Australian History / Biography
Book Details

Joseph Mason

Assigned Convict, 1831-1837

Edited by David Kent and Norma Townsend

This is a fresh and unique first-person account of the convict experience--a new and invaluable primary source.

Opinion

'MUP continues to produce books that are both expertly written and beautifully made. This delightful little hardback is no exception.' (Nick Walker, The Australian)

About this Title

Joseph Mason, an English agricultural labourer, was convicted and transported for taking part in mass protests against the introduction of threshing machines, which were threatening to destroy the livelihood of English rural workers.

Joseph was unusual among labourers in being a fluent writer and a voracious reader. His manuscript, only recently discovered, is published here for the first time. In it, he vividly describes life on the frontier, his encounters with Aboriginal people, and the flora and fauna of the bush. He tells of the living and working conditions of assigned convicts, and early horticultural and farming practices. The description of his explorations along the Nepean River captures the dramatic landscape of the gorge so accurately that it could serve as a guide for the modern bushwalker.

This is a fresh and unique first-person account of the convict experience--a new and invaluable addition to the primary sources of Australian colonial history.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Introduction 'Men of honest principle'; Editorial Note; Note on Conversion; To Charles Bastin of Wherwell Harts; The Memoir; Epilogue 'Our worldly prospects are gloomy'; Endnotes
'I was not less gratified in viewing the beauties of nature on a more diminutive scale in these subterranean recesses the sides & roofs of which were of more exquisite workmanship than was ever performed by the Chisel & Mallet of the Mechanic. The stone is soft & sandy with veins of red, yellow, green, brown & some others winding & twisting in a thousand beautiful shapes & in many places much resembling in form the crankled yeast that works up on beer in a tub . . . there was a strong breeze rushing up the chasm at the time and shaking the trees & Shrubs that grew out of the rocks from the bottom to the top which sounded hoarse and hollow & seemed in this lonely abode to create a sort of melancholoy but which was soon banished by considering the grandeur & Sublimity of the scene which at that time was heightened by the glossy leaves of the trees which seemed almost to peirce the blue vault of heaven & which were dancing & playing in the beams of the declining sun . . .'

About the Author

David Kent and Norma Townsend are senior lecturers in the Department of History, University of New England. Kent is the author of many articles and a forthcoming monograph on Rural Radicalism and the Swing Riots in Hampshire. Townsend is the author of Valley of the Crooked River: European Settlement on the Nambucca and of a number of journal articles.

978-0-522-84746-8