- Free Article: No
- Contents Category: Australian History
- Review Article: Yes
- Article Title: Pioneering in Microcosm
- Online Only: No
- Custom Highlight Text:
Within three hours motoring of Sydney is a wild and lovely valley of forgotten history, where pioneer settlers sleep in forlornly neglected small cemeteries, or whose headstones mark their resting place on the original land grants. The Macdonald River meanders shallowly through farmlands and past a few scattered cottages; above tower the enclosing mountains bush-clad and rock-strewn; overall there seems to emanate a strangely disturbing restlessness as if the disembodied spirits of the first pioneers still exert an unseen influence in the once life-pulsating Valley.
- Book 1 Title: The Forgotten Valley
- Book 1 Biblio: Library of Australian History, $14.00, 147 pp
The title of this new publication refers to that previously unresearched area. The introduction suggests the study to be ‘a factual historical record of the early settlement of the Macdonald Valley and of those who created it’. As is the case with any local history the implications of the writer’s research extend beyond the parochial and narrow confines of the area under scrutiny, as viewed through the telescopic lens of the local historian.
It provides glimpses into the life and times of settlement and early pioneering life of the colony of New South Wales.
The author recounts the history with a warm devotion and keen reverence for those men and women who, as victims of their times, convicted of petty crimes by harsh laws, came as convicts not as ‘criminals’, on the perilous journey to a new life far removed from their native homeland.
The study is both informative and intriguing, rich in both a wealth of historical detail and fascinating anecdotal accounts of many of the prominent characters whose biographies previously remained unrecorded, passed on only in the oral tradition of the early settlement.
In fact, if I have a criticism of this work, it’s that it is too full of facts and light on the anecdotal; but that’s merely my opinion and other readers may find too much anecdotal and too little fact.
Ms Hutton Neve’s interrogative method provides much insight into the origins of many of the religious, legal, and social institutions which remain the legacy of a bygone period; the growth of education practices, the emergence of religious institutions, the plight of women in the society, legal charges surrounding the provisions for matrimony within a penal settlement, and the wretched position afforded the convicts on the road gangs whose remarkable story in carving out ‘The Great North Road’ remains written in stone today.
The implications of the story of The Forgotten Valley extend far beyond the boundaries of the area under study and provide the reader with a view of the early days of pioneering life in microcosm and as, such should be read by anyone interested in Australian history.
For myself, I found the book under review more enjoyable and more ‘revealing’ than anything Manning Clarke has written, fully aware that, to some people, that statement borders on heresy. Burn me at the stake if you so wish, but I’ll not recant.
Comments powered by CComment