smith

11. James Higgins ditto Hawksb. -

12. John M’Ewen ditto Liverp. -

13. John Taylor Albemarle Windsor -

14. Jas. Sutherland ditto Hawksb. -

15. John Brown ditto Hawksb. -

16. Owen Hobson Ann ditto -

17. John Campbell ditto 1st. Liverp. -

18. Wm. Aldridge A. Barringt. Richm. Landh.

19. Benjamin Elton ditto Wilberf. -

20. Wm. Reynolds.  ditto Hawksb. -

21. Joseph Hunt Barwell Sydney -

22. Thomas North ditto Richmd. -

23. John Caton Boddington  Hawksb. -

24. James Kenny ditto Liverp. -

25. Mary A. Parker Canada Sydney -

26. Thos. Douglass ditto 1st. Hawksb. -

27. James Kibby ditto 1st.  Liverp. -

28. John Dugan Coromand. Nepean Landh.

29. Wm. Stevens ditto Pitt Town -

30. Timothy Webb ditto Windsor -

31. William Webb ditto Hawksb. -

32. Jonas Mordecai ditto ditto  -

33. Joseph Smith ditto ditto -

34. Rich. Holland D. of Portl. ditto Landh.

35. John Williams ditto Wilberf. laborer

36. John McKenzie ditto Hawksb. -

37. Thos. Getham ditto ditto -

38. Thomas Knight E. Cornwal. Richm. laborer

39. Thomas Rudd ditto Liverp. -

40. Patrick Mason Friendship Hawksb. Landh.

41. James Timmens ditto Richm. ditto

42. Roger Twyfield ditto Hawksb. -

43. Hugh M’Avoy Glatton Sydney -

44. Joseph Oners ditto Windsor Landh.

45. Mark Doolan Gambier 1st. Sydney

46. Peter Patallo Ganges ditto -

47. Samuel Stevens ditto Richmd. -

48. John Fitsgerald Hillsboro’ Sydney -

49. Robert Ritchie Hercules Castler. Landh.

50. Stephen Dunn ditto Pitt Town -

51. Martha Eaton Lad. Penryn Sydney -

52. Thos. Woolton Minorca ditto -

53. John Hewitt Minerva Windsor laborer

54. John Everett ditto Hawksb. -

55. Joseph Burrows ditto ditto -

56. Nicholas Crosbie M. Cornwa. Windsor Landh.

5 7. Robert Allen ditto Richm.  -

58. John Riley ditto Hawksb. -

59. Michael Balf ditto ditto -

60. Wm. Horsford Matilda ditto -

61. John Booth ditto Port H. -

62.  Henry Hyam ditto Hawksb. -

63.   Steph. Richardson ditto Richm. Landh.

64. Daniel Phillips ditto Hawksb. -

65. Adam Bell ditto ditto -

66. Isaac Farmer Neptune Wilberf. -

67. Thos. Eager or Heather ditto Hawksb. -

68. Wm. Mackey ditto Richmd. -

69. Dan. Anshutz ditto Hawksb. -

70. James O’Neille Pitt Sydney -

71. Rd. Hammett ditto ditto -

72. James Higgins ditto ditto -

73. Alex. Cumberbech ditto ditto -

74. Joseph Pearce ditto Richm. Landh.

75. John May ditto ditto ditto

76. Thomas Brown ditto Hawksb. -

77. Matthew Elkins Perseus Windsor shoemaker

78. Joseph Butler ditto Wilberf. -

79.  J. Mainwright ditto Hawksb. -

80. Wm. M’Donald Queen Pitt Town Landh.

81.  F. M’Lawrence Queen Richmd. sawyer

82. Catherine Evans Royal adm. Sydney -

83.  Thos. Pateman ditto 1st ditto -

84. William Green ditto Brokenb. Limeb.

85. Donald Kennedy ditto Castler. Landh.

86. Richard Willis ditto Pitt Town ditto

87.  William Ezzey ditto Windsor ditto

88. Henry Rochester ditto Richmd. -

89. John Norman ditto Windsor -

90. Henry Tredaway ditto Hawksb. -

91.  James Dunn  Royal Adm. ditto -

92. Thomas Tailby ditto Liverp. -

93. John Summers ditto 2d. Windsor ferrym.

94. Patrick Byrne Rolla Wilberf. -

95. Cornelius Lyons ditto sydney -

96.  James Bradley Scarboro’ Sydney -

97.  Robt. Forrester ditto Windsor Landh.

98. Richard Hagley ditto Hawksb. -

99. William Smith ditto ditto -

100. Thomas Glaves ditto ditto -

101.  Wm. Hubbard ditto ditto -

102.  Jas. Ruse ditto ditto -

103. Jas. Spooner Salamander Sydney -

104. Jos. Welstead ditto Hawksb. -

105. William Pimblett surprise Sydney -

106.  William Knight ditto Port H. Landh.

107. Simon Freebody ditto Windsor ditto

108. Edw. Woodham ditto Richm. -

109.  John Sullivan Sugar cane ditto Hawksb. -

110.    James Knowland ditto Hawksb. -

111. Charles Barwick Wm & Ann Sydney -

112. L. Wetherhead ditto Hawksb. Landh.

113.  Thomas Noble – Liverpool -

114.  John Hopkins – ditto -

115.  Roger Fletcher – ditto -

116.  John Masterson – ditto -

And the foregoing Persons are hereby Apprised,that the proper Time to apply at the Secretary’s Office for the obtaining of the above Documents, is the first Monday in each Month.

By Command of His Excellency, J. T. CAMPBELL, Secretary.

 

When you are writing up your family history, don’t forget the weather.

Sydney is suffering today from a few days of hot weather. We are always shocked when it gets hot like this, with the north-westerly wind straight from the desert, and we hide inside with our air-conditioners. At least, that’s what I do.

Our reliance on domestic air-conditioning has developed during my life time. Where I grew up, in Dubbo in central western New South Wales, we got days like this quite frequently in summer. It’s a dry heat, with little humidity. We had an evaporative air-cooler, which was an air-conditioner-shaped box on a stand with wheels that you filled up with water and turned it on. It would blow air, cooled by the water, in the direction you pointed it.

In the evenings, when the sun was low but still quite bright, we would go outside and sit in the shade, much cooler than inside the house. Any slight breeze was made the most of out there. But of course the cooking still had to be done inside, on the stove or in the oven, heating the kitchen, at least, even more.

I went to a high school that was growing faster than the buildings to contain it. We had two demountable classrooms, which were spare classrooms that could be trucked in in pieces and put together onsite quickly. They had a metal roof and were like ovens in summer. We hated them. A class in one of those rooms was torture. I believe those classrooms are still there, in the same place on the edge of the oval, with air-conditioning in them, with more recently erected classrooms alongside.

Christmas Day was spent cooking a large hot meal with roast chicken and vegetables and plum pudding. Chickens were expensive in those days, without battery hen houses, and turkeys even more so. We always had a box of cherries that my grandfather would buy on his annual trip to Sydney. As a special treat we might have bottles of soft drink with dinner. After dinner we would go somewhere and sit, or lie, as still as possible.

Imagine, then, what it was like for our ancestors! What a shock this heat must have been, for those new immigrants!

The clothes of the eighteenth century did not leave any skin bare except for the hands and perhaps the forearms, so they would have been hot, even though they were made of natural materials. They didn’t just wear them once and toss them in the laundry basket, either, as we do. Water wasn’t on tap, for washing clothes, or people, or anything else, but brought by bucket from a dam or river. Kids didn’t play under the hose when it was hot, as we did.

Work had to be done whatever the weather, then as now. Offices weren’t air-conditioned, and I imagine the clerks with their beautiful handwriting in their shirtsleeves on days like today, trying not to get sweat on the big registers we look at now in the archives. The paper was thicker, and I guess it could withstand a bit of moisture!

Farming was mostly small holdings, with little money for livestock, let alone air-conditioned trucks and farm machinery. Farmers are tougher than most of us even now, in their shirtsleeves and hats, out in the fields mending fences, ploughing, harvesting, hay-baling… there is always a long list of jobs a farmer has to do.

Admittedly, they did build houses more practically in those days. Houses had high ceilings and many were of double brick. Farm houses had verandahs all around. But the corrugated iron roof was cheaper than tiles, and it’s incredibly hot to live under. Early houses were mud brick and thatch or corrugated iron.

We talk about global warming and so we may assume that the weather was different in  our ancestors’ day than it is now, but look at any newspaper of the period and you can see that generally it was much the same. Perhaps it rained more but that goes in cycles. They had drought, fires, floods, too much rain, not enough rain, and days that were just too hot to bear.

Just like us.

What to do

• Ask your parents what the weather was like for them when they were young. Did it get hot like this? What did they do to keep cool?
• Ask your grandparents and their generation the same questions.
• Look through local newspapers from this time of year. You may see stories about record temperatures, bushfires, dam water levels – similar stories to those we see today.
• look at climate statistics for your local area at the Bureau of Meteorology. Look at the average monthly temperature and rainfall and imagine what that meant for day-to-day living.
• Put on a long, high-necked dress and go shopping! (just kidding)

The Irish Times is celebrating 150 years of publication by allowing free access to its digital archive until the 5th March 2009. The first edition of the Irish Times was first published on 29th March 1869, and you can see it and read it for yourself. The website allows browing by date or searching for specific words (or parts of words) within a range of dates or across the whole 150 years.

You can search the Irish Times Digital Archive for the next few days at http://www.irishtimes.com/150/.