Do Not Read This Title

The Nanonovel just completed is a murder mystery set in Hobart in 1827, and the main character is a police constable, and pickpocket on the side. Which is all well and good, but now I need to know something about policing in Hobart in 1827. That's all.

In the 1820s, things were rather different to what we're used to. Rather than a centralised, professional police force, the job often fell to unpaid/poor paid locals, with no uniforms and not a lot of authority. In NSW & VDL, at least, the job was about maintaining order (and retrieving absconders) rather than investigating crimes.

It was also a time of change, and that meant change in what police meant. The London Metropolitan Police were established in 1829. Even in Hobart Town, there was a major restructuring in 1827 (one reason for my date).

It is also a time people don't feel a need to write about, for anywhere. The little I've found in secondary sources (books & online) has been about the organisation. And by "little" I mean I have about enough notes to fill about 1.5 word processor pages, from all the resources I've been able to find. Primary sources might be useful, if I can discover what they are and then get access to them :)

I did get lucky last week. I found Police Superintendent Humphrey's evidence to the Bigge Commission in Series 3, Volume 3 of the Historical Records of Australia (a rather dry looking series of volumes that cover three shelves in the library) and the very useful "Standing Instructions for the Constabulary of Van Diemen's Land in appendix 17 of the second volume of the three volume "Report from the Select Committee on Transportation". They being from 1820 & 1836 respectively, although the latter was issued under the same lt governor who did the restructure so it's particularly useful. (Those two reports are also full of other useful and/or interesting stuff, I should consult them more often.)

Still that's a good start, and I feel more confident about writing it now. There are big holes still. (Like where does the MC sleep at night? I'm fairly sure he's not in the prisoner barracks but the police barracks don't seem to have been built yet (I wish I hadn't come across that bit of information or I could have happily been sending him there each night.)) There's also more to be pulled from the newspapers on Trove, but that is time consuming and not frustrating because of things that are implied or hinted at but never explained. It's like doing a jigsaw with no picture and all the pieces have been mixed up with the pieces in other boxes.

How the Good News came to Harefield



From the final issue of the Harefield Park Boomerang, a little newspaper produced for the patients of Harefield House Hospital under the editorship of Mrs Theodora Roscoe. Poems, photos (of home), funny stories and anecdotes, the usual stuff you find in newsletters produced for/by soldiers. Although this, also in the final issue, is a bit different:
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Today I went to the Scale Model Expo and took some photos! But as it was inside, most of the photos are not very good :( These are the better ones, and Troy's planes are at the end.
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Three objects from three museums at three different levels (national, state, local) in three different states/territories.

Three objects that particularly interested me when I visited museums in the last twelve months

From National Museum of Australia Old New Land gallery:


Two skeletons, the one at the back being the shorter ones. Its head blends into the background a bit so you have to look carefully. An interesting way to demonstrate the changes between the modern merino sheep and the earlier type.

The accompanying caption says:
In the early 19th century, Elizabeth Macarthur played a key role in importing and breeding merino sheep. Today, descendents of these sheep form a closed-flock at the Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute, near Sydney.

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Hydro Tasmania as one hundred years old, and as part of their celebrations, they're having open days at some of their stations. Trevallyn was open yesterday, so I went down for a look.



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See this photo? I took this photo, then went to retake it and nothing happened. No movement of lens. No sound of focusing. No shutter click.

*sniff*

(Firstly, I tried to buy a new battery. DSE don't sell them. Battery place doesn't either. "Too many different types, he said, and the capabilities of phone cameras now--" Bah. Camera far exceeded stupid phone camera.)


I retook the same photo on little camera of weird photoness and crappy battery. It's not too bad with the streetscape thing. (And it is nice having a quiet, small camera, even if I kept losing it in my pocket.)

I'll leave these in the order they were taken, mostly, because there is no reason not to and moving them around is tedious and time consuming.


Art Deco Court House! I don't know why the idea of an Art Deco-style court house is so cool, but it is. Maybe because court houses are either usually elaborate older buildings or dull newer buildings. Maybe because the writing on the building is Art Deco too, which is just so non-court housey. Whatever the reason, it is a cool looking building.

The heritage walk brochure goes on about it in great lengths. It says Court House & Public Office: They were built in 1938 at a cost of £14,000. OK so maybe not great or lengths but it is included.

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As you've probably seen elsewhere, the fourth of August 1914 was the start of World War I (which was the 5th of August in Australia, which is today) and, as you;ve probably also seen, I've been doing a lot of related work at the museum. All right, that's all I've been doing for months? Years? Something like that.

I started with the photos from the Weekly Courier, a local weekly publication with full page photographic inserts in the middle, and spent some time transcribing a diary and one afternoon looking at photos of dead bodies in trenches*, but mostly recently I've been looking at service records, and reading them. These build a different story of the war to the usual ones. This story is made up from medical records, lists of promotion and transfers, letters from next of kin, medical records, disciplinary matters and requests for replacement medals/discharge papers. It is accounts of men in and out of hospital, dying of wounds soon after returning home, or decades later. GSW & shell shock** & gassing. It is letters from family asking for news when they haven't heard anything in a long time, or wanting the address of the hospital to write to, or enquiring about personal effects for a dead son while dealing with a seriously injured son, or waiving the claim of a bastard son's rights to medals (as next of kin) in favour of the soldier's father (but don't address these letters to the mother, as she doesn't know about the child), or trying to find the location of a grave Of men declared missing during August 1916 but the family having to wait months for the official KIA verdict, along with accounts of witnesses who had last seen them (being blown up by a shell, laying the ground seriously injured). The dead left there to be buried by shells. An NCO buried by his men in the cemetery of a nearby village.

Those who never made it out of (training) camp because they lied about their age. One such young man, whose two brothers had enlisted earlier, came back for a second try when he was old enough and was finally get sent over overseas, only to run up a string of AWLs. Pages of them. Even when he was finally sent home, he jumped ship in the US. Or the forty-four year old whose wife wrote a very long letter saying how hard he was finding it, how he really wanted to enlist and do his bit, but he was finding it very hard and he'd be forty-six in a few months... Or a young man from Warsaw, Russia who was discharged for being an enemy agent. He was actually from Bohemia, but he really hated the Germans and wanted to fight them, his letter said.

Recommendation for awards for gallantry, with accompanying descriptions. A major whose knee was injured when a plane fell into his tent. A captain blown up by a shell and twice covered by dirt, who was suffering from concussion and gassing. A young Duntroon graduate with a bright future killed in the Gallipoli landing. The three brothers, of whom only one came home. The major who shot himself on the transport home.

This is not the story you get through TV and films. It's a story about people doing what they did and how it affected them, and it contrasts so differently with the ra-ra dramatics you get on the screen (and in books and magazines) that I'm not sure I can watch them any more. It's a little depressing, with occasional light moments, but mostly it's fascinating and deep and I wish it would go away and leave me along.

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*This is not a good thing to do. Not at all. There are some fascinating WWI photos that are worth looking at. Maybe even spending a whole afternoon looking at, but not exclusively bodies in trenches.

**Which seems to have originally been used to describe the (not visible) injuries caused by a shell including hearing loss, but later developed the broader meaning, although I can't find a source to confirm this

I seem to be juggling three new stories in my head: plots ideas and developments, character backgrounds, world building details and background research. Three. One is usually enough to keep me occupied.

#3 decided today that the characters needed names, and with that came their back stories. And I don't know anything about trains (well not enough to write about them) and even less about railway construction.

#2 at least just needs me to do some back-to-origins reading, and then I can make up the rest as I go (yay for SF).

#1, I am sure, is laughing at me, and I've forgotten their names. Also, police procedures 1820s-style?

Three. Gah.

Lack of posting here is due to much writing and reading. Which is good, although it does leave me with lots of things I want to do here. This week I'll do some.