Or, how Moreton Bay dealt with the Servant Problem in the early years. Tackling the subject of the 19th century “servant problem” conjures up ideas of exacting upper- and middle-class ladies bemoaning a few specks of dust left on the mantelpiece. In our first years of free settlement, a servant could be a shepherd, labourer,Continue reading “The Plebian Tyranny.”
Category Archives: immigration
Suffering in sunshine and fresh air.
One immigrant family’s struggle. Life in colonial Queensland could be harsh – a cruel reality not suggested to the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who uprooted their old lives and took long sea journeys to the new world. The idea that thrift and industry in Queensland could take one away from the generational poverty andContinue reading “Suffering in sunshine and fresh air.”
A Disorderly House, a Fire and a Murder.
The woman on the riverbank. On Friday 6 July 1883, a group of boys rowing up the Brisbane River noticed a person lying on the riverbank at North Quay. They pulled over to check, and discovered that it was a young woman, who had clearly been dead for several days. The lads went to fetchContinue reading “A Disorderly House, a Fire and a Murder.”
Incipient Signs of Rowdyism in the Streets.
In the late 1840s, colony of Moreton Bay and its surrounding districts had been open to free settlers for several years, but was struggling with the need for labour, institutions and infrastructure. The convict buildings left about the place had deteriorated, and there was little economic stimulus to create new facilities for the town. TheContinue reading “Incipient Signs of Rowdyism in the Streets.”
A Short and Troubled Life – Tales from the Proserpine.
The immigrant ship the Susanne Godeffroy departed Hamburg on 06 May and arrived in Queensland on 06 September 1865, carrying a cargo of hard-working and hopeful immigrant German families ready to try their luck in the New World. Among them was the Ammenhauser family – brothers Johannes and Conrad and their respective wives and children.Continue reading “A Short and Troubled Life – Tales from the Proserpine.”
The Queen of the Artemisia
1848 was a year of unrest and revolution in Europe. The world seemed to be in uproar. And uproar would find its way to Brisbane Town that year, not in the form of an uprising, but in the form of the Queen of the Artemisia. Before Dr Lang rounded up industrious protestants to populate “Cooksland,”Continue reading “The Queen of the Artemisia”
Moreton Bay and More 