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.

12 July Australian History

 1818 The Wallambangle River found a pesky chap named George Evans pottering about it's skirts, and was a tad miffed to be told it would now be known as the Castlereagh River, named after the bloke who was then wearing the tiara of the Secretary of The Colonies.

1863 British forces invade Waikato ,NZ

1889 The first women's trade union was formed in NZ in response to the totally crap working conditions in the clothing industry.

1911 The Scottsdale Railway Line (Tas) extended to Branxholm on this very fine day.

1922 The Tasmanian Government Railways line was extended to Wiltshire Junction on this day connecting with the already existing line between Stanley and Smithton.

1942 The Aussies reached Kokoda in New Guinea.

1945 HMAS DIAMANTINA reported the finding of a small roll of paper, identified as a carrier-pigeon message, in the stomach of a shark caught off Saposa, New Guinea.
The message was translated and found to be an appeal for assistance from the 42nd ALC Company, Japanese Army, 7 July, 1945.

1965 Last 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, ambush of Malayan Emergency.

1979 The former Gilbert Islands sashayed her way down the Big Blue Marble catwalk in her new guise as the newly INDEPENDENT Republic Of Kiribati (pronounced Kiri - bas). Party!

1983 At a community meeting at The Laird Hotel in Collingwood to address the then-developing health crisis of HIV/AIDS the Victorian AIDS Action Committee was formed (now known as Thorne Harbour Health).

3 July in Australian History

1797 Following much fighting between the European settlers and the Indigenous people in the Hawkesbury area Governor John Hunter sent a group of soldiers to protect the settlers.

1850 Tired of saddling their broomsticks and kick-starting their horses, The Powers That Were got the lads on the tools to begin construction of the First Ever Railway Line in The Fair Isle of Oz; actually t'was the daughter of the Governor Charles FitzRoy, the Honourable Mrs. Mary Stewart, who prettily modelled the spade whilst she turned the first sod of the Sydney Railway Company at Cleveland Paddocks to begin work on the Sydney-Parramatta Railway Line.

The Hon. Mrs. Mary Stewart, nee FitzRoy.

1915 A medical report from the 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station situated at Anzac Cove observed that “Dysentery is becoming very acute, and cases of extreme collapse are occurring”.

It is estimated that approximately 700 soldiers died from diseases.

1931 The Chemical Warfare Board was renamed as the Chemical Defence Board.

1942 Tea was now rationed; each adult was only allowed half a pound (approx. 230gms) of tea every 5 weeks.

This was in place for 8 years until 1 July 1950.

1947 Bust out the cake tin, Marge, SUGAR RATIONING HAS ENDED 

But don't bother with the teapot.

Sugar had been rationed since it was introduced nearly five years earlier, on 29 August 1942. 

Examiner

1989 The Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct (the Fitzgerald Inquiry; 1987–1989) ended with Tony Fitzgerald QC submitting his final report.

As a result, a number of high-profile politicians were charged with crimes, and Queensland Police Commissioner Terry Lewis was charged with corruption.

Sources:

Golden Gifts for a Governor's Daughter

Public Health at ANZAC Cove

Dysentery and the ANZAC Legend

The Gallipoli Campaign

Chemical Warfare in Australia Timeline

Part 3 of Australian Frontier Wars; The Hawkesbury Nepean Wars

The Fitzgerald Inquiry

The Fitzgerald Inquiry Report

The Fitzgerald Inquiry - The History Lesson We Must Never Forget

Critchley Parker ; Lost In Tasmania Searching For A New Jerusalem; Poynduk 1942

 Critchley Parker, aged only 31, trekked into the Tasmanian wilderness in an effort to find suitable land for future Jewish settlements far away from the bloodshed of Europe.

He was not Jewish himself but he was infatuated with a (married) Jewish journalist named Caroline Isaacson, and was determined to help find a permanent peaceful refuge for those fleeing the violent horrors of WW2. 

During his fateful trek near Port Davey he discovered a small pond with swans, called poynduk in the local Ninene language. Critchley hoped to name the settlement Poynduk but this was not to be.

Critchley had had TB which had left his lungs and overall health in a weakened state; the weather turned suddenly and he was caught in bucketing rain for weeks that triggered pleurisy. He had planned to light a signal fire to alert the fisherman to come pick him up but he ran out of matches, ran out of food, ran out of time.

But he never ran out of plans for the future settlement of Poynduk; he wrote in his copious notes that he wished it to be based on the "principals of racial tolerance and international brotherhood", to have universities open to students of all colours, medical facilities, schools, hydro-electric power plants. 

Critchley planned for the Tasmanian Games to be hosted at Poynduk each year; the games would celebrate not just sports but poetry, plays, weaving, music and pottery.

Alas, with his early death in the wilderness Critchley's plans for Poynduk were dashed for good.

Further reading -

“Poynduk”: the Extravagant, Impossible (and Understandable) Dreams of Critchley Parker