Tag Archive for 'Faces of Australia'

Faces of Australia: R.M. Williams

Published on June 18, 2009 in Facts About Australia. 0 Comments Tags: , .

The Australian stockman is one that conjures up many romantic images of Australia like those from the stories of Banjo Patterson’s Man from Snowy River.  However, there probably isn’t any real life stockman that has had the effect of mainstreaming Australia’s bush image than R.M. Williams.  Reginald Murray Williams was born Belalie, South Australia in 1908.  Belalie was located just north of the Flinders Ranges in a remote area of the Australian Outback.  His family homesteaded with no running water or electricity in this remote area where his dad worked as a horse trainer.  So at a very young age Reginald learned much about living in the bush.  However, his bush days would come to a brief pause when at the age of 10 Reginald’s family moved to the South Australian capital city of Adelaide. 


R.M. Williams

Reginald and his two sisters attended school in Adelaide, but the young Reginald did not much care for the city life.  He yearned for the big skies and open land of the Australian bush and finally at the age of 15 he packed his swag and a few other things and headed back out into the bush.  Out in the bush Williams did odd labor jobs at first, such as building a church in Victoria and constructing a mission for Aborigines in Western Australia.  Williams eventually took a job as a camel driver for a missionary named William (Bill) Wade.  He worked this job for three years, which he enjoyed because it allowed him to travel thousands of miles and see large areas of the great Australian Outback.  Additionally, R.M. Williams and the Bill Wase spent much time among the native Aborigines who further taught the young man more about surviving in the hostile Outback.


R.M. Williams & Bill Wade

After completing his work with the missionary Williams had a hard time finding work and decided to return to Adelaide.  In Adelaide, Williams would meet and ultimately marry a woman by the name of Thelma Cummings.  The newlyweds decided to move to the land that Reginald grew up, the Flinders Ranges.  The Williams family lived off the land while Reginald earned money sinking wells.  It was during this time that Reginald met the man that would change his life forever, Dollar Mick Smith.  Williams was camped in Nepabunna, South Australia in 1932 drilling a well when he met Smith.  Smith was a skilled leather worker who was married to a Aboriginal woman and had a son who worked as a ranch hand in the area.   Dollar Mick to a liking to the young Williams and began to teach the 24 year old leatherwork.  The two men worked together and eventually created their first pair of stockman’s riding boots made from a single strip of leather that are so famous in Australia today.  Dollar Mick and R.M. Williams would remain friends for life.  Mick died in 1969 at the age of 90. 


Williams bush home in the Flinders Ranges

In 1934 Williams’ son became sick with an eye disease and Williams need money for hospital treatment to save his son’s eye.  Williams took a collection of his best saddles and boots to the home of one of Australia’s biggest cattle ranchers Sir Sidney Kidman.  Kidman was impressed with the young Williams leather work and bought all his saddles.  Using the money he was able to get the treatment his son needed and still had enough money to buy more leather and equipment to open a small leather working business in Adelaide.  Initially Williams business did well with many people placing orders.  Williams decided to expand his business, but the expansion ended up being a mistake as he soon found himself deep in debt. 

This debt problem ended up opening up another incredible chapter in R.M. Williams life.  An elderly woman approached Williams and offered to sell the young man a gold mine near Tennant Creek, Northern Territory that she could no longer work due to the death of her husband.  Williams bought the gold mine from her for $72,000 pounds by consolidating money from all his family and friends.  This collection of friends and family worked the small mine and eventually they all struck it rich.  The gold they found made them all millionaires and soon R.M. Williams was living in a posh mansion in Adelaide.  However, the rich life did not suit Williams and he longed to return to the bush.  Williams after a dispute with the South Australian government in 1950 vowed to never live in South Australia again. Williams wandered the bush and eventually bought a property in Rockbar,
Queensland.  Williams work hard to turn the property into a profitable
cattle station.  Soon his marriage fell apart and divorced his wife Thelma who had given birth to six children. 

In 1955 Williams would get married again to his second wife who gave birth to three more children.  Williams continued to live in Queensland for many more years while his leatherworking business back in Adelaide continued to prosper.  By 1978 the R.M. Williams company had retail stores in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, and finally Toowoomba, Queensland where Williams moved to in 1979.  Even though R.M. Williams was living in Queensland he continued to serve on the company’s board and regularly traveled to Adelaide for meetings.  In the 1990′s Williams sold his leather company to Ken Cowley and Kerry Stokes, but they kept Williams on as an advisor. 

Besides his bush outfitting company that has become an Australian icon, R.M. Williams also the driving force behind the establishment of the Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach, Queensland in 1988.  He also is the author of a number of books about his life and stories from the Outback.  R.M. Williams passed away on November 4, 2003 at the age of 95 on his property in Queensland.  Though he is now deceased the name and legend of R.M. Williams lives on with his legendary bush outfitting company that has continued to open up more stores in Australia and even expand overseas.  However, Williams life means more to Australians than just his bush outfitting company.  Acting Prime Minister John Anderson summed up best what R. M. Williams life really meant to Australians:

“He epitomised our
national character even though many Australians who walk in his boots
have never ridden a stock horse or watched the sun come up over the
Gammon Ranges.” 

Without a doubt R.M. Williams is an icon of Australia. 

Faces of Australia: William Buckley

Published on June 11, 2009 in Facts About Australia. 0 Comments Tags: , .

William Buckley at first would appear to be an unlikely man to become a prominent name in Australia.  Buckley was born in 1780 in Tiverton, England where he worked as an apprentice to a bricklayer.  When he was of age, Buckley left home and joined the British military where in 1799 he was stationed in Holland.  After finishing his assignment in Holland, he returned to England where misfortune befell him.  According to Buckley, one day while crossing the yard of his barracks a woman he did not know asked him to give a piece of cloth to another woman that worked at the garrison.  However, before Buckley could give the cloth to the woman, he was apprehended because the cloth had been stolen.  The authorities did not believe Buckley’s story and he was convicted of stealing the cloth.  He was in turn sentenced to a life sentence in Australia.


However, Buckley did not like life as a prisoner in Australia and escaped from a convict settlement in Sorrento just south of modern day Melbourne in 1803.  Buckley escaped by rowboat from the settlement with two other convicts.  The convicts by boat and by land eventually reached the mouth of the Yarra River where modern day Melbourne now stands.  Not realizing how far Sydney was from Victoria, Buckley hoped to walk to Sydney while the other two convicts had their own ideas.  So here the convicts parted ways.  However, after walking north for a short while through the bush, Buckley changed his mind and began heading south again following the coast of Port Philip Bay.  Buckley survived by eating what berries and crawfish he could find as he walked through the bush.  Eventually he reached the Otway Ranges area. 


Otway Ranges along the Great Ocean Road

It was here that Buckley made friends with an Aborigine who was fishing with his family from the shore.  Buckley who was 6 foot 6 inches tall must have been quite a site to these Aborigines.  Buckley stayed with this family for a while and learned some basic Aboriginal terms.  Buckley eventually left this family and wandered further into the bush where he met a group of Aboriginal women.  The Aboriginal women wanted Buckley to come with them.  He followed the women back to their camp near Buckley Falls along the Barwin River.  Here the tribe organized a great Aboriginal dance for Buckley.  The Aborigines believed that Buckley was an Aboriginal that died some time ago and had returned to them in the shape of a white man. 

The Watourong tribe treated Buckley well and would actually get tears in their eyes if Buckley was gone for too long.  It was during this time that Buckley learned more about the Aboriginal culture and language.  He eventually took up an Aboriginal wife, but sensing that some of the males were jealous of him, he gave up his wife, which made the males quite happy.  After six months living with the tribe, Buckley ran into one of his former convict companions.  He brought him back to his tribe, but Buckley began to fear for his safety due to the poor behavior of his convict friend towards the Aborigines.  Eventually Buckley convinced the man to leave the tribe and the man was never heard from again. 

 

After a couple of years of living with the Watourong tribe Buckley had mastered their language and would entertain the members of the tribe with stories from England.  Buckley was so beloved by his tribe that one time he walked off without telling anyone where he was going, that the tribe launched a massive search for him.  When a search party found Buckley they were all in tears and great grief due to his disappearance. 

 Buckley witnessed many fights between the Watourong and neighboring Aboriginal tribes.  Buckley never actively participated in a fight and the opposing Aboriginals always left him alone, but he was often shocked by the violence the Aborigines showed towards one another.  They would kill not only men, but women and children as well.  The conquering tribe would on some occasions even eat the flesh of dead Aborigines thinking that this would give them extra powers.  Buckley even witnessed the Aboriginal eat their own children who had died of a natural death as well. 


Buckley ultimately ended up living with the Aborigines for 32 years and became a man of great respect among the Aboriginals who served as an arbitrator of many disputes.  He took at first two wives, but then settled on one and is believed to have had a daughter with her.  It seems that Buckley eventually had a longing to return to his western cultural roots and in 1835 he walked into a camp of three European men and disclosed his identity to their amazement.  He was treated well upon his return to western culture and was even given a full pardon by the Governor of Van Diemen’s Land.  Buckley was put to use as a guide and interpreter and during one of these expeditions he returned to meet his old tribe.  This is how the leader of one of these expeditions recorded the meeting of Buckley with his old tribe:

February 5th, 1836: I directed Buckley to advance and we would follow
him at a distance of a quarter of a mile. Buckley made towards a native
well and after he had rode about 8 miles, we heard a cooey and when we
arrived at the spot I witnessed one of the most pleasing and affecting
sights. There were three men five women and about twelve children.
Buckley had dismounted and they were all clinging around him and tears
of joy and delight running down their cheeks…It was truly an
affecting sight and proved the affection which these people entertained
for Buckley… amongst the number were a little old man and an old woman
one of his wives. Buckley told me this was his old friend and with whom
he had lived and associated thirty years.

Later that year Buckley was sited by Major Thomas Mitchell near Gundagai in New South Wales on the return from his exploration of the interior of Australia to include places such as the Grampians, Mt. Macedon, and Hanging Rock.  So it was pretty clear during his time returning to western culture that he was still spending a lot of time in the bush.  In 1837 Buckley became disenchanted with his life in Victoria possibly because of the fact that the white settlers he was serving as an interpreter for had conned the Aborigines out of much of their land.  Being distrusted now by the Aborigines and being angered at the white settlers, Buckley moved to Van Diemen’s Land where he ended up working a variety of jobs and marrying an Irish immigrant.  Buckley died in a cart accident in 1856 at the age of 75.  He spent 19 years living in Tasmania and had never returned to Victoria.

Faces of Australia: Alexander Pearce

Published on June 3, 2009 in Facts About Australia. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

If you are an American and don’t know who Alferd Packer is or just have a vague memory of hearing this name before than you then have about the same historical memory that many Australians have of the notorious Alexander Pearce.  Packer was a member of a mining party who were caught in a blizzard while crossing Colorado’s San Juan Mountains.  The facts are unclear, but when the miners could not free themselves from the snow, Packer resorted to cannibalism by killing the other miners to survive.  Basically Alexander Pearce is Australia’s very own version of Alferd Packer, however I think can be made that Pearce is far worse.


Alferd Packer

Alexander Pearce was a small blue eyed Irishman that was originally sentenced to hang for stealing six pairs of shoes.  However, the sentenced was eventually reduced to a seventeen year sentence to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania).  A lot of people don’t realize that a sentence to Van Diemen’s Land did not mean you would actually spend time in prison there.  Instead the prisoners were sent to work apprenticeships for various industries on the island and were not kept in jails.  They in fact lived very normal lives as long as they did not break the rules.  The British believed by sending convicts to Australia they would remove the poor troublemaking underclass out of Britain while at the same time giving them job training.  The British also thought that by the time the convicts finished their sentences they may have married, started families, and owned land and not want to move back to the United Kingdom.  For the most part the British were right and this convict system proved to be an ingenious way to colonize Australia. 


Alexander Pearce played by actor Ciaran McMenamin 

Anyway Pearce’s apprenticeship on Van Diemen’s Land was to be a farmhand.  However, Pearce proved to not be a very good farmhand and repeatedly got in trouble.  The British typically punished convicts that broke the rules on Van Diemen’s Land with floggings before they would actually send them to prison.  So criminals that actually spent time in prison in Australia were truly the worst of the worst and that was what Pearce was.  The Hobart magistrates first tried floggings with Pearce, but in less then year after being transported to Australia, Pearce was sent to the notorious Macquarie Harbour Penal Settlement in August 1822.  The prison located on Sarah Island was thought to be escape proof due to its remote location in western Tasmania.  Convicts at the prison were forced to conduct hard labor, eat near starvation rations, and were flogged for the most minor offenses. 


Macquarie Harbour with the Frenchman’s Cap in the background.

Pearce lasted at the prison for only six weeks before he decided to escape with seven other prisoners.  The eight prisoners headed east through the thick bush country.  For the first week they marched through constant rain and sleet, which prevented them from starting a fire.  Two days later the group ran out of food and somebody came up with the idea of eating one of the group for food.  Pearce claimed that the two convicts Robert Greenhill and Matthew Travers are the ones that began the killing by smashing convict Alexander Dalton’s skull while he slept near the Franklin River.  Dalton was chosen because he had volunteered to be a flogger during his time at the prison.  After Dalton was killed he was chopped up and eaten by the group. 


Members of a team who trekked the footsteps of Alexander Pearce stand on the ruins of Macquarie Harbour Prison Settlement.

The group’s two oldest members, William Brown and William Kennerly feared that they could be next to be eaten, so they turned around and headed back to the prison.  These two convicts returned to Sarah Island 22 days after they had escaped.  Though they left the escapees because of their fear of being killed it didn’t matter because both died soon after returning to the prison due to exhaustion. 

The remaining escapees Pearce, Travers, Greenhill, Thomas Bodenham, and John Mather continued to head east to get to Hobart with the understanding that anyone who slept would be killed and eaten.  Bodenham was killed next near the Frenchman’s Cap.  Mather was the next to be killed while he slept near Mt. King William I.  This left Pearce, Travers, and Greenhill.  Travers and Greenhill were good friends and it appeared that Pearce would likely be the next to be eaten.  However, as fortune would have it for Pearce, Travers was bitten by a snake.  He was carried by Pearce and Greenhill for several days until his foot turned gangrenous and was killed while he slept.  This left Greenhill and Pearce to play a game chicken to see who would fall asleep first and killed.  This game went on for many days until Greenhill fell asleep first and Pearce killed him. 

Movie trailer of The Last Confession Of Alexander Pearce that was broadcast on ABC in January 2009.

All the suffering and killing would ultimately be for naught for Pearce because he was captured by colonial authorities 113 days after his escape when he alone made it to settled areas of Tasmania and pro
ceeded to rob the homes of farmers and their sheep.  Pearce had made it a total of 170 kilometers from the prison before his capture.  Pearce admitted to the authorities after his capture that he had eaten his fellow escapees, but the authorities did not believe him.  They thought Pearce was just trying to cover for his mates who were still on the lose.  Pearce was returned to the Sarah Island prison where he was sentenced for a total of seven years.  Pearce returned to the prison as a hero due to his exploits as an escaped convict. 

Instead of lying low and doing his time in the prison, Pearce decided to escape again.  This time he escaped with only one companion Thomas Cox who looked up to Pearce as a hero figure due to his prior exploits.  You have to wonder about the mental facualties of man willing wanting to escape with a convict known as Cannibal Pearce.  Especially since everyone else in the prison was smart enough to not attempt an escape with Pearce.  Anyway Cox’s fate was sealed when Pearce killed and ate him during their escape attempt.  Pearce eventually flagged down a passing boat but the captain searched Pearce and found a piece of human flesh in his pocket.  Pearce claimed that Cox had drowned, but now no one believed him and Pearce with ordered to be hanged.


Before being hanged Pearce was asked by a guard what had caused to him to want to eat another person?  Pearce replied that, “No man can tell what he will do when driven by hunger.”  He then concluded by informing the guard that, “Man’s flesh is delicious, far better than fish or pork.”  Pearce was hanged in Hobart on July 19, 1824 and no, no one ate him afterwards. 

Faces of Australia: Abel Tasman

Published on May 11, 2009 in Facts About Australia. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

There was a number of early explorers to the shores of Australia. Most landed on the west coast of Australia after being blown off course by storms when crossing the Indian Ocean to get the Spice Islands of Indonesia.  However, the first explorer to actually be sent on a voyage of discovery to Australia was the Dutch sea captain Abel Tasman.

Tasman worked for the powerful Dutch East India Company, which in the 1600’s was quite possibly the world’s richest company due to the incredible profits the company made from its spice trade in the Indonesian archipelago.  The company was also making profits from shipping other products from around the world such as wood, silk, coffee, porcelain, gold, and copper. The search for more profits is what led the Governor-General of Batavia (modern day Jakarta), Anthony Van Diemen to fund an expedition in 1642 to map the unknown land south of Indonesia that his cartographers had spotty reports on. The man he chose for the expedition was Abel Tasman.


Abel Tasman’s Heemskerck

Van Diemen gave Tasman two ships to aid him in his search to
map the unknown southern continent. The two ships were named the Heemskerck and Zeehaen. Tasman’s two ships sailed first west and then south towards Mauritius.  From there he then sailed back towards the east hoping to hit Western Australia which was then called New Holland, but he missed the entire west coast of Australia.  The winds Tasman was able to catch winds continued to bring his ships to the east and straight to the island of Tasmania. However, when Tasman landed on Tasmania he had no idea he was even on an island.  This island rich in natural resources Tasman named Van Diemen’s Land after the Governor-General of Batavia who sent him on this voyage. Abel Tasman thought so highly of this land he discovered he wrote this:

“Whoever perfectly discovers and settles it will become infallibly possessed of Territories as rich, as fruitful, & as capable of improvement, as any that have been hitherto found out, either in the East Indies or the West.”


1663 map of Van Diemen’s Land, showing the parts discovered by Tasman, including Storm Bay, Maria Island and Schouten Island.

Strangely despite Tasman holding a high opinion of the land he had found, he did not further explore it.  A reason for this could be because Tasman was sent on a voyage of discovery in order to increase profits for the Dutch East India Company.  However, no matter how much they searched for indigenous people to trade with they could not find anybody.  Tasman’s crew would catch glimpses of the Aborigines, but the Aborigines would always run off and avoid contact. You have to figure that the Aborigines had probably never seen white people before or such large ships.  Seeing these early European explorers must have been like if a space ship landed in your back yard and you saw aliens deboarding.  Your first instinct probably wouldn’t be to run outside and say G’day to them.

Mount Wellington and Hobart Town from Kangaroo Point 1834 (link)

So instead of further exploring the coastline of Van Diemen’s Land, Tasman set sail once again use the prevailing winds to take his
ships further east. 


Route of Abel Tasman’s Voyage in 1642.

After a long sail Tasman was blown on to the shore of an even richer land then one he just discovered that he would name New Zealand.  When he landed in New Zealand Tasman actually thought he was on one of the islands on the southern tip of South America.  As Tasman sailed north from the South Island he landed on he passed the strait that run between New Zealand’s two islands and actually thought it was a bight.  Along the coast of the North Island one of Tasman’s boats was attacked by local Maori warriors.  Four of Tasman’s men were killed thus causing Tasman to call the bay, Murderer’s Bay. 


Murderer’s Bay, 1642

On the way back to Batavia, Tasman sailed through both the Tongan and Fijian Islands.  When Tasman returned to Batavia his voyage of discovery was technically considered a failure since he found no one to trade with and thus made no profits.  However, his discovery of these new lands though was good enough for Van Diemen to not entirely right off Abel Tasman; either that or Van Diemen was flattered that Tasman named a new land after him.

On his second voyage in 1644 Tasman was tasked to determine whether the Australian continent, Van Diemen’s Land, New Guinea, and
New Zealand were all linked as one continent.  To determine this Tasman first sailed east from Batavia and then headed south from New Guinea. From here Tasman set sail for the northern coast of Australia. 


Route of Abel Tasman’s Voyage in 1644.

Incredibly during this voyage Tasman failed to discover Torres Strait which would have proven that Australia is not in fact connect to New Guinea. He began sailing back towards the west and ultimately explored much of Australia’s northern coast.  Tasman actually mad it all the way to Shark Bay before setting sail back to Batavia. 

Once again like his first voyage, Tasman’s journey was considered a failure because he did not find any wealthy lands with people to trade with despite the vast amount of land he charted.  Tasman would no longer be sent on any voyages of discovery and instead worked for the Governor-General in Batavia by leading trade missions to places such as Sumatra, Thailand, and the Philippines. 

Tasman never returned to Holland and died in Batavia in 1659.  Incredibly despite how important geographically his discoveries were, no one capitalized on them until a hundred years after Tasman’s death when a British captain by the name of James Cook set sail to explore the lands that Tasman found and the rest as they say is history.