Author Archives: dgm

A couple of Saturdays ago we treated ourselves to a day out and drove, with no clear plan, to Echuca, a town on the Murray about 200km to the west of us. In the nineteenth century Echuca was a major … Continue reading →

As a final bit of investigation around the Madeleine Smith case I thought I’d have a look at how widely it was reported in Australia and New Zealand. First of all I went to QueryPic to see if the case … Continue reading →

Continuing on the theme of what we can learn about life in 1850’s Scotland from the trial of Madeleine Smith, one interesting detail is that she exchanged ambrotypes (an early type of glass plate photography) with her lover, at around … Continue reading →

I’ve recently been reading an account of the trial of Madeleine Smith, which took place in Glasgow in 1857 – in essence Madeleine Smith was accused of poisoning her lower class lover because of her upcoming more respectable marriage to … Continue reading →

Last night I was idly watching Michael Portillo’s Great British Railway journeys (SBS has bought a load of these years old and shows them after the news as an antidote to the lunacy of the world), and in the episode … Continue reading →

Well, today happens to be the 25th of April or ANZAC day, the anniversary of the Galipolli landings and a solemn day in the Australian calendar, perhaps too solemn, but that’s a different discussion. Anyway, after my success with open … Continue reading →

I’ve been reading John Bossy’s Under the Molehill, about the identification of a mole in Mary Queen of Scots household who leaked information about  various plots to Walsingham’s office during her detention in England. In the book, Bossy repeats a … Continue reading →

One aspect of life in Australia is the domination of overseas anglophone media. Our bookshops are full of books by overseas authors, our tv of overseas shows, all reviewed in our newspapers, which also recycle work by by overseas reviewers. … Continue reading →

I’ve been rereading Charles Miller’s The Lunatic Express, which is ostensibly a history of the building of what is now the Mombasa Nairobi railway, but is much more than that – essentially a history of the early days of British … Continue reading →

Quite some time ago, we took a long trip out round by Grenfell to look at some sites associated with the bushranger Ben Hall. Well happenstance is a wonderful thing. Yesterday on our way back from Canberra we stopped in … Continue reading →