Thirty Years in Australia

by Unknown

Excerpt from Thirty Years in Australia
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Genres: History, Australia

316 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1903

About the author

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Reviews

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an entertaining memoir of the author’s life in Australia beginning as a young rector’s wife in the last quarter of the 19th century. She married in her native England in 1870 and within a month was on a sailing ship for Melbourne. The majority of her book covers her early years in the state of Victoria.

As with “pioneer” memoirs anywhere homesickness and knowing one is never likely to see relatives and friends again is a sad fact of life. Another inevitability is loss of children to hardship and disease. Cambridge’s first two children died of whooping cough and scarlet fever. She never saw her mother again and only returned to England to visit after her husband’s retirement. Obvious periods of depression had to be dealt with as best as could be done.

The quality of writing is high (she ultimately became a popular novelist, poet and journalist). The style here is quite uncluttered and down to earth. In spite of being a rector’s wife she basically ignores preaching and theology. She mentions her husband’s job in order to discuss grueling hours in the saddle or in a buggy getting to weddings, funerals and Sunday services. In his eight or so postings they get a wide variety of accommodations assigned to them, some she calls shanties. Building furniture with her husband in addition to wallpapering, scrubbing, drying out are basically up to her. She makes a point of letting the reader know that the really tough job is the under appreciated job of the wife of the rector, who is often faced with loneliness, being uprooted, and any home issues including anything to do with children. There are some very good stories of hard weather, floods and a very near brush with a wildfire.

Towards the end I lost a little interest. As her social position rose and the postings went up the scale, her stories became more ordinary. I loved her earlier stories of “adopted” misfits, wild animal encounters and the rough and tumble ways in the bush.

[Calzean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cambridge's memoirs are a bit dry but do give an interesting looking glass into life in the North of Victoria in the late 1800s. Life for the well-to-doers is as close as possible to that what they have left behind. But things are different - the food, weather, the stubborn determination of those who are not in the middle or upper class.
Prior to leaving for Australia her perceptions were interesting - cannibals, convicts and bleak landscapes. But she soon came to love the country, the people, opportunities and the freedom it offered.
This is a timepiece into how new English settlers perceived and adapted to their new land.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently read and reviewed The Three Miss Kings ,set in Melbourne, Australia in the late 19th century, for the Books and Chocolate Classics Challenge 2016 so I was pleased to see that the author, Ada Cambridge, had written an account of her life in Australia as the wife of a vicar, Rev. George Frederick Cross. It was the perfect book to read as I flew to Australia to begin a five week stay. Mind you, it is hard to keep complaining about lack of legroom and airline food as you read about the courage it took to embark on marriage, life as a vicar’s wife and a stormy journey by sailing ship to Australia in the space of a few weeks in 1870.
The book was published in 1903 when her husband was working in his final parish near Melbourne. By then he had some seniority and comfortable accommodation near the city. However for most of his career their life was very tough. The church would move them around and his parishes were usually rural covering large areas where he could only minister to his flock by travelling long distances on horseback. More often than not they would arrive at his next assignment to find a leaky, damp and dilapidated vicarage awaiting them which Cambridge would labor to turn into a reasonably comfortable home.
Cambridge was clearly a woman of courage and fortitude. Travelling to their first home in the bush by horse and cart and she walked ahead of the horse and cart to spare the horse which is struggling through boggy areas.
“I had prepared myself for the savageness of a savage country. I imagined that this was the sort of thing I should get accustomed to. Now and then I sat down to recover breath and wring my sopping skirts, and wait for the cart advancing, after frequent silences that betokened bogs.”
She realizes that she has got too far ahead of her husband because after two or three hours of waiting for him to catch up she can no longer hear him in the distance and thinks she is lost and “might never be found again.” She is rescued by “one of those fine, burly squatter-men who were not only the backbone of their young country, but everything else that was sound and strong.” It sounds very romantic but it is also an example of the indomitable courage with which she continually stepped out into the next challenge of her life.
In placement after placement she ends up holding the family together in hard and lonely places while her husband journeys around his rural parishes. Far from medical care she loses two children to whooping cough, struggles through five pregnancies, and confronts snakes and invading possums. It’s fascinating reading. I always assumed the church took care of the people working for them, but they didn’t then and church politics made it hard for Rev. Cross, lacking important connections to advance to an easier situation. Her experiences are vividly described taking you through mud and mire, unplanned nights in the open, encounters with snakes and bush fire.
What Cambridge doesn’t really write about much is her writing career. She will talk about her “writing table” and “writing window” and talks a little bit about her excitement when her first piece was accepted but doesn’t give you any information about the background to her books. It is clear the money she earned was important to the family. However she is quick to defend herself against being accused of failing in her household duties because of her writing pointing out that she “made everything that was sewable.”
When I remember the time-honored theory that a writing person is no good for anything else, I feel obliged, at the risk of appearing a braggart, to parade the above fact. I take pride in announcing that I have never hired a sewing woman… housekeeping has all along been the business of life; novels have been squeeze into the odd times.
What is clear though, is that her writing, in giving the family needed additional income, also eventually enabled her to take breaks from her work in the parish to travel to Melbourne and Sydney and connect with writers, thinkers and the intellectual life of the cities. She had obviously become a celebrated writer through the popularity of her novels but she never says that explicitly.
It is a very interesting book and provided an intriguing look at the Melbourne area in the late 19th century. As I struggled up a rainy and muddy hillside in the bush down the coast from Melbourne I had to hand it to Ada Cambridge who did it in heavy skirts while I could move freely in my jeans and trail shoes and fend off the rain with a lightweight rain jacket.

[Joan Garvan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a terrific read. Cambridge wrote the book when she was back in England but she describes her time here vividly. I find myself often remember scenes, like travelling by coach from Melbourne up country, the roaring fire in the timber house, the possums swarming through the bush, and sleeping in the wagon when she and her husband couldn't find the homestead they were after in the bush.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first read this about 20 years ago and loved it. This time not so much. There is lots of interesting detail on Melbourne and regional Victoria, but it is very much a product of its times and hasn't dated at all well. What does come across is 19th century manners and notions of chivalry and class. I am really glad we have moved on!

[Evgenia Giles · Rating 5 out of 5]

A valuable representation of women's life in 19th century Australia. Gave amazing insights into the history of local towns

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

To read my review please visit anzlitlovers.com