To Be Heirs Forever

by Mary Durack

To Be Heirs Forever is a fascinating and lively account of early Australia from the author of the bestselling Kings in Grass Castles. In 1829 Eliza Shaw exchanged her world of English drawing-rooms and embroidery for the brushwood huts and backbreaking labour of a pioneer settlement in Western Australia. She left Leicestershire with her husband Will, six children, two servants, some livestock and tools. They were never to see England again ...After long months at sea, then a disastrous arrival at the infant settlement of Fremantle when two of their sons were drowned, the family finally settled on the upper Swan River about 90 miles from Perth. The heat and sand, the hardships and calamities, the brilliant flowers and birds, the strangeness of the Aborigines, and the courage and comradeship of the small band of settlers are all recorded here through the eyes of a remarkable woman. Eliza Shaw died in 1877, so her story encompasses almost the entire first half-century of the settlement of Perth and its surrounds. She left an invaluable legacy of letters and journals. Mary Durack first wrote the story of Eliza Shaw as a monologue for the 1972 Perth Festival where it played to packed audiences. It has since toured throughout Australia. To Be Heirs Forever will appeal to lovers of Australiana, family sagas, stories of pioneering women and pioneering life (such as The Letters of Rachel Henning) and Mary Durack's writing. The late Mary Durack was one of the great chroniclers of the West and Australia's past. Her best-known book - about her pioneering family - is Kings In Grass Castles. Both it and Sons In The Saddle have proved to be excellent backlist titles - particularly since their reformatting into smart Bs. To Be Heirs Forever is the latest Durack title to be given a fresh new look in B format.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Dame Mary Durack was an Australian author and historian. The Durack family were pioneers in the settlement of Australia by Europeans. The story of her family's history, beginning with the mid-19th century migration from Ireland, is presented by Durack in Kings in Grass Castles, and its sequel, Sons in the Saddle.

Durack married the aviator, Captain Horrie C. Miller, and had two sons and four daughters. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1977 for her services to literature.

Reviews

[Jennifer (JC-S) · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Their grants will be conveyed to them in fee simple and will descend to their assignees or heirs for ever …’

In 1829, Elizabeth (Eliza) Shaw (b1794), her husband Will and six children migrated to Western Australia. The Shaw family migrated in response to an advertisement for the Swan River Settlement which appeared in London in December 1828. To Captain Will Shaw, who had just received advice that his military pension was to be cut by half, this advertisement was irresistible.

‘…Settlers will have no purchase money to pay for their lands, nor will they be chargeable for any rent whatever. Their lands will be conveyed to them in fee simple and will descend to their assignees or heirs for ever … thereby affording them the satisfaction of knowing that their labour will be wholly expended on their own property, and that the results of their patient endeavours will be enjoyed by their children, and their names transmitted with such estates to distant posterity.’

The Shaws arrived in Fremantle on board the Egyptian on 13 February 1830. The family settled at Belvoir on the Upper Swan River in 1830 where, tragically, the two eldest Shaw sons Frederick and William aged twelve and seven drowned. The Shaws later had three more children. Their neighbours at Belvoir included a number of members of the colony’s Anglican establishment: the Brockmans, Burgesses, Irwins and Tanners. Will Shaw died in 1862, Eliza in 1879.

Mary Durack first wrote the story of Eliza Shaw as a monologue for the 1972 Perth Festival. This book, first published in 1976, draws on Eliza Shaw’s legacy of letters and journals to present the life of a pioneering woman whose story encompasses much of the first fifty years of the settlement of Perth and its surrounds.

I found this account of the pioneer settlement of Western Australia engrossing. Eliza Shaw’s experiences included the difficulty of obtaining (and retaining) good servants, family tragedy, isolation, a lack of educational opportunities for her children, as well as to the problems posed because a lack of currency required the use of barter for goods and services. Eliza Shaw had exchanged the comparative civilization of England for backbreaking labour.

The Shaws are one of many pioneer families of this period. Those who survived did so because they were able to adapt to a very different environment from the one they left behind. Sadly, none of the nine children of Will and Eliza Shaw inherited the acres which were to have descended ‘to their heirs forever’.

I’d recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of Western Australia’s European
settlement.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brilliant and fascinating. The 2nd Durack book I have read this year.

[Rob Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure that I would enjoy this but Mary Durack has done a brilliant job of capturing an era and place in Australian history from an ordinary perspective using letters etc to do that. I really enjoyed trying to imagine those days in Western Australia. I would love to know more now from the perspective of those whose land was invaded and found themselves being treated as intruders on their own land. Some glimpses in this book but a lot more to be understood.

[Jenny]

Very interesting insight into the lives of those who first moved to Western Australia.