Australian History
Book Details

A History of Australia

New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land 1822–1838

Volume 2

Manning Clark

Second volume of Manning Clark’s monumental work deals with an increasingly settled society and the expeditions of the great inland explorers.

Opinion

‘. . . a novelist, a painter, a theologian and prophet, and from these callings he brings some of the qualities of imagination, the sense of wonder, and the will to create order from chaos, which is as vital to the historian as those other more common and essential skills.’
Geoffrey Blainey

‘. . . He looked for great human issues and presented them as moral dramas.’ Donald Horne

About this Title

From, 1822 to 1838, New South Wales had its governors Brisbane, Darling and Bourke. The Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen’s Land was George Arthur, ‘The Saint of Hobart Town’, for the unusually long time of twelve years.

It was a period of struggle and change, from a plantation society using convict labour and governed by army and navy officers to a society with increasing numbers of free settlers, businessmen turned landowners and a small business and professional class in the towns.

Manning Clark deals with the effect on the Aborigines of the coming of Europeans, in which G. A. Robinson played a part in Van Diemen’s Land, and continues the record of inland exploration by describing journeys of Hume and Hovell and of Captain Charles Sturt.

The book is an attempt to tell the story of how we became what we are, of Australian development from the days when men first drank with pride to ‘the land, boys, we live in’.

Table of Contents

Preface; Abbreviations; 1. Darkness; 2. The Setting in New South Wales; 3. The Return of the Native Son; 4. The Native Son Offends Grossly; 5. Towards a Colonial Gentry; 6. A High-minded Governor in Van Diemen’s Land; 7. The World of Betsey Bandicoot and Bold Jack Donahoe; 8. A Whig Governor amidst High Tory Counsellors; 9. Botany Bay Whigs and Botany Bay Tories; 10. The Saint of Hobart Town; 11. The Sole Distinct Cause of All the Mischief; 12. Towards the Light; 13. Epilogue; A Note on Sources; Index

About the Author

Manning Clark was senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne, and later, Professor of History in the School of General Studies, Australian National University. In 1972 he became the first Professor of Australian History. In June 1975 Clark was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, in recognition of his writing of the monumental A History of Australia. He was named Australian of the Year for 1980. Professor Clark died in May 1991.

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978-0-522-83821-3