January
2012 Letters
ANDERSON-HARDAKER
Thanks for publishing my letter so fast and for letting me know
about the reply - it’s
great since we are related!
M Anderson by email
The reply was received
3 days after the December 2011 magazine was posted!
DIVERSE
LIFESTYLES
I have almost
completed my first year with your amazing magazine. We're having
a wonderful time reading about the diverse lifestyles of our early
arrivals.
I enclose my subscription renewal and am looking
forward to the next 12 months. Marlene
Rose, Qld
EAST
COAST HERITAGE MUSEUM
Thank you
for publishing the information on the opening the East Coast Heritage
Museum and Vistor Centre.
I was pleased to have been able to attend; a wonderful
evening with 3-400 locals, some from more distant places in Tasmania
and several from mainland Australia.
The old building was the school house 1860-1924
and then became the War Memorial Institute. With renovations to
the old building and sympathetic additions this ediface will now
hold the East Coast Heritage Museum, Glamorgan Spring Bay Historical
Society Inc., War Memorial Room, Community and Education Room and
Visitor Information Centre.
It is intended that the Museum will not be static
but have changing displays. Currently there are several artifacts
relating to the thylacine or Tasmanian tiger; a skull cast on loan
from the Queen Victoria Museum and pin cushion jaw bone from the
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and animal trap. The pin cushion
dates from circa 1900 and is known to have been made by a former
east coast resident, Emily Farrer (1857-1940). George Meredith’s
whaling collection is held by the museum. His daughter-in-law, Louisa
Anne Meredith née Twamley (1812-1895) was an English author
and miniaturist, watercolourist, engraver, poet, writer and botanist
and her reputation was already well established when she arrived
in Van Diemen’s
Land in 1840. Her illustrated books about Tasmania, which display
a romantic and exotic quality, did much to popularise Tasmanian
plants. The museum holds a silk brocade dress, an 1780s (yes, 1780s)
dress of her mother’s,
reputed to have also been worn by Louisa Anne.
The War Memorial Room has a set of World War I
campaign medals, Légion d’honneur
and record of the three Dilger brothers killed in this war. There
are also military uniforms, other memorabilia including a piece
from the Nazi regime. Included in this room is a wonderful billard
table built for the 1880 Melbourne Exhibition.
Of most interest, perhaps, to genealogists are
the family and local records held by the Glamorgan Spring Bay Historical
Society Inc. The township of Swansea was settled by English gentlemen,
their families and servants of Meredith, Amos and Buxton in 1821.
The Quakers, the Cotton family followed in 1823. The area that became
the township of Triabunna saw settlers in 1820s. There is information
on the military settlement at Waterloo Point (Swansea). A database
is being compiled of the convicts assigned in the area and those
who were at the several probation stations on the east coast. The
probation stations include Rocky Hills (near Swansea), Darlington
on Maria Island, Paradise near Orford, Long Marsh, Bicheno and Buckland.
Another ongoing project is the soldiers’
database.
I do hope the details are of interest to some
of your readers.
Maree Ring by email
MARIE OR
MARIA LE NOBLE
I so hope you
may be able to help. I work in a small local studies library in
the capital of Jersey, St Helier, and have been following up the
career of a convict deported to Tasmania in 1846. She committed
the most notorious murder that century in the island by killing
a parish official (early honorary policeman) named George Le Cronier.
She was a married woman, but despite this somehow managed to wed
a free man in Australia, a widower with children called William
Norman. The couple themselves had no children.
I have been in touch with Anzestry who have been
most helpful, and they checked all the Tasmania records for her
death. We know Norman pre-deceased her. No joy. I have also been
able to contact a couple of descendants from Norman’s
first marriage and they seem to think she owned land in Cullenswood,
and I have contacted TAHO on this again with no joy.
There is a book currently being written by an
internationally known author partly on the subject of this murder,
and I have been happily involved in assisting in the background
research for his forthcoming book. I so wish I could find a way
to add ‘closure’
on Marie or Maria Norman (née Le Noble) and would appeal
to your magazine researchers and readers to help us solve the mystery.
Anna
Baghiani by
email
REMARKABLE RESPONSE
I do not think the two stories I researched and wrote that have
been published this year in AFTC were in any way remarkable, but
the response has been remarkable. Never have I had such a response
from any story I have had published in any magazine or on any website.
It may possibly be due to the inclusion of my
postal and email addresses, or it could be you have an increased
number of readers.
May I take this opportunity to pass on our very
best wishes to you and your staff for the coming Christmas season.
Harry Willey by email
SERENDIPITY AND BEYOND
What a lovely
surprise it was to open my December 2011 magazine and find my story,
Serendipity and Beyond, in it. Thank you for publishing it.
The day after I read it I got an email from a
lady who had been so touched by the story as it took her back in
time to her growing up years when she used to visit Stonehouse with
her parents to collect timber for their bakery ovens. The email
and its contents brought me more pleasure than actually writing
the story. It makes all the work, and frustration, worthwhile.
There are a couple of things I would like to add
to the story:
1. I omitted to mention that Stonehouse is still standing and is
listed on the Queensland Heritage Register.
2. Since writing the article I have definitely ascertained that
the Williams family who built Stonehouse are in
fact related to my father’s
family, that has been a bonus learning that.
Once again thank you for your wonderful magazine,
I look forward to getting it each month. I have my newsagent trained
so well that he hands it to me as I walk in the door.
Merry Christmas to you and your staff.
Glenda Bone-Gault by email
