Wednesday, July 14, 2004
What is ASLC?
I don't believe you can take events out of people's lives and call it history - this is why we all know that MacArthur raised merinos, someone hid under a bed and Adelaide was Light's vision - but we often don't know much more about these events.
Fifteen years ago a number of people began to realise there was more to the arrival of the Agincourt and Harpley in 1848 than met the eye. Bert Archer, Bill Brownlow, Lenore Keyes, with the assistance of Elizabeth Simpson in Nottingham and Margaret Audin in Paris all began to make connections.
In 1982 the first scholarly piece on the story appeared in print - Doug Webster wrote a very accurate record of the arrival of William Branson, and the motivation behind his immigration - it appeared in Descent, the journal of the Society of Australian Genealogists.
Somewhere here I became interested, and then addicted. A society was formed and I remember quite clearly someone saying that in 1998 it would be 150 years since they arrived - and I think I can credit that to the late Theo Saywell.
The discovery of gold altered forever the close knit community of the lacemakers of Calais. The lives of the Lacemakers were like the bobbins of their trade. From the beginning of the machine made lace industry their lives had swung closely alongside each other, twisting and transversing, stopping and moving on, weaving a complex web of life just as the bobbins moved to weave the complex web of lace.
The major changes of moving from Calais to Australia had not altered the movement. Their lives continued to twist and transverse. The pattern of the fabric was changed, not the threads weaving it. The discovery of gold altered all that. The bobbins of the Lacemakers' lives swung out and away from each other, twisting and transversing the colonies. The close knit community of the Lacemakers of Calais had disappeared into the fabric of the developing Australian Society. The last rack had been made, and it was made with golden thread.
We are a unique group of people who share a bond that is 150 years old. Not many people know who their families were friends with 150 years ago - it intrigues me that that bond still exists. Today we have with us quite a few of the next generation - may those bonds continue.
Extracted from Gillian Kelly's address at the launch of "Well Suited to the Colony"
21st February 1998
¶ 1:44 PM
I don't believe you can take events out of people's lives and call it history - this is why we all know that MacArthur raised merinos, someone hid under a bed and Adelaide was Light's vision - but we often don't know much more about these events.
Fifteen years ago a number of people began to realise there was more to the arrival of the Agincourt and Harpley in 1848 than met the eye. Bert Archer, Bill Brownlow, Lenore Keyes, with the assistance of Elizabeth Simpson in Nottingham and Margaret Audin in Paris all began to make connections.
In 1982 the first scholarly piece on the story appeared in print - Doug Webster wrote a very accurate record of the arrival of William Branson, and the motivation behind his immigration - it appeared in Descent, the journal of the Society of Australian Genealogists.
Somewhere here I became interested, and then addicted. A society was formed and I remember quite clearly someone saying that in 1998 it would be 150 years since they arrived - and I think I can credit that to the late Theo Saywell.
The discovery of gold altered forever the close knit community of the lacemakers of Calais. The lives of the Lacemakers were like the bobbins of their trade. From the beginning of the machine made lace industry their lives had swung closely alongside each other, twisting and transversing, stopping and moving on, weaving a complex web of life just as the bobbins moved to weave the complex web of lace.
The major changes of moving from Calais to Australia had not altered the movement. Their lives continued to twist and transverse. The pattern of the fabric was changed, not the threads weaving it. The discovery of gold altered all that. The bobbins of the Lacemakers' lives swung out and away from each other, twisting and transversing the colonies. The close knit community of the Lacemakers of Calais had disappeared into the fabric of the developing Australian Society. The last rack had been made, and it was made with golden thread.
We are a unique group of people who share a bond that is 150 years old. Not many people know who their families were friends with 150 years ago - it intrigues me that that bond still exists. Today we have with us quite a few of the next generation - may those bonds continue.
Extracted from Gillian Kelly's address at the launch of "Well Suited to the Colony"
21st February 1998
¶ 1:44 PM
