Untitled Document

The Story and Background

THE FOUNDLING is the story of the orphaned Julia Stephen who arrives in South Australia in 1840, in the very early years of European settlement. Against a backdrop of decisive events: the chance discovery that saved that fledgling province from bankruptcy in 1845, the first organised strike in Australia in 1848, the elections of 1851 and the discovery of gold in the eastern states that same year, we follow her development from girl to woman on what becomes a journey of self-discovery. For not only is this a tale of emigrants from Great Britain and Prussia who set out from their native shores in search of prosperity, freedom from oppression, and a new beginning, it is the particular story of a foundling whose destiny has taken her from Devon to Cornwall, and then to South Australia in search of fortune and status.

In the same way that very few of her fellow emigrants found their wishes fulfilled, neither did she. The "new country" in many ways was a mirror image of the old, the old class system still obtained, and the wealthy dissenters and well to do opportunists profited at the expense of the free settlers who, along with Julia, are the main players in this human drama.

THE FOUNDLING deals with many strata of South Australian society, but the pastoralists, the industrialists and the future politicians whom we meet in its pages are - for once - relegated to the background of the broad canvas covered. My novel deals in general with the "little people" who were forced by religious intolerance, political persecution - or by the sheer pangs of starvation - to leave the Europe of the 1840s and make their way to what was widely advertised as "a Paradise of dissent", a place where freedom of speech and deeply held ideals would be respected - or so they trusted.

Julia Stephen and her adoptive family came to a European settlement that was struggling to come to terms with isolation and economic reality, to a South Australia, like them, struggling to survive. Miners from the Westcountry of England, and Lutherans from the Harz mountains of Germany may have found employment difficult in those early years, but when Thomas Pickett found copper by the Burra Burra Creek in 1845, these were the men who were ideally placed to resume their normal occupations in what was to become known as the Monster Mine.

It was a fitting name. It may have brought prosperity to the province, but like a monster it took the lives of the men, women and children at its mercy - if not directly, then through illness and despair. Julia Stephen became part of the workforce in the company township of Kooringa, although her bid for survival developed on more unusual lines than most, and we see her in a position to help the starving miners and carriers, and their families, in the strike of 1848. It is no coincidence that the first organised strike in Australia took place at the Burra Burra mine, against a rapacious company whose sole responsibility was deemed to be towards its equally greedy shareholders, and that the same men carried the struggle for "a fair go" onto the Victorian goldfields five years later. Living at subsistence levels dictated by an ruthless employer - and very often in dugouts in the banks of the noisome Burra Burra Creek - the miners were to have the final say: while the conflict ended in their defeat, they did not forget the lesson, and when gold was discovered in Victoria in 1851 they downed tools once more and headed for the goldfields in their thousands.

THE FOUNDLING covers these dramatic events, but it is not simply a novel dealing with one of the most fascinating eras of European history in Australia, it has all the classic ingredients of a thriller. Who is the mysterious packman, Sam Harris, who dogs Julia's footsteps from her birth in 1826, and through the streets of Kooringa, as she unwittingly comes closer and closer to discovering the horror of her birth? What is the grim secret he divulges? After THE FOUNDLING's gripping denouement, Julia Stephen heads east, like other refugees from Burra, to seek her fortune. What happens to her there will be the subject of a second novel.

Acknowledgements

"Firstly, I wish to acknowledge the help given me by the late Ian Auhl, and the unfailing interest he showed in my writing. My sincere thanks too to Mrs Auhl for her continuing friendship and hospitality. Of the many books on South Australia's mining history, Ian's Story of The Monster Mine is indisputably the definitive work on the Burra Burra Mine, and I would also recommend his other books on the Burra to the general reader.

Those who wish to explore the origins of Kooringa will find the town of Burra itself - with the sad exception of the crumbling township of Hampton and the almost lost village of Copperhouse - well preserved, and the sites of the 'Monster Mine' and the smelting works open to the public. (See the 'Vestiges' section for further details.)

Much of my research was carried out in the Auhl Local History Room of the Community Library at Burra using Ian's vast collection and the Births and Deaths Registers, and originally formed the basis for my Burra 1845 -1851: A directory of early folk (written as Jennifer M.T. Carter). I should like to thank the librarians of the Burra Community Library for their generous help and also the Revd. John Devonport of St. Mary's Anglican Church, Burra, for allowing me to study the Marriage Registers for the relevant period.

Following the publication of Burra 1845-1851 I received delightful letters from descendents of the men, women, and children recorded in its pages, and present-day Australians whose families started out in the Burra following the great emigration adventure may well find their ancestors mentioned in THE FOUNDLING, or, indeed, reappearing as characters.

Not a few of the early residents of the Burra proved a litigious and troublesome lot - and who could blame them? - and I am more than grateful to the Register's anonymous Kooringa Correspondent for his/her Court Reports and for descriptions of the dreadful Burra floods. Mr Andrew Hollis of the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology helped me over the matter of the 1851 floods and waterspouts, and I would also like to thank the librarians of the Mortlock Library of South Australiana who assisted me in following the early history of the South Australian Mining Company (SAMA) through the various letterbooks and other documents still in existence.

A great many of the Burra folk found their way to Victoria in the goldrush years of the 1850s, and their subsequent adventures may be traced through the Births, Marriages and Deaths registers of Victorian towns and villages and in their cemeteries, as well as through innumerable books on local history. The librarians of the Public Record Office of Victoria, the National Library of Australia, the La Trobe Library, Melbourne, and the Borchardt Library of La Trobe University were very helpful on the occasions I worked there, and I thank them too.

The settings of the English parts of the story are authentic and I should like at this point to acknowledge the many anonymous villagers in the county of Devon, where I was born and brought up, and in Cornwall, who helped us trace vestiges of the area's considerable mining past when we returned there to research. The villages of Peter Tavy and Mary Tavy still exist on the fringes of timeless Dartmoor, and Gibbet Hill retains its sinister name and atmosphere. The centuries-old 'New Inn', near the miners' village of Horndon where Kit Martin first took the Stephens, has, however, been renamed 'The Elephant's Nest' ... Wheal Betsey still stands, and the traces of other mines and mine leats are there to be found on the moors in the Tavistock area and elsewhere.

Mother Meade is a product of my imagination, as are the Stephens, Harrises and Martins, but there were certainly other witches, farm labourers and miners and the tracks across the moor made by the packmen and their "widge-beasts" may still be followed, if with caution. Dartmoor, its facts and legends, are brought brilliantly to life in Eric Hemery's High Dartmoor: land and people, and amply illustrated in word and picture and to him I owe the story of the highwayman.

Stoke Climsland and Caradon villages in Cornwall still show ample traces of the area's rich mining history, and along the horizon in almost any direction can be seen a procession of mine chimneys in varying stages of decay. It is a matter of regret to this writer that the Cornish have not undertaken the preservation of their industrial heritage with quite the same enthusiasm as we in Australia, but perhaps that will come before too late. Meanwhile, I should like to thank Dr Philip Payton of the Institute for Cornish Studies, Redruth, Cornwall, UK, for his advice over surviving places of particular relevance, and for his help and interest in my work.

My family and friends have been a continuing source of encouragement, and I should like to thank them all, especially Mr Frederick G. Talbot of Suffolk and Mr and Mrs Malcolm Williams of St. Budeaux and South Wales whose kindness and generosity made researching the Devon and Cornwall episodes possible.

Lastly, I wish to thank my husband, Dr. Roger Cross, a true guide, philosopher and friend, for sharing his love of Burra with me, for his enthusiastic support throughout, and for his help in bringing to fruition this project about some of the unsung founders of South Australia.'

"George Bull went home in the rain, and by the time he arrived he was sober. In the bedroom Effie was already asleep, her fair hair spilling over her pillow. God, how he loved her! He bent over and planted a reverent kiss on her smooth white brow. She stirred, smiled, muttered something, and turned away still sleeping.

Bull put the lamp down by his own side of the bed, undressed, and began to think about Sally. She was as plain as his wife was pretty, but you would have thought that anyone in that position would be glad to have a man. He had meant no disrespect to Effie, but after the meeting, with all the excitement, he had needed a woman.

He regretted the black greasy mark on the crotch of his breeches: in turning him down, the wretched girl had been less than subtle and they were undoubtedly ruined. He got into bed and lay awake thinking, moving the lamp so that it shone softly on Euphemia's body.

She had tossed off the sheet, and her shoulders and breasts in their white lacy nightgown were revealed to his hungry eyes. The sheet draped her belly, round as a pumpkin in the sixth month of her pregnancy. George had wanted her, had wooed her, and by God he had won her! And yet, he had never thought that his vigorous possession of the prize would lead to this so quickly! As he watched the even rise and fall beneath the linen, his frustration was tempered by a sense of pride.

And a sense of purpose. This child would be born and would thrive - not like the poor little beggars in the Creek. For all the miners bred like rabbits, their babies died like flies, and he had meant every condemnatory word he had uttered against the SAMA! Imbued with a sense of mission, determined to make George Kingston bite the dust, George Bull put out the lamp and settled down to try to sleep.

In the Smelters' Home the object of his pique was tidying the kitchen. Round-faced with a button nose and freckles, Sally was ill-favoured and for the moment she was annoyed. He was a randy old devil, all right, the doctor, and he seemed to think she ought to be grateful! Well, she had made it clear she wasn't! Determinedly virgin since seeing her mother, then her sister, die in the agonies of childbirth the scullery maid had no intention of going the same way. And blessed the looks that ensured that men remained friends and did not aspire to be lovers.

Julia had gone to bed, and Sally hadn't, and it had been her bad luck to take in the supper tray to the guests' parlour. The old goat had made a grab for her then and on the way out had had another try. His face was red, his breathing was heavy, and, to put it politely, his blood was clearly up. If that was the result of election fever, she for one wanted none of it.

The clang of the frying pan as she replaced it on the stove brought Alfred Barker hurrying in.
'All right, Sally?'
'All right, Mr. Barker. I've locked up after Dr Bull.'
She looked around her, saw that everything was in order for the morning, and went off to bed in her turn.

Weeks later the weather hadn't improved but it took more than that to dampen the ardour of the rival political camps. Until, that is, Monday the twelfth of May. The incessant rain of the past few days had stopped and the reluctant sun was struggling in vain to break through the banked-up clouds. The hills were dark, and the sky hung heavy over the township. The smelter was adding to the murk.

Up at grass sweating men laboured on in the increasing gloom, and boys picked wearily at the piles of ore, while in the engine house rods, cranks and flywheels performed their silent ballet and the great beam rose up and down in magnificent effortless monotony.

In the streets and lanes of Kooringa late that afternoon very few people were moving as the merchants shut up shop and the women set about preparing the evening meal.

As Mr Coote briskly swept the path outside his store he felt a sharp little breeze. It wasn't that he truly wanted more rain, he told Mrs Trenery afterwards, it was just that the movement in the air was welcome. He looked up to check the sky out of habit, and had seen the clouds over the distant hills turn a sudden, solid black. Well, everyone knew that Mr Coote was Chapel, and never touched a drop, otherwise who ever would have believed him? It had been almost Biblical, he assured his enthralled listener. Forked-lightning had stabbed the sky before the clouds had swirled towards the town. Within minutes the heavens had opened.

'You know the rest,' he said simply." (THE FOUNDLING: Extract from Chapter Twenty-one)