Originally published as Douglas Wilkie, ‘Frankenstein, Convicts and Wide-Awake Geniuses: The life and death of Charles Brentani’, Victorian Historical Journal, Vol. 87, No. 1, June 2016 Extract: In 1838 Alexander Maconochie, private secretary to the Van Diemen’s Land Governor, Sir John Franklin, wrote a damning report on the state of prison discipline in the colony. … Continue reading Frankenstein, Convicts, and Wide-Awake Geniuses: The Life and Death of Charles Brentani
Port Phillip District
Ten Thousand Fathoms Deep
Eighteen fifty-one was the year in which Port Phillip was separated from New South Wales and became Victoria. It was also the year in which the great Victorian gold rushes started. Many historians, and even a greater number of non-historians, believe these two events occurred within weeks of each other simply by coincidence. However, the … Continue reading Ten Thousand Fathoms Deep
The Sink of Iniquity
Education in The Sink of Iniquity A history of education in the Amherst and Talbot districts between 1836 and 1862. "This is an impressive piece of historical research. The author has taken a discrete area of early Victoria very directly affected by the gold rushes and has examined the history of schooling in that … Continue reading The Sink of Iniquity
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1849 The Rush That Never Started: Forgotten origins of the 1851 gold rushes in Victoria
Many people have the impression that the Victorian gold rushes not only began in mid-1851, but also occurred in response to discoveries earlier in that year near Bathurst, west of Sydney. Not so! The Victorian gold rushes of 1851 were a direct consequence of a largely forgotten gold discovery two years earlier in the Pyrenees … Continue reading 1849 The Rush That Never Started: Forgotten origins of the 1851 gold rushes in Victoria
