22 Twenty twoooooooo October History

1858 The Lying In Hospital that opened today wasn't actually for women who were lazing their days away and you might know it better as the Melbourne Royal Women's Hospital...or whatever they've rebranded themselves as now.

Bendigo Advertiser

1894 Martha Needle was not a very nice lady.
Many people agreed with this sentiment when she was found guilty and hanged at Melbourne Gaol for poisoning her hubby, children and brother-in-law for the in$urance money.
*As a side note, the sea wall at St Kilda was built using bluestone bricks from Old Melbourne Gaol, 14 of them marked with initials and dates of executed people, including Martha herself.

1945 - Today the Royal Australian Navy decommissioned, then handed back the borrowed HMAS Nepal to the Royal Navy which later broke up the ship in 1956.

1956 - Part of the British nuclear tests was codenamed Breakaway; exploded on this day was 10.8 kilotonnes of TNT (45 TJ) from a tower. You can google the images and see what a mess was made.

1965 - A demonstration against the Vietnam War was held in Sydney with 65 people being arrested.

1999 - The leader of the National Party, Pat McNamara announced the (state) National Party would split from the coalition which they had formed with the (state) Liberal Party in 1990.
Didn't last long.

2007 - It was reported that Swedish museum officials handed back the remains of 10 Aboriginal people which had been illegally smuggled out of Australia 100 years before.

2021 - Melbourne waltzed itself out of the last of the lock downs with announcements from the likes of Reuters it was the world's 'most locked down city'

And if you're alive to bitch about, you're welcome.

16 October in Oz

1817 HMSC Mermaid was commissioned on this day ; the Mermaid was the infamous boat in which Phillip Parker King surveyed and chartered the coastline of Oz - and which he managed to drive and crash into a boab tree at what he named as Careening Bay on the Kimberley coast.

Nary a drink or drugs tester in sight.

THEN he had the sheer cheek to carve it into history by carving 'HMC Mermaid 1820' into the aforementioned boab tree.

Hmph, some people...!

1835 Exciting things were happening in the Port Phillip colony with the arrival of John Fawkner and his missus and ankle biters...he celebrated his 43rd birthday a mere four days later by completing the roof on the house he'd just knocked together.

1849 On the Cape York Peninsula Barbara Thompson had been a castaway who'd lived with the local Kaurareg for 5 years before being rescued by HMS Rattlesnake at Evans Bay on this date when she could finally get some decent shoes.

1852 The migrant ship Georgiana was anchored in Port Phillip Bay when the crew had a hankering for the goldfields; after a little mutiny that resulted in the demise of one of the ships' officers, they took to their heels and headed for them thar hills. 

1852 T'was a sunny Sat'dee arvo when bushrangers progressively bailed up and robbed 19 people, all within a few hours, on that little sandy track now known as Brighton Road, St Kilda, at approx. the spot where the Elsternwick Hotel now squats (oh, the tales I could tell about that establishment...!).

1854 There was a major robbery on the Bank of Victoria in Ballarat with up to £15,000 stolen.

1863 Good old Daisy Bates, she who protected and documented many of the Indigenous Peoples, their cultures, languages and wrote a book on her experiences, was pupped on this day. in Tipperary, Ireland.
She was also, briefly, hitched in unholy matrimony to Breaker Morant in 1883 but this must have slipped her mind when she wed, bigamously, a second time to John Bates in 1885.
Oops.

1936 Kiwi flyer Jean Batten took to the skies from Australia in the final leg of her challenge to fly from England - Oz - NZ.

She arrived at Mangere Aerodrome 10.5 hours after leaving Sydney, with the whole journey from England taking her 11 days and 45 mins.

1944 The blokes held a wild tea party at which they voted to rebrand their whole bag o' tricks under the name The Liberal Party of Australia.

1967 Royal Australian Navy Helicopters deployed to Vietnam.

1975 Balibo Five -

1982 At a national federal conference (a wild tea party, perhaps?) the peeps voted to change the brand name of their own bag o' tricks from National Country Party of Australia to just National Party of Australia.

Contrary to popular opinion many did not change their clocks or their socks at the same time.

15 October in Things that happened on a Fairly Large Island through history

1810 Get Frocked, ladies!

Get gussied up to the nines, girls, the 73rd Regiment held the FIRST official HORSE RACE on this lump of soil known as Oz, in Hyde Park, Sin-City (Sydney).

First Sydney Races

1840 The first land sales of Portland were haggled over, fought over and went off like a frog in a sock at Melbourne, Victoria. Prices were as high as the perfume of some socks owing to the fact Portland was a serious contender as Big Smoke for the Southern Region of The Fair Isle of Oz.

1851 That banking badboy, con artist, Ben Boyd fell off the face of the earth when he popped in as the bite to eat with the native peoples at Guadalcanal Island , or so rumour has it, whilst doing a runner from creditors in his yacht Wanderer.

1871 The Germans in South Oz held a large festival in Tanunda to celebrate peace at the end of the Franco-Prussian War.

1895 The Gambling Act was passed with the canapes in sunny Qld which forced Tattersall's to up sticks and shift to Hobart in Tassie.

1915 General Sir John Monash was awarded the Companion of the Order of the Bath(CB).

1940 RAAF Base Townsville was hatched with the motto;

Guarding The North.

1953 Things were really starting to go off like a frog in a sock when the first British nuclear weapons testing on mainland Oz began with a blast into the past at Emu Fields in Crow Eater country South Australia.

Australia's Atom History

1970 The Westgate Bridge in Melbourne fell to earth, killing 35 workmen and injuring 17 more.

1970 Three cheers for the unions who passed a general Black Ban on the proposed redevelopment of Carlton in Melbourne.

1975 Malcolm Fraser, then-leader of the Opposition stated that they'd be blocking supply in the Senate until an election was called as they had no faith in the Whitlam Govt due to messy money matters that had been sort of secret until they weren't.

2004 HMAS Arunta popped in for a cuppa tea at Vladivostok, Russia.

21 July Australian History National Lamington Day

 National Lamington Day 

Lord Lamington was Governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901 and it was in his household, nay in his very kitchen, where (or so the Legend of Lamington says) that a cook was faced with having only stale cake to serve to unexpected guests so she got creative. Lamingtons are a sponge cake dipped in chocolate then rolled in coconut, and considering Lady Lamington was pregnant (she gave birth to a son, Victor Alexander Brisbane William Cochrane-Baillie , on 23 July 1896) I surmise it was more likely that the chef/cook made the first Lamingtons with a pregnant lady suffering food cravings in mind.

One of the first, if not the first, media mention of Lamington Cake.

1855 Today saw the Order-In-Council to change the moniker of Tassie to...Tassie. Back in the day it was titled Van Diemen's (pronounced demon's) Land and, whilst we'd all like to refer to Taswegians as demons, some of them are quite nice, civilised humans. 
And even house trained.

1898 The then-Sydney Mayor, Mathew Harris, declared that the deliciously gorgeous Queen Victoria Market Building in Sydney was open for the good ladies to sashay their way gloriously through! Party.

1991 Lake Alexander, a man-made lake in Darwin, NT named in honour of a past Lord Mayor of Darwin, Alex Fong Lim, was officially opened on this day.

1979 Sweetheart the 5.1 metre saltie (salt water crocodile) was accidentally killed whilst being transported to a safer non-human area of the Northern Territory.

1991 Today saw the misplacement of the bow from the not-so-good-ship Kirki, just off the Western Australia coast, where they also managed to misplace 7,900 tonnes of oil.

2021 Today saw the trumpeting announcement that Bris-Vegas was chosen to host the 2032 Olympics and Paralympics. Party!

15 July Australian History

1851 – Charles La Trobe, aka Charley Joe, was appointed as first Lieutenant Governor of Victoria.Party!

Charles La Trobe

1912 – The first branch of the Commonwealth Bank opened. Party!

1915 The first group of NZ wounded soldiers returned from Gallipoli to Wellington, NZ on board the ship Willochra. 

1918 HMAT Barunga was travelling to Australia with 800 sick and wounded when it was torpedoed on this day. Destroyers were quickly on the scene to pick up survivors and saved all the ships crew.

1922 A zoo in USA, the Bronx Zoo, had taken delivery of a male platypus and it was first put on display to the public on this day. Party!

1940 The Volunteer Defence Force, composed mainly of World War I veterans, was formed for home defence by the Returned Services League. 

1942 The 2nd NZ Division captured Ruwiesat Ridge.

1964 Rupert Murdoch *hack* brought his new toy out to show off ; a new fish n chip wrapper called The Australian. Hmph.

1971 Today saw the introduction of the HQ Holden Kingswood! Party!

1977 Anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay vanished near Griffith, presumed murdered. 

1978 Today saw the biggest LGBT rights protest/demonstration to date with more than two thousand people in attendance.

1995  The Queensland state election partied itself into a hung Parliament, but with the support of independent Liz Cunningham the Coalition (Liberal Party & National Party) formed the Government in Queensland. 

2009 A Tsunami warning was issued at 7: 46 pm by the Bureau of Meteorology following an earthquake measuring 7.9 just off the NZ coast.

Lady Ann Rylah 1911 - 1969

 Lady Ann was, from all contemporary accounts, a very nice, kind person.

She was the first female of the species to enroll at the Uni of Sydney School of Veterinary Science, and she continued her vet practice right up until her death.
An odd death; she'd not long separated from her husband, a fierce gate-keeper of everyone's morals who was busy banning books, plays, films all over the shop whilst his pile of Playboys kept his desk drawer cosy.
Sir Arthur Rylah was definitely punching above his weight, such a shame his wife was cremated so quickly without an inquest. It left people wondering, and an inquest could have easily answered so many questions...

Further reading -

Ann Rylah

Cars, crashes and cover-ups

Lady Chatterley and Alexander Portnoy: Narrowing the Limits of Censorship in Australia

The Books Australia Banned 

Australian Princess Rani of Pudukota aka Molly Fink 1894 - 1967

 Molly met and married Marthanda Bhairava Tondiman in a whirlwind romance in Australia in 1915.

Although welcomed by the people of Pudukota, there was some question of Molly being poisoned, alongside the rudeness of the British Govt who refused to recognise her title, nor later would they recognise their son as heir to the principality.

Another Royal love story, Netflix...!

Further reading -

The rani from Down Under

Biography

The Indian Royal who gave up his throne to marry an Australian socialite

Australian Princess Her Highness Begam Jahana of Palanpur nee Joan Falkiner 1915 - 2003

 We don't often connect Aussies with Royalty - unless they're claiming to be Richard III's 14th generation granddaughter... - but there have been plenty of times Aussie-born ladies have caught the eye and hearts of Royalty.

Today is a quick run-down on Joan Falkiner, whose real life romance with Taley Muhammed Khan, Nawab of Palanpur, out-did any Barbara Cartland novel = 

They met while he was recovering from a polo injury resulting in a real-life elopement to another country against her wealthy parents wishes to a man much older than herself, of a different religion, with a living first wife, a son her same age, scorned by the British (yeah, looking at you, Mountbatten!) denied her rightful title until the last.

Seriously, Netflix, this is oozing more romance than some of your latest offerings...!

Her granddaughter, Aaliya Suntana Babi is a celebrated Paleontologist known as "Dinosaur Princess".

Further reading -

Wikipedia

Aaliya Suntana Babi aka Dinosaur Princess 

Joan in India

The Nunawading Messiah aka The Oakleigh Prophet aka James Fisher (nee) Cowley 1832 - 1913

 Unbeknownst to all of us Jesus Christ had, apparently, already made a quick stop-over in the form of a shady AF character named James Fisher.

Who managed to convince people the Son of God had descended into a crop of cabbages and HE WAS TO EAT THEM ALL TO ACQUIRE THE SPIRIT. Stir-fry?

Oddly, he managed to practice polygamy (along with the usual bigamy), having 3 sisters as his wives - WITH THE FULL BLESSING OF THE PARENTS - and broke up the marriage of the 4th sister - again, WITH THE FULL BLESSING OF THEIR PARENTS.

The whole hot mess only came to light when Fisher was taken to Court for NOT ACTUALLY BEING THE MESSIAH because a child died. 

It is valuable to see the methods used by this bloke to winkle money, women, power out of others and into his own control.

There are many well-researched papers on this person, I'm not re-inventing the wheel by repeating it all here; just holding it up, dusting it off and reminding people that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Further reading/Sources -

Australian Dictionary of Biography

Victorian Collections

Fisherite Descendants of Wickipin, WA

James Cowley Morgan (Cowley) Fisher 

New Jerusalem Settlement site 

A Messiah for The West 

The Nunawading Messiah 

The Nunawading Imposter

The Oakleigh Prophet

Melbourne's Botanic Gardens Shooting Spree Norman List 23 January 1924

 Almost a century ago a young man displayed worrying mental health symptoms - paranoia, believing wireless messages were being sent to his mind to control him, to hurt his family, that people were telling lies about him and his family, that his enemies had a radio system that advertised him everywhere he went...(I'd like to know what Professor Graeme Yorston made of him).

After tramping all over the world, fighting in WW1, Norman List returned to his family home in Richmond, Victoria, where these symptoms were on full display.

This all came out after the horrific shooting spree he orchestrated at the Melbourne Botanic Gardens; in just 4 minutes four people were dead.

Their names were

Frederick McIlwaine

Miriam Podbury

Eugenie Strohhecker

John Moxham

Norman List himself was found dead by suicide at Deep Creek near Pakenham, Victoria.

Further reading - 

Massacre At The Botanic Gardens

Carlton Gardens Beer Poisoning 1905

 

May 5th, 1905 in the Carlton Gardens 3 people were poisoned with prussic acid/cyanide in beer; Richard Barry, having imbibed more than the other gardener, John Mulgrave and Constable Lancaster, died from the effects.

Despite police searches, no one was ever found or arrested for this murder.

Someone trying it out? A rehearsal, perhaps, before the intended target?