When we come across ruins of our colonial past often the only visible part is a crumbling chimney, the rest of the wooden building having long returned to the earth. It may surprise some to learn that in the earliest days of the colony many chimneys were built of wood!

In February 1803 sixteen convicts escaped from the Castle Hill agricultural penal settlement, claiming that they were going to walk to China. All sixteen would eventually meet an unfortunate end.

On a recent visit to Callan Park I saw some interesting strata being revealed by the elements. Particularly noticeable is the thick layer of ash, which is strongly suggestive of either people dumping waste from fires for an extended period, or the aftermath of a major fire event being cleaned away.

With not enough knowledge to be able to decipher them myself I've send the images to those with the expertise needed. I hope we find out more soon!

The incredible story of quite possibly the luckiest man in Sydney in 1803, Edward Quin.

It's been a long and often interrupted journey, but the culmination of my 2020 Fellowship at the John Oxley Library - the 'Research Reveals' lecture - has finally been confirmed for 9 February 2022.

This month I take a look at another shipboard diary as part of my Fellowship with the John Oxley Library.

Agnes Learmonth was a young woman when she left Scotland with her parents and extended family members to begin a new life in the colony of Queensland.

My latest guest article is up on the John Oxley blog for the State Library of Queensland.

I hope you enjoy this brief glimpse into life aboard an immigrant vessel bound for Australia in the 1880s, and the drama and tension that unfolded in the cramped quarters below decks.

My first post as an honorary Fellow of the Library is up and ready to read! A departure from the usual business of The Archive Detective, but I’m sure you’ll find it to be an interesting introduction to the very special collections I’ll be working on over the coming months.

Head to the John Oxley Library blog to read more about their fascinating collection of diaries written by colonial women of Queensland.

Titled View from Merivale Street, South Brisbane this photograph was taken in 1868 and is a breath-taking illustration of just how much has changed in the intervening 150 years. Looking out across the river it was also wonderful to be able to pick out the historical Brisbane landmarks that are still there today.

I’m breaking the rules of my own blog today. Today’s story is not about an old house still standing, or the quest to identify previously anonymous figures in an archive. But I made the rules, so I feel quite comfortable giving myself permission to break them in search of a good story.

That’s right! For the month of December I’ll be based at the State Library of Queensland, as part of a Fellowship with the John Oxley Library. As a departure from my regular, house-based (and admittedly fairly Sydney-centric) fare, I’ll be looking around Brisbane for some different stories to share about the people and places that make Brisbane what it is.

This sweet photograph of a young girl perched on the front step of a corner shop is held by the State Archives of New South Wales, and is simply marked ‘possibly Gordon street, Balmain.’ On a corner of Gordon street at number 26 there is indeed an old corner shop now converted into a small private residence that bears a close resemblance to the shop in the photograph.

One of the reasons that very little trace remains of the earliest colonial dwellings is that they were, quite often, rubbish.

In my last post we met the Kelley family. Patriarch Robert Kelley died suddenly in 1895, having moved his family to a grand new home, however his wife, children and grandchildren continued to inhabit his newly acquired home long after his death.

My usual method of researching these photographs is to take the date given by the archive and start to search for any evidence, slowly narrowing down references until I can (hopefully) identify the figures in the image. As we saw last week this didn’t work, as can happen when inhabitants are just a little too anonymous.

This pair of photographs was taken in the 1930s as a survey of balcony enclosures, which were common in the years following the Great Depression as people sought new ways to increase their living spaces to accommodate family members or paying tenants.

I loved the look on this woman’s face as soon as I saw the photograph: challenging, distrustful. Who is this stranger taking photographs of her home without so much as a by-your-leave?

This photograph is from the Archives Office of Tasmania, and is described as “1890, Photograph - View of a cottage at Richmond shows a girl, Elsa Green (later Mrs Peacock) with relatives.” While the identity of the figures in the photograph is hardly a mystery this time, I wanted to see if I could work out exactly where in Richmond the house was, and whether it still stood.

Labelled only Alpha Cottage with bootmaker, 1880, these photographs are held by the City of Yarra library, which lists the location of these shots as unknown. It is such a beautiful set of what seem to be family photos, that I wanted to try and find out more.

I happened across this photograph, taken c.1940s, in the City of Sydney archives. It shows a cute little cottage which survives today, much updated and extended, on Devine Street, Erskineville.