Robert Forrester, First Fleeter

Arthur Phillip Memorial at Camp Cove

2012-02-06T15:31:00.000-08:00

Let me step back to January 1788 and the safe arrival of the First Fleet. Having realised that Botany Bay was unsuitable as a place of settlement, Arthur Phillip decided to explore the coastline to the northwards. He and his small party rowed around South Head on 21 January 1788, and discovered the finest harbour in the world. A small monument at Camp Cove, just inside the entrance to the harbour, was unveiled on 23 January 1927 to commemorate this event. A Mr and Mrs A. G. Foster provided the tablet, laid by the Royal Australian Historical Society.

Arthur Phillip Tablet at Camp Cove, © Louise Wilson, Jan 2012

While in Sydney during the holiday season I paid a long-overdue visit to this historic site. I grew up in Sydney, yet I never knew that it existed. It was a perfect summer's day and the beach scene was colorful with local residents and tourists. Sunbathing was the focus of the beach-goers, who'd somehow managed to negotiate the narrow network of local roads beyond The Gap at Watsons Bay and find parking. No-one was interested enough in the small obelisk to stop and explore its meaning. It was a typical case of familiarity breeding contempt. Passers-by were more curious that I would be taking photos of the scene.

Arthur Phillip Memorial at Camp Cove, © Louise Wilson, Jan 2012

As I was about to leave, two women arrived with their cameras and repeated my actions - walking around the site, taking shots from different angles, peering closely at the small plaque. Like me, they had to get out their glasses to read the faint words. Heartened, I spoke to them and discovered they had come from Brisbane especially to visit all the sites in Sydney relevant to the First Fleet. They were not part of any tour group, just private citizens. They agreed with me - why don't we take more pride in, and make more of, our unique convict settlement history as a focus of tourism?

Books about Individual First Fleeters

2011-12-13T14:55:00.000-08:00

Here's a Christmas and summer holiday reading list for you! While researching the Forrester book I was amazed to discover how few books have been researched and published about individuals who arrived with the First Fleet. From a preliminary search of the National Library of Australia catalogue and the Australian Dictionary of Biography I've prepared the listing below and I've read thoroughly, or at least perused, most of them. I'd like to hear from anyone who can add further titles which could be described as a biographical work on a First Fleeter.

1. ESTHER ABRAHAMS (Convict)
GEORGE JOHNSTON (Marine Officer)
Marine Officer, Convict Wife – the Johnstons of Annandale, Alan Roberts, Annandale Urban Research Association in association with Barbara Beckett Publishing, 2008

2. THOMAS ACRES (Convict)
Thomas Acres (Akers): convict, First Fleet, per "Charlotte" 26.1.1788, some Australian descendants, compiled by John Walker, Privately Published, 2008, 2 vols

3. JOHN ANDERSON (Convict)
ELIZABETH BRUCE (Convict)
Story of Two First Fleet Convicts, John Anderson & Elizabeth Bruce, Robert Taylor, Privately Published, 1985, 8 pp

4. WILLIAM BOGGIS (Convict)
Where Honour Guides the Prow, by Elisabeth Curtis & Gillian Doyle, Self-Published, 1987, 272 pp (very little about Boggis; mostly about Charles Thompson, who married William Boggis’ daughter Elizabeth)

5. MARY BRAUND (BRYANT) (Convict)
WILLIAM BRYANT (Convict)
To Brave Every Danger – The Epic Life of Mary Bryant of Fowey, Judith Cook, Truran, 1999, 256 pp
The Girl from Botany Bay, a novel by Carolly Erickson, (John Wiley & Sons, 2005), 234 pp
Plus a number of other books about their escape from NSW in 1791

6. ELIZABETH BRUCE (Convict) – see JOHN ANDERSON (Convict)

7. WILLIAM BRYANT (Convict) - see MARY BRAUND (BRYANT) (Convict)

8. ANN COLPITTS (Convict)
Ann Colpitts – First Fleet Convict Pioneer, Anthony Laffan, Self-Published, Brighton-le-Sands, 2009

9. BENJAMIN CUSLEY (Marine)
Benjamin Cusley, First Fleeter, Maureen A Williams, Privately Published, 1995, 72 pp

10. WILLIAM DAWES (Marine)
The Lieutenant, a novel by Kate Grenville, Canongate Books, 2010, 320 pp

11. WILLIAM DEW (Marine)
A First Fleet Family - A Hitherto Unpublished Narrative of Certain Remarkable Adventures Compiled from the Papers of Sergeant William Dew, Louis Becke & Walter Jeffery, Kessinger Publishing Legacy Reprint, 2010, 286 pp

12. DEBORAH ELLAM (Convict)
JOHN HERBERT (Convict, Charlotte)
First Fleeter John Herbert – His Life and Times, Cecil Herbert, Privately Published, 1988, 91 pp
First fleeters, John Herbert and Deborah Ellam: their lives and the descent of the Bamford, Bates and Kay families, Arthur Chapman, Privately published, 1987, 43 pp

13. MATTHEW EVERINGHAM (Convict)
Matthew Everingham – A First Fleeter and His Times, Valerie Ross, Library of Australian History, 1980, 165 pp
The Everingham letterbook / letters of a First Fleet convict, edited by Valerie Ross, Anvil Press, c 1985, 183 pp
Also an entry in Australian Dictionary of Biography

14. ANN FORBES (Convict)
Guilty, no chattels, to be hanged : the story of Ann Forbes, First Fleet convict, Ian Forster, Privately Published, 1991, 144 pp

15. ROBERT FORRESTER (Convict)
Robert Forrester, First Fleeter, Louise Wilson, Privately Published, 2009, 442 pp, see http://louisewilson.com.au/robert_forrester.html

16. JOHN HARRIS (Convict)
John Harris, first fleet emancipist, compiled by Laurence Halloran, Privately Published, 1992, 62 pp
Also an entry in Australian Dictionary of Biography

17. JOHN HERBERT (Convict, Charlotte) - see DEBORAH ELLAM (Convict)

18. HUGH HUGHES (Convict)
In memory of a First Fleeter: the story of the Hughes family of Parramatta, Valerie Collyer, Privately Published, 2002, 99 pp

19. RICHARD JOHNSON (Free)
Australia’s First Preacher: the Rev Richard Johnson, first chaplain of New South Wales, James Bonwick, 1817-1906, Sampson Low, Marston & Co, 1898, London

20. GEORGE JOHNSTON (Marine Officer) – see ESTHER ABRAHAMS (Convict)

21. HENRY KABLE (Convict)
Kable: the story of Henry Kable, First Fleet convict extraordinaire, June Whittaker, Privately Published, 2002, 620 pp
Damned rascals? a chronicle of Henry & Susannah Kable, 1764-1846, Paul Kable & June Whittaker, Kable Pictorial, 2007, 176 pp

22. JANE LANGLEY (Convict)
PHILIP SCRIVEN (Seaman)
HENRIETTA SCRIVEN (Child)
A new beginning : the story of three first fleeters and descendants, compiled by The Jane Langley Descendants Association, 2001, 1155 pp

23. ELIZABETH LOCK (Convict) - see RICHARD MORGAN

24. RICHARD MORGAN (Convict)
ELIZABETH LOCK (Convict)
Morgan’s Run, a novel by Colleen McCullough, Century, London, 2000, 608 pp

25. JOHN MUNDAY (Marine)
Spirit of independence: John Munday, First Fleet marine and descendants, Ann Daniel, Privately Published, 2007, 288 pp

26. WILLIAM NASH (Marine)
Nash, First Fleeters and Founding Families, a three generational biographical history, Carol J Baxter, Privately Published, 2004, 463 pp

27. JOHN NICHOLS (Convict)
The Story of John Nichols, first fleeter and five generations of his family, K. Purnell [et al.], John Nichols Family Society, 1988, 328 pp

28. ARTHUR PHILLIP (Commodore & Governor)
A number of biographies have been published. As soon as I get a chance I'll write a separate post about these books.

29. ELIZABETH PULLEY (Convict)
The remarkable story of Elizabeth Pulley who ventured across the wild seas and helped forge a new country on the shores of Sydney Cove in 1788, Judith Byrne Saunders, Self-published, 2002

30. WILLIAM ROBERTS (Convict)
A Rich Inheritance, Narissa Phelps Morissey (Ed), Committee of William Roberts & Kezia Brown Family Assocn, 1990, 262 pp

31. JAMES RUSE (Convict)
My Mother Reread Me Tenderley – the life of James Ruse, Janice Ruse Israel, Possum, 1988, 96 pp.
Also an entry in Australian Dictionary of Biography.

32. PHILIP SCRIVEN (Seaman) - see JANE LANGLEY

33. HENRIETTA SCRIVEN (Child) - see JANE LANGLEY

34. JOHN SMALL (Convict)
The Search for John Small, First Fleeter, Mollie Gillen, Library of Australian History, 1985, 189 pp

35. ANN SMITH (Convict)
Ann Smith of the Lady Penrhyn, A.J. Gray, Royal Historical Society Journal, Volume 43, Part 5, 1957, pp 252-259

36. WILLIAM STANDLEY (Marine)
As far as I can tell: the story of First Fleet marine William Standley and some of his descendants, Graeme A. Wood, Privately Published, 2005, 169 pp

37. THOMAS WILLIAMS (Marine)
Warts and All – the history of a Williams Family, Leonard Gregory Williams, Gundaroo NSW, 2006

PLUS - AUSTRALIAN DICTIONARY OF BIOGRAPHY (ADB) ENTRIES
As well as profiling most of the First Fleeters whose journals, letters and published accounts of their experiences are listed separately below, the following First Fleeters are profiled in ADB

38. JAMES BLOODSWORTH (Convict), by Morton Herman

39. JOHN BAUGHAN (Convict), by A.J. Gray

40. WILLIAM EDWARD ELLIOTT (Convict), by B.H. Fletcher

41. NATHANIEL LUCAS (Convict), by Morton Herman

42. MARY MARSHALL (Convict), see Robert Sidaway

43. ROBERT SIDAWAY (Convict), by Vivienne Parsons, with brief mention of Mary Marshall

CONTEMPORARY JOURNALS
Several persons on the First Fleet kept journals, including:
• Arthur Bowes Smyth (Surgeon, Lady Penrhyn)
• William Bradley (Naval officer, Sirius)
• Ralph Clark (Marine Officer, Friendship)
• John Easty (Marine private, Scarborough)
• Philip Gidley King (Naval Officer, Sirius)
• John Hunter (Naval Officer, Sirius)
• Jacob Nagle (American, Seaman on Sirius)
• James Scott (Marine sergeant, Prince of Wales)
• George Worgan (Surgeon, Sirius)

CONTEMPORARY LETTERS
Letters home were written by the following First Fleeters:
• An Officer (possibly Lachlan Ross, Marine Officer, Scarborough)
• David Blackburn (Naval officer, Supply)
• James Campbell (Marine Officer, Lady Penrhyn)
• John Campbell (Crewman?, Lady Penrhyn)
• William Dawes (Marine officer, Scientist, Sirius)
• Newton Fowell (Naval officer, Sirius)
• Rev Richard Johnson (Chaplain, Golden Grove)
• Arthur Phillip (Commodore, Sirius)
• Daniel Southwell (Midshipman, Sirius)
• Henry Waterhouse (Naval Officer, Sirius)

CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHED ACCOUNTS
Books about their experiences with the First Fleet were written by:
• David Collins (Marine Officer & deputy judge advocate, Sirius)
• John Hunter (Naval Officer, Sirius)
• Arthur Phillip (Commodore, Sirius)
• Watkin Tench (Marine officer, Charlotte)
• John White (Naval surgeon,
• Richard Williams (Second mate, Borrowdale)

PLUS, WEBSITES
Not researched

PLUS, BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
• Brief profiles of every known First Fleeter are contained in The Founders of Australia – a Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet, Mollie Gillen, (Library of Australian History, North Sydney, 1989)
• Additional notes for selected First Fleeters are catalogued at the National Library of Australia

Was Robert Forrester a Soldier?

2011-08-03T16:36:00.000-07:00

My book on Robert Forrester mentioned several pieces of evidence hinting that he may have been a soldier in the American War of Independence. For example, he was in the company of a Chelsea pensioner when arrested, and he owned a gun in NSW at a time this was rare and he could shoot straight.
Recently, when in England, I made a brief visit to the Public Records Office at Kew to research various matters. Re Robert Forrester, I found nothing which suggested he had ever been a soldier - at least nothing indexed with his name or its variations.
The British Army Service Records, 1760-1915, on the Find-My-Past website also make no mention of a relevant Robert.
This does not mean conclusively that the soldier theory is false - only that the means of proving it remain very limited. But being unable to trace his whereabouts prior to 1783 does mean that finding his place of origin remains elusive.

Charles Homer Martin & Ann Forrester

2011-04-29T20:48:00.000-07:00

The book about Charles Homer Martin and Ann Forrester, with separate chapters on their twelve children, is now substantially drafted. To jog your memories, those children were:

1. Jane Martin, who married Frederick Nichols
2. Elizabeth Ann Martin, who married Philip Devine
3. Isabella Jane Martin, who married William John Dolley
4. Margaret Martin, who married Alfred Bushell
5. Lucy Martin, who married James Graham
6. Mary Ann Martin, who married John Daley
7. Charles Robert Martin, who married Anne Hill
8. William John Martin, who married Mary Becroft
9. Susannah Martin, who married William Norris
10. Martha Martin, who died young
11. Emma Maria Martin, who married George Greentree
12. Henry Edward Martin, who was unmarried

If you'd like to understand why oblique comments such as 'It's the Martin in him' have passed down the generations, then this is the book for you.

Because the opening chapter of any book is crucial for engaging the interest of a reader, that chapter has been given to my writing group. Their comments and feedback have strengthened the impact of the introduction to Charlie in his London days. In later chapters, readers will gain an in-depth knowledge of Charlie's life experiences in Australia and his overall character.

Even when you think your research is complete and your story line is clear, the time required for completion of family histories always takes longer than expected. However I hope that the book will be ready in time for Christmas. Its final title, its final number of pages and therefore its final price are yet to be determined, but the book should be similar in price to the Forrester and Bushell books, which cost $35.

If you'd like to join the waiting list for this book, please send me an email. Click on the 'View My Complete Profile' in the section below my picture on the right-hand side of this screen for a direct link to my email address. Everyone on the waiting list will receive notification to place their orders (at a discounted price) when the book reaches its pre-publication stage. As with the Forrester and Bushell books, once the book has been published, the full recommended retail price will apply.

I very much look forward to hearing from all descendants of Charles & Ann Martin.

Forrester Book Reprinted

2011-04-21T15:37:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announce that Robert Forrester, First Fleeter has been reprinted. Copies are available through me by cheque, OR through BookPOD by credit card, OR in person at a few selected outlets in NSW and Victoria. All ordering details are provided on my website www.louisewilson.com.au.

Choosing the 'retail outlet' option avoids postage, but please ring the relevant outlet beforehand to make sure that copies are in stock. The relevant bookshops do not always have a stock control re-ordering system and my own follow-up emails do not necessarily coincide with their sales. I'd appreciate a quick email if you find that the outlet is 'out of stock'. Click on to 'View My Complete Profile' on the lower right hand side of this screen for direct access to the email address.

Book about Forrester Children

2011-03-10T20:48:00.000-08:00

The book is substantially drafted but, as I contemplate its structure and size, I feel that I should rethink my approach. The book as it stands requires a degree of repetition, to make each chapter about each of Robert Forrester's children a complete story in itself. I am toying with the idea of splitting the book into four smaller books covering
1. the Forrester sons & exploits of the squatter grandsons
2. Richard Ridge & Margaret Forrester
3. Charles Homer Martin & Ann Forrester
4. Thomas Lovell & Isabella Jane Forrester & Charles Daley

Smaller books weighing under 500gm would have the added advantage of being much cheaper to post than the heavier Forrester & Bushell books have been.

The Martin book is virtually ready to go as a stand alone book, and the material on the Forrester sons is virtually finished too.

However this approach would cause a delay in the Ridge & Lovell/Daley books, as I would need to do a little more research.

I know many of Ann's descendants are waiting anxiously for the Martin material to see the light of day and this group will probably favour a separate book about her life.

Your feedback by email is welcome.

Reprint of Forrester book

2011-03-09T13:25:00.000-08:00

All 500 copies of Robert Forrester, First Fleeter have now been sold, other than a few copies still held by BookPOD, suiting those who wish to pay by credit card. Those ‘in the know’ tell me that this is a very good result for a book of this type, especially a self-published one, but it proves the point that the life of a non-fiction writer is usually a poor one!

The book continues to sell steadily as news of its existence slowly ripples outwards, upwards and downwards through the Forrester community. Therefore I’m planning a reprint. However I’d like some guidance as to the possible numbers required, because printing books is quite an expensive undertaking. Do you know of any family members or friends with an interest in this book? If so, please ask them to contact me.

As a reprint, the book will look the same and will contain the same information as before.

Reprint Needed Soon

2011-01-14T17:02:00.000-08:00

Sales of the Forrester book continue steadily, as word spreads around the family, and stocks of the first print-run are getting low. I plan to reprint the book during 2011, but anyone who is thinking of purchasing a copy should place their orders soon, to avoid waiting for the reprint.

Forrester Graves at St Matthew's, Windsor

2010-06-08T15:26:00.000-07:00

Details of the history of the Forrester gravesite restoration project at St Matthew's, Windsor have been promised by Geoffrey and Narelle Steer, with a view to inclusion in the book about Robert's children. I understand John Forrester played a big role in the success of this project. If anyone else has information, or old photos of the gravesite prior to restoration, please contact me.

Speech at Norfolk Island

2010-03-08T19:48:00.000-08:00

‘Robert Forrester, First Fleeter’
Speech given to descendants of convicts at ‘Forrester Court’, the home of John, Brad, Ariane & Andre Forrester,
Norfolk Island, 3 March 2010

This is my first visit to Norfolk Island and I am thoroughly enjoying it.
I have two people to thank for my presence here today – John Forrester and Agnes Hain.
In the front of the Robert Forrester book I have made many acknowledgments of the help received from a large number of people. One of those was John Forrester. He sent me very helpful material and has always taken a great interest in the progress of the book. I found out after the Forrester book was published that John Forrester had a lot to do with organising and financing the restoration of the Forrester headstones in the churchyard of St Matthew’s at Windsor, and I plan to mention that role of his in the book about the Forrester children.
I think John received and read my book and then had a few words with Agnes Hain of The Travel Centre. She seems to have an inexhaustible supply of enthusiasm for creating novel and meaningful visitor experiences for those coming to Norfolk Island. That germ of an idea from John led to an email from Agnes, lunch with Agnes in Melbourne last year, and here I am, thanks to Agnes, enjoying the opportunity to see for myself the place where my First Fleet forebear spent time in the early 1790s.
Had I been familiar with Norfolk Island before this week I might have prepared and written a different speech. Since that was not the case, today I will give you a brief overview of how I wrote this book and what I learned from it.
Hiding our Convict Origins
People tend to look down their noses at anyone who mentions a convict forebear, but due to the introduction into families of new lines by dint of marriage, they lurk within the family trees of almost every family with members present in Australia before the First World War. So I know I’m in good company, even in Melbourne, where I live. There, many people are convinced that Victoria’s reputation has never been tarnished by convict arrivals and feel that they can safely look down their noses at the inferior breeding of people from other states, especially NSW. I’m sure they would get a big surprise if they cared to investigate their forebears.
Today’s lingering attitudes of prejudice might explain why, for decades, everyone with convict forebears kept quiet about it.
Babette Smith’s book ‘Australia’s Birthstain’ highlighted the community pride and self-confidence in their achievements felt by the convicts who founded Australia, up to the middle of the nineteenth century. But then the UK’s anti-slavery movement fuelled Australia’s anti-transportation movement - generating such distortions in the arguments, and painting pictures of such horrifying depravity among the convict ‘class’, that people became ashamed to mention convict beginnings.
Starting with Marcus Clarke’s 1874 book ‘For the Term of His Natural Life’ and continuing through to Robert Hughes’ 1988 book ‘The Fatal Shore’, we’ve had over a century of these lurid tales. The public perception of being a convict evoked images of the lash, of chains, of cruel task masters, of slave labour, of supposed homosexuality and bestiality, of women as prostitutes, of Port Arthur’s gaol, and of Norfolk Island and Moreton Bay as secondary penal colonies.
Although the experiences of the earliest convict settlers of Australia were generally quite different, these lurid images continue to be presented up to the present day as the convict experience. Take, for example, Sian Prior’s book entitled ‘The Floating Brothel’, about the women transported on the Lady Juliana, or David Hill’s book ‘1788 – the Brutal Truth of the First Fleet’. Why did those recent titles include the words brothel, or brutal? Think about ‘The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce’, the recent ABC TV programme about the cannibal convicts in Tasmania.
Do you think the ABC would ever make a story about Robert Forrester, who overcame almost insuperable obstacles in Sydney, at Norfolk Island and at the Hawkesbury and built a solid family life? Fat chance. Where is the audience titillation in that approach? Even the Norfolk Island experience has been distorted, so that few people realise that in its earliest days from 1788 it was not a place for the irredeemably bad but was a strategic resource, and an agricultural settlement providing a safety haven for starving convicts. My own misunderstanding was corrected by the research for the Forrester book, and I tried to make that point very clear when writing the Norfolk Island chapter.
Humour
For me the journey towards publication of a book on Robert Forrester has been a long one, but there have been plenty of humorous moments along the way. For example, there was the woman in the library who had just discovered an unpalatable truth. Startling all of us quiet little mice working around her, she fiercely slammed her microfiche reader slide into the machine and loudly exclaimed ‘OH! Another lie exposed! If he was alive, I’d kill him.’
And of course there are the jokes – like the one about a talkback radio show in Sydney. The prize was a mystery trip. It could have been a trip to anywhere – Melbourne or Mumbai. A woman answered the final quiz question correctly and the announcer said ‘Congratulations, you’ve won!! And what’s more, you hit the jackpot. It’s a great prize - you’ve won a trip to England’. But in her broad Australian accent the Sydney woman wailed ‘Oh, but I don’t want to go THERE. THAT’s the dreadful place where all the convicts came from.’
To me that joke proves that being founded by criminals has brought Australians an appreciation of irony and black comedy.
And it reveals how little we understand our own history, even if we have studied it. Convicts = dreadful. Right? I think not.
Limited Source Material
Around 1500 people came to Australia in 1788 as part of the First Fleet. Less than two dozen of these people actually wrote about their experiences in a form that survives today:
• Nine men kept journals
• Eight individuals wrote letters home.
• Seven individuals wrote published accounts, some based on their journal.
Apart from Collins’ journal, most of the material about the First Fleet covers life in Sydney during its first four years, before the various scribes returned to England. From this material we obtain the perspective of the leader, various naval officers under his command, a few marine officers and men, several surgeons cum naturalists, and the chaplain.
Of those 1500 First Fleeters, more than 700 were convicts, but they left little or no written accounts of their experience and there are very few books about their lives as individuals. This creates a huge gap in the story of Australia’s early European settlement, a story which to date has relied heavily on the one-sided perspectives of those in charge.
But think about it. Those writers back in 1788 and thereabouts focused on the things that preoccupied them. They were mostly aware of the significance of their writing and naturally keen to write themselves into history in the best possible light, while portraying everyone else as an idiot. Would we rely today on a memoir by John Howard or Kevin Rudd to tell us the complete history of our times? No, because their personal interest distorts it.
Rigorous family history is free of that bias, especially the history of an illiterate person who left no personal records. Almost everything we know about Robert Forrester was sourced independently of him, in some kind of government record. As long as the writer tries to remain objective and stick to the known facts, the conclusions are less biased as the sources are not self-interested.
The Value of Family Historians
Family historians encompass a whole spectrum of players, ranging from dabblers through amateur enthusiasts to fully professional researchers, for whom their work is serious history.
Good family history gets the chronology precisely right, and this can give you an excellent insight into what was cause and what was effect. In that way rigorous family history can actually contribute significantly to our understanding of Australian history.
The research required for a family history is extremely frustrating, and is a long, boring grind. Sorting out who was who among people with the same names, or working out that people whose names are spelt differently each time are one and the same person, requires a great deal of patience, and detective skills.
Accordingly, very few biographies of the 1500 people on the First Fleet have ever been published. Being extremely difficult and time-consuming to research, only someone with a passionate interest, such as a descendant, would ever bother.
I have located six books about First Fleet marines, and twenty three about First Fleet convicts. Although catalogued by the National Library as books, some of these publications are little more than a few pages long, offering just snippets of information cobbled together, not always even in sequential order. Others contain lists of descendants with very little biographical material. There are several websites containing information of varying accuracy and credibility about First Fleeters. So a book like mine, telling the life story of a First Fleet convict, is not as run-of-the-mill as you might think.
Ignoring our Convict Heritage
Although Australia’s archival sources have been fully opened up for about forty years, academic historians in recent times have largely ignored our convict history, focusing instead on women’s issues, aborigines and multiculturalism. Yet for the first sixty years of Australia’s European history, convicts and their children formed the bulk of Australia’s population. This means that, as a nation we still have a rather distorted view of our history.
Serious researchers among the descendants of convicts are probably ahead of academic historians and the general public in understanding the true nature of those first sixty years. Some claim that there is no country in the world where family historians are more important than in Australia’, where they ‘work at the cutting edge of historical research’. I like to believe that my book ‘Robert Forrester, First Fleeter’ is at this cutting edge. Certainly it was published eight months prior to another book by the professional historian Jan Barkley Jack. Jan claimed breakthrough analysis, proving that settlers at the Hawkesbury have been falsely maligned for two centuries. My own book had already proved that point in great detail for Robert Forrester, one of the most-criticised of all Hawkesbury settlers.
The Task
I was in my early fifties before I ever knew that I had convict forebears. That was in 1999. My long-suffering friends and family know that I have been buried in family history work ever since. The Forrester book took me ten years of elapsed time to research and write. It is hard to believe that I got into the whole project by accident.
The lure of unearthing the names of previous generations of forebears is quite addictive. But from the moment I realised that one of my forebears was a convict who arrived with the First Fleet, I found my true vocation –as a detective.
Each research day spent in a library or archives office usually meant 3 or 4 days of work at my desk. Sometimes I spent a whole day making sure that just one line of my book was accurate. Sometimes the discovery of a single small piece of information meant that whole sections of the book had to be rewritten or rearranged.
The task of investigating the character of Robert Forrester was a challenging one. He was almost the invisible man to begin with, with very few mentions anywhere, and all of them unflattering. He did not seem a forebear to be proud of.
This was very depressing at first, as I am fascinated by heroes. And my heroes are of a particular kind. They are people who have left a positive mark on this world, especially those who have taken a long time to build something worthwhile.
As I worked on this book, Governor Arthur Phillip became one of my heroes. But it was very hard to see Robert Forrester as a candidate for hero status, and this was certainly NOT how I viewed him at the start of my project, or what I set out to achieve in writing about him. So how was it that his story evolved into the much more positive view of his character presented in this biography?
For a start, I examined all the archival evidence for the unflattering statements. ‘Thinking’ proved to be a major investigative tool. I disproved most of the claims and discovered another way of looking at the remainder, when set in the context of Robert’s times.
Second, his headstone (with its spelling mistake) always told its own tale. It said -
Sleep on dear father in this grave
Let not our sigh awake you
We only wait untill our turn
Then we all shall overtake you
I kept thinking to myself that a man with so much bad press could not have been THAT bad, if his children loved him enough to organise that headstone, and somehow found the money to pay for it. And if he could attract three women at a time when the men vastly outnumbered the women, he must have had the X factor!
The headstone was what impelled me to keep looking for more. Eventually it dawned on me that the dearth of references to him was probably a mark in his favour. The writers of the time concerned themselves greatly with the doings of people behaving badly, or those making lots of money such as merchants and graziers, or those performing deeds of note such as explorers, but never seemed to make any comment at all about those who just quietly got on with things, like Robert.
So I looked for him in all the humdrum administrative returns of the day. Painstakingly, I matched up the records of debts and property transactions with the floods and other disasters at the Hawkesbury, looked for clues in the statements by various governors and magistrates about the character of those at the Hawkesbury, tied everything into strict logical sequence, and out of all of this Robert’s rather dramatic life and his industrious nature emerged from the shadows.
The capacity to recreate a life from Australia’s convict records has meant that these records have been placed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in recognition of their unique archival value. In most countries it is not possible to recreate nineteenth century lives in this way.
In writing the book, one of my challenges was Bella Ramsay, the mother of Robert’s children. Women are too often the invisible characters of history. I am the eldest of four girls, so could not ignore the female angle. I have tried to bring Bella out of the shadows by discovering her origins, considering her likely friends and her hard work looking after a large number of young children and the garden. I have solved the long-standing mystery of what happened to her. Hopefully she will now have her own identity.
My Findings
There will be many people who will resist some of my findings. They are the people who think that once something has appeared in a book it is the gospel truth. They have been reading adverse sentences about Robert Forrester for the past twenty years, ever since they were written and published in the run-up to the bicentennial celebrations. All I ask is that people consider the evidence, as I have. A lot of it has not been uncovered before now, but that is because I have done a lot of deep delving into the records. The evidence tells its own tale. I have just tried to present it in an accessible way.
What did I learn from my own book?
Now I’d like to tell you what I discovered about our history because of Robert Forrester, and what I think are the historically significant conclusions from my book.
1. Our unique colonisation
Australian colonisation was unique in world history, apart from the obvious point of difference that we began as a gigantic gaol. When the colonists arrived in the Americas, in Africa, and in Asia, even in PNG, there was already an established agriculture, even if primitive, a practice of tilling the soil and harvesting crops often extending back for thousands of years. To work out how to survive in unfamiliar surroundings, the incoming settlers only needed to copy the local inhabitants. In America, at Plymouth, the Puritans on the Mayflower even found two English-speaking Indians to guide them. But in Australia the new settlers found a stone-age hunter-gatherer society.
What made it even more unique was that very few of our first settlers even knew how to grow a crop back in England.
So our first settlers, faced with a totally alien environment in every way you could think of, had to work out how to survive for themselves. It must have bred something unique into our national psyche.
2. Overcoming the food challenge
In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the most basic level of need is for survival - food, water, shelter and clothing.
Food – how could the colony overcome that first and most important challenge?
Enter James Ruse, you say? It is true that he had been a Cornish farmer, and he did grow the first crop of wheat, in 1791, and he did develop a successful farm at the Hawkesbury after 1794 – but after 1798 he apparently succumbed to the grog. His wife ended up being the real farmer – a bit like the John Macarthur story. The significance of James Ruse in our history is vastly exaggerated.
No, the colony survived because Phillip’s search parties eventually found the fertile but high-risk Hawkesbury flood plain north west of Sydney, and because a few men like Robert Forrester then persevered from 1794 for decades with their farms there. That’s why his story is significant. It should have been told long ago.
3. Aborigines
Aborigines were a focus of my book because in 1794 Robert Forrester was the first man in Australia to be brought before a court for killing an aborigine – one of the main reasons for all the criticism directed at him.
It is clear that the question of whether or not aborigines resisted white settlement is answered by the Hawkesbury experience – there was definitely a frontier war there. But friendships eventually developed between aborigines and white settlers.
We keep making mistakes about aborigines, even today, because of the way our history is taught. We think that aborigines were a homogeneous group, and they were all victims, but the topic is much more complex than that.
4. Convicts = Dreadful?
Many accounts of early Sydney portray the convict class as ignorant, unskilled, lazy, rum-soaked ne’er-do-wells of greedy or dishonest character, a theme which is tediously recycled. If that had been the case, the settlement of Sydney Cove would have failed.
By contrast, I discovered that many men on the First Fleet were fine, upstanding, hard-working men who made a conscious choice to become an Australian. My book ultimately is the story of one such man’s very adventure-filled life.
Since its publication, I have discovered that my book is helping some ordinary Australians to feel pride, not shame, in being who they are. I myself have walked taller for knowing that a part of me stepped ashore at Sydney Cove in January 1788.
General Appeal
I have a website www.louisewilson.com.au which gives a range of reader reactions to the book, covering a wide range of topics. The University of Wollongong’s First Fleet Online website also includes a link to my book, in recognition that ‘while the book tells the story of one man, it is intended for general readership’. It is pleasing that both websites demonstrate that you do not need to be a descendant of Robert Forrester to read his story, about one of our founding fathers.
Thank you.

Forrester Book Availability

2009-08-04T01:22:00.000-07:00

Louise Wilson's book 'Robert Forrester, First Fleeter' was published in January 2009. It recreates the life story of one of the founding fathers of modern Australia. Robert Forrester arrived in Sydney Harbour with the First Fleet on 26 January 1788.

For more information about this book, reader feedback and details of how to order it, please refer to the website www.louisewilson.com.au

Further Avenues for Research?

2009-04-10T14:50:00.000-07:00

Did Robert Forrester come from Cumberland? Has anyone studied the relevant parish records for this county?

A reader has suggested that an archaelogical 'dig' on the 1804 grant might turn up artefacts from Robert's time of residence there.