File:Sydney Heads Augustus Earle ca. 1826
In the early days of colonisation in Australia, newspapers were the lifeblood of the country. Among the many newspapers that were available was one called The Monitor... it tried to fulfil all the needs of the growing community by covering all manner of things.
TROVE has this..
The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 - 1838)
From Wikipedia
The Monitor was a biweekly English language newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales and founded in 1826.[1] It is one of the earlier newspapers in the colony commencing publication twenty three years after the Sydney Gazette, the first paper to appear in 1803, and more than seventy years before the federation of Australia. The Monitor changed name several times, subsequently being known as The Sydney Monitor, and in June 1838 Francis O'Brien and Edwyn Henry Statham introduced themselves as the new editors of the re-branded Sydney Monitor and Commercial Advertiser.[2]
See the full Wikipedia entry
For this post, I have chosen the following issue..
Monitor (Sydney, NSW : 1826 - 1828), Friday 11 August 1826. National Library of Australia http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article31757730
You can read the whole volume by clicking on the link above.
The front page is entirely different to what we would expect today...
you can click to enlarge... We certainly wouldn't expect to see Public Notices or Classified Ads on the front page.
The one section that did catch my eye was the following, full of names and details as you would expect in an "Up-Country Police Report"... a great place to search for ancestors or simply get an idea of what life was like in 1826 in the growing colony of NSW...
File:Augustus Earle - View from the Sydney Hotel
Some of the names mentioned above are Ann Bukinshaw, John Jones, Sarah Stokes, John Mahar, Daniel Coffee, Robert Williams, Samuel Davis #.
Names mentioned above are James Briffelt, Bridget Stewart*, Richard Ridge, Samuel Davis...
Names above are James Brown, Fullagher, Dr. Harris..
Some names above are John Murray, John Riley, John Moore, W. Lawson, widow Kane, Bath, Morrow, Mrs. Graham...
Some names above are John Riley, Moore, John England..
Names above... Crummy, John England... seems like Crummy by name and Crummy by nature...
# Samuel Davis...
https://convictrecords.com.au/convicts/davis/samuel/105531
Born 1787, shipwright by trade, Died in 1871 aged 84 years...
He was one of 160 convicts transported on the Hibernia, 20 Nov 1818.. Devon Assizes
Community Contributions can be found here
* Bridget Stewart... I couldn't find a lot on her... perhaps you can add to her story.
Bridget was tried in Antrim, Ireland in March, 1823
she was sent to Parramatta Female Factory
Parramatta Female Factory
Augustus Earle (1793-1838)
Another publication of the time was
The Sydney Gazette
and New South Wales Advertiser
Can you imagine such a long title being accepted today?
Click to enlarge...
and another
The Australian
Click to enlarge
So very different to our headlines today.'
when editors battle to stop the press
with the most sensational headlines possible.
