Lifting the lid on history
Invented by Amariah Lake of New Jersey in 1893, the haunted swing was a Victorian era amusement ride. Participants entered a room and took a seat on the swing provided. When the ride got underway, the attendant gave the swing a push. As it moved, it appeared to rotate, creating an illusion that the people on the ride were upside down. In truth, the swing stayed in the same position, and it was the small room surrounding them that rotated.
Under an agreement between the State Gardens Board of Western Australia and the Victorian Fisheries and Game Department, Mr David Fleay captured two platypuses in the Healesville Sanctuary in Victoria and quickly sent them to Perth in an Australian National Airways plane.
The discovery of a robbery at the Oriental Bank in Melbourne spurred the Acting Manager, George Hamilton Traill, into action. A public notice was immediately placed with three Melbourne newspapers and went to print on 30 January 1867. They cautioned the public against transacting with any of the bills, which were specially endorsed to the Oriental Bank.
This blog post is a follow up to Death at Lake Austin. You may wish to read Death at Lake Austin first before reading the story of Credgington and Bradbury.
Old Mate! In the gusty old weather,
When our hopes and our troubles were new,
In the years spent in wearing out leather,
I found you unselfish and true –
I have gathered these verses together
For the sake of our friendship and you.To An Old Mate – Henry Lawson
Having a mate on the goldfields may not have been preferred or necessary for some but for others it certainly helped. It meant there was someone there to talk to; to share in the ups and downs and discuss the next move over a cup of billy tea. It meant the jobs of prospecting and transporting equipment as well as the burden of costs were shared. Most importantly, it meant there was someone there to look out for you should anything untoward happen.
Alfred Credgington and Ernest Bradbury’s stories were separate for most of their lives. Both were chasing the golden dream and it was this dream, on the goldfields of Western Australia, that led the pair to meet; their stories converging and remaining joined indefinitely.
The origin stories of words and how they evolved is fascinating. A word may have a particular use or meaning today but had a completely different meaning in the past (such as the word ‘dude‘). A word may have developed from another word or started off as slang. Perhaps a word which is common today filtered into the public’s vocabulary thanks to clever use of advertising. Then there are words and their meanings, regularly used at one point in time, which eventually disappear. The ‘hatter’ is one such example.
On the night of Jan. 5th, 1905, a fearful storm raged on the South and South West coast of England. A vessel was seen making desperate struggles to keep her course. She was, however, lost to sight and the eager eyes watching, could see no more. Next morning some fishermen searching among a quantity of wreckage, discovered the mannikin, known as Dick Trelawny, tied to a beam of timber.
Washed up on the coast of Penzance in Cornwall, the fishermen who initially found Dick Trelawny eventually became wary of him and came to think of him as something sent to them by the Devil. He went to live with an old lady and, so the story goes, it was there he remained until Captain Jack Neville came across him.
Captain Neville said that he recognised the “importance of this little mite from a scientific and physiological standpoint…“and, after several Doctors looked him over, they came to the conclusion that Dick Trelawny was between 48 and 75 years of age, weighed over four kilos and was about 65 cms tall.
He initially spoke in a “guttural tongue” unable to be deciphered by linguists but soon learnt English and French.
His features, though pensive, are constantly illumined by a sweet smile which, with his merry little laugh and winning eyes, make him a most interesting and pleasant study.
He was given the name ‘The Cornish Pixie’ and agreed to go with Captain Neville to be exhibited around the world.
The Dusty Box 