Table of contents for Edition 19, 2022 in Traces

Then First established in 1832 by Englishman and civil engineer Peter Degraves, Cascade Brewery was a leader among Tasmania’s breweries. Degraves began his career as an expert in drilling for water, and eventually migrated to Tasmania, then known as Van Diemen’s Land. After arriving with his wife and eight children in 1824, Degraves and his brother-in-law, Major Hugh McIntosh, were granted 500 acres of land, and then another 2000 acres the following year – stretching out into Mount Wellington. The pair then started a sawmill on the property. Unfortunately for Degraves, he had accumulated a plethora of debts back in England many years prior, and was subsequently sent to prison in 1826. When he was released in 1831, Degraves began work on laying down a brewery – an idea he…

As a proud Dja Dja Wurrung man and historian, I am fascinated by the history of my Aboriginal ancestors. The result of colonisation is that so much, if not almost all, of our history before the 1830s was lost forever. The Dja Dja Wurrung Dja Dja Wurrung Country lies in north-central Victoria, centred on the catchment of the north-flowing Loddon River (polydul). The Djaara (the people of the combined Dja Dja Wurrung country) were likely made up of between 14 and 24 original clans. The Djaara were first inundated and decimated by disease in such a thorough way that no certainty remains about how many lives were lost. The Dja Dja Wurrung is believed to have once totalled several thousand men, women and children, but was reduced by the 1850s…

Since September 1939, William ‘Bill’ Garing had seen plenty of combat flying. If he’d wanted it, he could reasonably have expected to be granted permission to sit the remainder of the war out. But for the ambitious and pugnacious Bill – whose moniker would soon become the highly fitting ‘Bull’ – this would have been the last thought to enter his head. Bred in rugged mountain country in north-east Victoria, Bill would walk the six miles to and from his small rural school every day. At age four, he was given responsibility for tending 20 head of cattle, a task he was expected to carry out barefoot. ‘The Alps really made you a tough little bloke,’ he would later recall in interviews about his long and eventful life. Bill’s father,…

Shane, what attracts you to abandoned places? A childhood love of ghost stories sparked my initial interest in abandoned places; I was fascinated by haunted houses, and any spaces that were dark and spooky. With age, this passion became much more philosophically motivated. As time went on, I found that these forgotten places contrasted time against the longevity of our own life spans – time continues in these inanimate spaces, yet we do not. I became interested in the questions they raised about mortality. How do you find the sites you photograph? Through lots of research, lots of time on Google maps, and sharing locations with friends who share the same interest. What do you think ruins and forgotten places can tell us about history? Ruins and forgotten places are…

Green ban enforced on historical Melbourne pub Known for its links to Victoria’s union movement and the Labor Party, Melbourne’s Curtin Hotel is a historically important building for the city. The hotel famously hosted Bob Hawke’s second office while he was the Australian Council of Trade Unions President and, later, prime minister. In February this year, the hotel’s owners announced that it was to be sold, sparking fears of redevelopment and prompting unions to enforce a green ban on the building. Under the ban, union members will refuse to work on any project at the site that doesn’t respect the history and significance of the building. Green bans occurred frequently in the 1970s, particularly in an effort to limit development in Sydney, and have been proven to be very effective…

On the morning of 28 April 1789, chaos broke out on the Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty as she sailed past the Tongan islands on her return voyage from Tahiti in search of breadfruit plants. Fletcher Christian, the master’s mate, and a group of followers citing unfair treatment wielded muskets and swords in rebellion against Lieutenant William Bligh, ultimately casting him adrift in a small boat. Now in control of the Bounty, the mutineers made an about-turn and began searching the Pacific for a hideout from the law. Christian and his motley crew, a collection of European sailors and Polynesians from various Pacific islands, could not have found a better hiding place. On Pitcairn Island, their secret colony would evade detection for 20 years; the island’s exact location was unknown…

In Victoria, every year on 1 January, hundreds of Victorian Government records are made public for the first time as part of Public Record Office Victoria’s annual Section 9 record openings. Under Section 9 of the Public Records Act 1973, files of a personal nature are closed to prevent the violation of privacy. A broad guide to the time period for Section 9 closures in Victoria is: • records primarily concerning adults may be closed for 75 years• records primarily concerning children may be closed for 99 years• records such as staff records where individuals concerned may still be in the workforce may be closed for a lesser period, such as 30, 40 or 50 years. Among the files made public for the first time in 2022 are criminal trial…

In April 1934, the English Duke of Gloucester, Prince Henry, third son of King George V and Queen Mary, was handed the task of an imperial tour of Australia and New Zealand by default. Henry’s younger brother, George, told his parents that he was too ‘strained’ to visit the Antipodes after his African tour. The purpose of the tour ‘down under’ was to celebrate Victoria’s centenary, and to unveil and dedicate Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance and the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park, Sydney. Henry, in his media releases, welcomed the chance ‘to meet the Anzacs who made military history’ and ‘to be charmed by the land of Adam Lindsay Gordon and the Melbourne Cup’. For most Australians, the tour was a pleasant diversion from the effects of the Great Depression.…

Pages from my grandfather’s photo album, with photographs carefully placed, have no captions to capture their significance. His dusty old service records, their edges eaten by silverfish, no longer have valuable context. When his house was sold, I collected them all and archived them for some future time when their presence would weave together a story, and their memories would not hurt so much. Some 10 years later, when I reopened the box, the pain of his loss rushed back; but these pieces harked back to a time long before I was born. They were items that had been treasured. The photographs of airmen in 1942 were haunting; they were dashing young men, strong and proud. Yet, these photos did not convey the toll the war had. How many of…

MyHeritage Australia • Queensland Funeral Home and Burial Records: 633,015 records. Austria • Land Ownership Records: 338,074 records• Mauthausen Death Book: 38,206 records. Canada • Alberta, Calgary Burial Records: 145,174 records• Manitoba, Winnipeg Burial Records: 118,637 records• Montreal, Non-Catholic Burials: 55,894 records. France • Births and Baptisms: 13,994,927 records• Vienne, Military Draft Cards: 436,542 records. Germany • North Rhine Westphalia Deaths 1874–1938: 11,018,970 records. Hungary • Jewish Vital Records: 2,266,404 records• Property Tax Census, 1828: 28,732 records. Scotland • High Court Precognitions and Trial Papers: 30,924 records• Mental Health Records: 117,883 records. Spain • Biscay, Deaths: 642,282 records. United States • 1950 United States Federal Census: 4,240,404 records• Colorado, Denver Obituaries: 1,373,561 records• New York, Immigration from Austria, Poland and Galicia, 1890–1891: 96,604 records. Uzbekistan • Tashkent Jewish Refugees, 1941–1942:…