Author Archives: dgm

Back in 2019, I came across the intriguing story that a James Moncur had been a master mariner working out of Sydney in the 1840’s and had has a Maori wife, and two daughters who had both European and Maori … Continue reading →

About a year ago I blogged about Mary Shelley and her trip by sea to Dundee. At the time I made the point that before railways, travel by sea was considerably more comfortable that overland travel by coach. In much … Continue reading →

As part of my background reading about the roles of nineteenth century pharmacists in Victoria (roles such as opticians or dentists) I’ve been reading about the nineteenth century anti vaccination movement in England. No one seems to have studied the … Continue reading →

Recently, I’ve come across a number of beef extract bottles while documenting the contents of Dow’s, including this rather decayed bottle of Beefine, which dates from the early 1920’s. Beefine was a beef extract product similar to Bonox. So, what … Continue reading →

Three or so years ago, I posted about a rather attractive nineteenth century bottle that had contained Hayman’s Balsam of Horehound. At the time I was more interested in how a bottle of a patent medicine manufactured in South Wales … Continue reading →

I’ve long been puzzled by why there are quite a few AfroCaribbean people in the Bahamas with the same slightly unusual surname as me. I think I might now have the answer. Possibly not the whole answer, but good enough. … Continue reading →

I have been thinking a little more about what to do about human remains in museums. I claim no great ethical insights, but the experience of dealing with aboriginal remains in Australia may provide a baseline of good practice. For … Continue reading →

The dead, they say, are always with us. And sometimes, they are on display in museums. And as Jonathan Jarrett recently reminded me via a recent blogpost, there are a whole range of issues around the display of human remains. … Continue reading →

Vaccination day in Port Mackay – attribution When I went for my Covid shot, the nurse took a look at my arm to choose a vaccination site, noticed an old and faded scar, and asked ‘Was that a smallpox vaccination?’ … Continue reading →

I was reading Bella Bathurst’s The Lighthouse Stevensons, the story of the extraordinary Stevenson family, who over several generations built most of Scotland’s lighthouses, not to mention a quite a few elsewhere. Robert Louis Stevenson, of course, was one of … Continue reading →