Hesperian Press

Colour Patch -

The men of the 2/4th Australian Machine Gun Battalion

by Murray Ewan

ISBN 085905 312 1, (2003 New), Case bound 928pp, illustrated, <3kg packed

$132.00*

This unique book sets a new standard for unit studies. It contains photos and service details of all the men on the 2/4th and is beautifully presented. It will become a classic in Australian Military history and an heirloom for the families of all those who served in the 2/4th.

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Combined Index to the Publications of the Geological Survey of W.A. 1910-1970

by P. J. Bridge

ISBN 0 85905 000 9, (1972 New), Soft Cover, 350pp, A3

$170.00* (Direct sale only) + POST

This is the Combined indicies of the Geological Survey of WA Annual Reports and Bulletins from the end of previous index (Bulletin 60) to 1970 and an essential reference volume for geologists, prospectors and historians.

Commandant of Solitude. The Journals of Captain Collet Barker 1828-1831.

Edited by John Mulvaney & Neville Green.

ISBN 978-0-85905-893-3, (1992, R 2021), 240 x 170,   illustrated- colour plates, Section sewn, French flap soft cover, 466 pages, 1.2kg, $80.00*

After seeing service in the Peninsular War, Canada and Ireland, Captain Collet Barker (1784-1831) was posted to New South Wales, but he spent less than a month in the relative comfort of Sydney Town. He was sent to command the isolated settlement at Raffles Bay (near modern Darwin) for just over a year and was then transferred to King George Sound (Albany), both tiny military detachments on the furthest frontiers of empire.

Prehistorian D. J. Mulvaney and historian Dr Neville Green with E.W.F. (Ted) Street laboriously transcribed Barker's journals, revealing the texture of life in the frontier settlements. 

The combined Raffles Bay and King George Sound manuscripts were 586 folio pages of almost indecipherable script. The Raffles Bay folio was deciphered by E.W.F. Street and similarly the 250 King George Sound (Albany) pages by Dr Green that engaged him for 12 years.

Here is Barker's account of his day-to-day problems in the most remote settlements in the continent. He had to deal with difficult officials, unruly soldiers and escaping convicts. He had to try to meet the inflexible demands of the Colonial Office, and at the same time struggle to raise crops and animals in unfamiliar soil and climate. He took an enlightened interest in the Aborigines, who were familiar with European visitors and his journals provide a unique account of the friendly relationships that he achieved with them. 

Barker emerges as an excellent administrator, kind-hearted, zealous and firm. His untimely death is movingly recounted in Chapter 1. As solitary in his death as in his Australian commands, Barker at some time penned a sadly percipient epitaph consisting of the first lines of Alexander Pope's Ode on Solitude. The last stanza of this ode reads:

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;

Thus unlamented let me dye;

Steal from the world and not a stone

Tell where I lye.

On 30^th April 1831 Barker was fatally speared in South Australia.

This book details the early years of the military settlements at Raffles Bay and Albany. It is essential for the understanding of both colonial outposts. The publishers gt gt g/father, William Thacker, was present at Albany, courtesy of HMG.

The Common Thread – Arnold Weinholt

Aussies in the thick of it. Stories from East Africa WWI, WWII. Ada Woodhill, Australian First Lady of German East Africa. And SOE’s Ethiopian Mission 101

Geoff Blackburn

ISBN 978-0-85905-710-3, (New, 2018), A4, illustrated, 40 pp, 185 grams

$25.00 + POST

The first, and hopefully not the last, Australian politician shot for spying. Unreported byways and fascinating African adventures in the Great Game.

The Connelly Story

ed by PJ Bridge, I Murray & V Connelly

ISBN 978-0-85905-460-7, A4, 60 pp, illustrated, (200g)

$22.00 + Post

Connelly senior found the Fifield Platinum in NSW. His son discovered the Murchison GF in WA in 1890.

Conquest and Settlement

by Geoff Blackburn

ISBN 0 85905 242 7, (wrongly number 254 0), (1999 new), Hard Cover, 175mm x 250mm, 342pp, illustrated, 730grams

$70.00* + POST

Conquest and Settlement is the history of the 21st Regiment of Foot and its role in Western Australian history. 

This is not a military history in the usual sense.   It is not dedicated to campaigns fought, won or lost.  Rather it is  an attempt to chronicle the part played by the men and women of the Regiment in the early settlement of Western Australia. It sets out to explore the lives of these soldiers and their families.  It contains accounts of the suppression of the native uprisings of the 1830s and appendices on the men as soldiers and settlers, extensive biographical details and genealogical charts. 

Contraband

by WC Charnley

[ISBN 978-0-85905-887-2], (1935, 2021), A4, 18 pages, illustrated, 105 grams. $22.00*

Opium and Chinese were the two great problems for the Customs a century ago. Little has changed and complicit functionaries and politicians have compounded the problem a thousand fold. This report details some incidents in the earlier battles before we lost the war.

Contributions towards an Aboriginal Volume of the Australian Dictionary of Biography 

by Peter J. Bridge.

ISBN 978-0-85905-668-7, (New, 2017) A5, 20pp, 35grams, $10.00* 

A collection of biographies of Australian Aboriginals who distinguished themselves by their murderous and other antisocial actions against both blacks and whites. Half of the contents of this text has not been seen before this publication.

Convict Assignment in Western Australia 1842-1851

by Andrew Gill

ISBN 978-0-85905-619-9, (2016, with a new introduction and corrections to the edition of 2004), A4, 246pp, 700 grams

$50.00* + POST

An essential reference for the study of early convictism in WA, the employment and distribution of the Parkhurst boys and their employers.