The Reverend John Besley DCL From Tiverton in Devon, the son of the local mayor, Besley was a talented and charismatic man, educated at Balliol College (Oxford University) and always destined for a successful career in the church. After working in a prestigious but rather poorly paid role as librarian at the world […]
Minutiae… Small pieces of information can fascinate. They don’t usually answer the big questions but they work together in magical ways to bring the past to life. An individual is placed in a more detailed setting and their world is populated with real objects, against a background of colours and sounds. Even now, for most […]
I was very excited to receive an invitation to contribute a Guest Blog to the Biodiversity Heritage Library. I’ve been following this fantastic organisation for a while on Facebook and on their website, viewing the regular postings and information they share. Managed by the Smithsonian in New York, the BHL is a collective of major libraries including […]
One of the most difficult aspects of writing the book was deciding what information to include and what to leave out. Small facts about someone’s life, the minutiae of their world, can seem fascinating to one person and read like boring detail to another. Many of the gaps in Georgiana’s life were found by locking […]
A lovely review by Writing WA in today’s West Australian newspaper. “Bernice Barry’s biography not only brings Molloy’s life and times alive for readers but also shares her years of research.” You can read it in full in The West Australian.
Another great review this week. Thank you to the National Trust (Australia) and to reviewer Dr Robyn Taylor (NT quarterly magazine, ‘Trust News’ August 2015). ‘This beautifully illustrated book is a joy to read’. It ‘has a different approach’ that ‘brings psychological depth to the main characters and greater poignancy’. And thank you to the […]
Dr Green’s name appears often in the settlers’ letters, journals and diaries, not least because as their physician and surgeon he was an important part of daily life. Their comments about his work and their observations about his personal life paint a sketchy picture of the man but, viewed in isolation, the collection of anecdotes […]
A big thank you to the Royal Western Australian Historical Society and to Gillian Lilleyman for her review of ‘Georgiana Molloy: the mind that shines’ in ‘History West’, August 2015, which describes the book as ‘an even closer study of Georgiana and ‘a sensitive reappraisal’ that ‘will assure this fascinating pioneer heroine a new generation […]
One of the most intriguing aspects of research over the last few years has been the high frequency of historical coincidences that have come to light in the lives of the Molloys and the people around them. Two stories, apparently unlinked, can be suddenly revealed as connected by a shared association – usually a person […]
Two hundred years ago today, 18 June 1815, John Molloy survived the Battle of Waterloo. As dusk fell, and after a day of fierce fighting near a country crossroads in Belgium, the men still left alive in his battalion were desperately trying to defend the now famous farmhouse ‘La Haye Sainte’. Lieutenant Molloy was seriously […]