Snapshots from the Georgiana trail
Finding the details in a story that stretches across Europe and from Scotland to Western Australia has meant doing much of the research remotely, using the Internet and accessing digital files sent by email. Seeing something new on screen is exciting but by far the most wonderful times have been visits to explore the places in John and Georgiana Molloys’ lives.
Here are some photographic memories of our travels in Cumbria, Scotland, London, Warwickshire and Western Australia.
The story of Mildred Kitty Ludlow is a sad one but it’s not so different from that of many other female servants during the early colonial settlement of Western Australia. Georgiana Molloy’s diaries and letters tell us about the last years of Kitty’s life and reveal some of Georgiana’s own personal views and values. I […]
Living in Western Australia’s far southwest means that we are always aware of the changes in season. Like Georgiana, I grew up in Britain and whenever I think about what she was doing at different times of year, I know that she, too, would always have thought about the differences between the climate here and […]
It’s a year since my new biography of Georgiana Molloy was published by Pan Macmillan in Australia and New Zealand (May 2016) so it’s probably time to move on but history just will NOT let go of me. It was exciting to discover so much that was new in the story of Georgiana’s life but […]
A hundred and eighty-seven years ago today, Captain and Mrs Molloy arrived here in Australia’s far southwest aboard the Emily Taylor, part of a small group of settlers from Britain. A few days later, Georgiana moved into a tent on the riverbank, unaware that the baby she was expecting, her first, was due to arrive […]
I’ve been asked to post some images of the area Georgiana moved to when she left Augusta WA in May, 1839. So here you are! The Molloys and the Bussells lived on the banks of the Vasse River, not far from the coast. Today, Busselton covers most of the area where the settlers had their […]
In December, I said I’d post some more video and that got a few ‘thumbs up’ so here it is. The quality isn’t great because the file size has to be greatly reduced to upload on here but it will give you a short overview of the place where Georgiana Molloy was born in 1805. I’m kept […]
As the weather warms up quickly here in the region where Georgiana spent her last three decades, I’m remembering a visit we made to her childhood home at this time of year. In the far north of England, not far from the border with Scotland, the village of Crosby-on Eden is in winter’s grip during December. The […]
I’ve had the great pleasure of being involved in a different kind of ‘digging’ in the last few days, not research from old documents but real digging in the ground. Dr Shane Burke from the University of Notre Dame in Perth WA has hoped for some years to do an archaeological dig in Augusta on […]
I’ve escaped from the project that’s kept me busy for the last eighteen months and now it’s time to get back to the ‘to-do’ list from last year. It’s been months since I said I’d post some transcriptions so apologies for rather a long delay! In 1831, Georgiana wrote to her good friend, the elderly Mrs […]
“Often have I laid in bed on board and thought of you all with my eyes shut and could, for the moment, fancy myself at Rosneath.” Georgiana Molloy 1829 When I was at school I was taught that history was a fixed thing, an accumulation of dates and facts that could be learned and […]