In 1862, when my 2nd great grandmother Emma Ponder, aged 16, married her dashing soldier Private Daniel Bailey, aged 28, his scarlet uniform had already seen over ten years of service. With the 2nd Queen’s Royal Regiment (2nd Regiment of Foot), British Army, he had fought in the Eighth Kaffir War in South Africa, and in the Third Battle of the Taku Forts and the taking of Peking (Beijing) in the Second Opium War in China. Emma, a domestic servant … Continue reading
Weather? What Weather? Many Australians are still recovering from the latest floods, bushfires, and storms. Our unforgiving climate has battered settlers since their arrival. For tens of thousands of years, indigenous Australians have wrapped their lives around the seasons. History is alive with weather related sliding door moments. As the Spanish Armada in 1588 fled north from the English attack, their only route back to Spain was to sail around the north of Scotland, keeping well out to sea. However, … Continue reading
The French Connection The story of Evelyn Rose Boulton (nee Sturgeon), my great grandmother, and the puzzle of her claims to French heritage, has taken another turn. Previous readers of this blog might recall Rose and the Frenchman, and my search for the illusive facts of this family story. Old scribbled notes taken during a phone interview with an Aunt list the tantalising words, “escaped the French revolution.” Rose’s Foulger and Sturgeon ancestors in Suffolk were mostly agricultural labourers firmly … Continue reading
Shipping was the lifeblood of the colony of Moreton Bay. Through the convict period and the early years of free settlement, everything including people and animals came by sea. The sheltered bay was a highway for local shipping traffic. Quarantine stations, pilot stations, and outlying settlements all required a regular service. Sailing vessels of all sorts and sizes plied the coastal route from Sydney to Brisbane, stopping along the way to deliver goods and collect valuable loads of timber. In … Continue reading
Richard Fage gripped his bayonet-tipped, flintlock musket. He crouched bravely within his battalion’s defensive square, deafened by the artillery and cannon fire of Napoleon’s troops. For hours they’d been on the edge of the battle, but the order to advance had finally arrived. Now on open flat ground, the men of the 3rd battalion of the 14th Regiment were sitting ducks. Their bright red coats and distinctive white cross straps were still unblemished by mud and blood. Richard, like nearly … Continue reading
