With her husband Will, six children, two servants, some livestock and tools, Eliza Shaw exchanged her comfortable English world of drawing-rooms and embroidery for the brushwood huts and back-breaking labour of a pioneer settlement in Western Australia. They would never see England again ....
After long months at sea, then a tragic arrival at the infant colony of Fremantle when two sons were drowned, the family finally settled on the upper Swan River. The heat and sand, the hardships and calamites, the brilliant flowers and birds, the strangeness of the Aborigines, and the courage and comradeship of the small band of settlers are all recorded here through the eyes of a remarkable woman.
Contents:
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. 1829 'Swan River Mania'
2. September 1829-February 1830: Five Months at Sea
3. February 1830: Facing Reality
4. February-September 1830: Turn of Fortune
5. October-December 1830: The Move to Upper Swan
6. December 1830-August 1831: Settling In
7. August-September 1831: The Governor's Ball
8. February-April 1832: The Lowest Ebb
9. 1831-1832: Yagan - 'The Wallace'
10. 1832-July 1833: Death of a Patriot
11. 1832-1833: Future in the Balance
12. 1834-1838: The Governor's Dilemma
13. 1835-1836: Hot Words in High Summer
14. 1836-1839: Disputed Boundary
15. 1835-1842: The Organizing Hand of Governor Hutt
16. 1839-1844: Nat Shaw Goes His Own Way
17. 1841-1843: Colonial Tapestry
18. 1842-1845: Problems on Many Fronts
19. 1845-June 1850: At Last a Convict Colony
20. 1850-1852: Expanding Frontiers
21. 1855-1862: The Last Years of a Pioneer
22. 1862-1868: The World of the Widow Shaw
23. 1869-1875: Wild Grapes
24. 1876-1877: The Last Journey
Appendix 1. List of Passenger Who Arrived on the 'Egyptian'
Appendix 2. Original Swan Holdings
Notes and Sources
Bibliography
Index
Review:An enthralling and often heart-breaking human account ... painfully personal and harshly real - Adelaide Advertiser
And irresistible history - Sydney Morning Herald
Mary Durack's command of her material, her integrity as an historian and her meticulous documentation provide us with a fascinating look at our past - Melbourne Herald
