From Gympie in the south, through Mount Morgan and Canoona on the central coast, to Palmer River and Hodgkinson in the tropical north, the 19th century Queensland goldfields were a magnet for tumultuous swarms of nomadic fossickers. They were also a breeding ground for true leaders of men. ‘Dr Jack’ Hamilton he was one of those natural leaders. He healed the sick and the wounded he was a prodigious bare-knuckle puglist and he fearlessly defended the underdog. Subsequently in 1878 he became a Queensland politician and for the miners rights.
Johannesburg, South Africa, was ? and is ? the Frontier of Money. Within months of its founding, the mining camp was host to organised crime: the African 'Regiment of the Hills' and 'Irish Brigade' bandits. Bars, brothels, boarding houses and hotels oozed testosterone and violence, and the use of fists and guns was commonplace. Beyond the chaos were clear signs of another struggle, one to maintain control, honour and order within the emerging male and mining dominated culture. In the underworld, the dictum of 'honour among thieves', as well as a hatred of informers, testified to attempts at self-regulation. A 'real man' did not take advantage of an opponent by employing underhand tactics. It had to be a 'fair fight' if a man was to be respected. This was the world that 'One-armed Jack' McLoughlin - brigand, soldier, sailor, mercenary, burglar, highwayman and safe-cracker - entered in the early 1890s to become Johannesburg's most infamous 'Irish' anti-hero and social bandit. McLoughlin's infatuation with George Stevenson prompted him to recruit the young Englishman into his gang of safe-crackers but 'Stevo' was a man with a past and primed for personal and professional betrayal. It was a deadly mixture. Honour could only be retrieved through a Showdown at the Red Lion.
Edward and Eliza Lord came to Moreton Bay in 1844, arriving as the remote convict outpost was opened up for free settlement. Members of Lancashire merchant families, they had invested their inheritances in NSW lands and a Sydney merchant firm, just before the drought and crash of 1841. They moved north to rebuild their fortunes, settling at Kangaroo Point before moving to the Darling Downs to start new commercial interests. Although financial success continued to elude them, the Lord family contributed to the settlement of colonial Queensland. Edward and Eliza’s great-great-grand-daughter, Janet Spillman, explores the way Queensland moulded the Lord family’s lives, and the way family members contributed to the colony’s development.
"Insight guides" er reisehåndbøker som skal gi historisk og kulturell forståelse for stedene som skal besøkes. De er kjent for dyptpløyende artikler om kultur, religion, mat, severdigheter osv., og er illustrert med flotte fargefotografier.
When the Brig Maria was wrecked on a reef off Hinchenbrook Island, there began a horror story of gale-torn seas, courage, cowardice, endurance, heroism and tragic loss.
