by Mary Hoban
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Newspapers
Hobart Town Gazette (Tas: 1825–27)
The Colonial Times (Hobart, Tas: 1828–57)
The Cornwall Chronical (Launceston: 1835–80)
The Courier (Hobart, Tas: 1840–59)
The Hobarton Mercury (Tas: 1854–57)
Hobart Town Courier (Hobart, Tas: 1827–39)
The Observer (Hobart, Tas: 1845–46)
Chapter Notes
Abbreviations used in Chapter Notes
ABJ Toni Anne Sherwood, Complete Transcription of All Sections of Annie Baxter’s Journal Written in Van Diemen’s Land, 1834–51, March 1845, PhD thesis, University of Tasmania, 2006. The original diaries are held at the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.
AVW Bernard Bergonzi, A Victorian Wanderer: the life of Thomas Arnold the Younger, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003.
AWR Mrs Humphry Ward, A Writer’s Recollections, W. Collins Sons & Co., London, 1918.
BCAM Balliol College Archives and Manuscripts
GTWB G.T.W.B. Boyes, Extracts from the Journal of G.T.W.B. Boyes, Colonial Auditor, December 10th 1829–July 31st 1853, ed. J.W. Beattie, unpublished typescript, Allport Library, State Library of Tasmania.
GWJS Jane Sorell, Governor, William & Julia Sorell: 3 generations in Van Diemen’s Land, Citizens Advice Bureau: Eastlands, Tasmania, 1986.
JA Julia Sorell Arnold
LJHN John Henry Newman, The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, eds Charles Stephen Dessain, Vincent Ferrer Blehl, Edward E. Kelly, Francis J. McGrath, Thomas Gornall, Ian Ker, Gerard Tracey, 32 vols, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1961–2008.
LMA Matthew Arnold, The Letters of Matthew Arnold, ed. Cecil Y. Lang, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1996–2000.
LMADE The Letters of Matthew Arnold, A Digital Edition, ed. Cecil Y. Lang, The University of Virginia Press, ©2006 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia.
LOMHW Janet Penrose Trevelyan, The Life of Mrs. Humphry Ward, Constable, London, 1923.
LTAY James Bertram, ed., Letters of Thomas Arnold the Younger 1850–1900, Auckland University Press, London & Wellington, 1980.
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br /> MA Matthew Arnold
MHW Mary Humphry Ward (Polly)
NZL James Bertram, ed., New Zealand Letters of Thomas Arnold the Younger with Further Letters from Van Diemen’s Land and Letters of Arthur Hugh Clough 1847–1851, Oxford University Press, London & Wellington, 1966.
PWL Thomas Arnold, Passages in a Wandering Life, E. Arnold, London, 1900.
TA Thomas Arnold
TAAM Tom Arnold, ‘A Memoir Written by Thomas Arnold After Julia Arnold’s Death and Intended for His Children’, dated Dublin, 17 Feb 1889, Balliol College Archives and Manuscripts.
TAHF Meriol Trevor, The Arnolds: Thomas Arnold and his family, Bodley Head, London, 1973
TCCL The Claremont Colleges Library
VDL Van Diemen’s Land
WTA Mrs Humphry Ward & C.E. Montague, William Thomas Arnold: journalist and historian, University Press, Manchester, 1907.
Where letters have been published in books, the book references are provided for easier access for readers.
Introduction
‘Smashed the windows’ from Huxley, Memories I, pp. 12–13. Renowned Australian biographer Hazel Rowley claimed she chose her subjects according to the way in which particular words struck a chord in her, see Rowley, ‘The ups, the downs’. On women being seen but not heard see Heilbrun, Writing a Woman’s Life, p. 15; Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, p. 86; and Dwyer, ‘Boney and his Balcombe girl’.
1 – A Tumultuous Inheritance
On morbid Catholicism see Strachey, Olivia, p. 13. On hanging bodies see Button, Flotsam and Jetsam, p. 43. On Hobart Town: Although Hobart was known as Hobart Town until 1875 when it was renamed Hobart, the shortening to Hobart is used frequently in the manuscript for ease of reading. On the Sorell family background, Sorell’s reign as Lieutenant-Governor, and on Anthony Fenn Kemp see Brown, Madge’s People; GWJS; Edwards, Of Yesteryear and Nowadays, & ‘Anthony Fenn Kemp: a new appraisal’; M.C. & T.B. Kemp, ‘Captain Anthony Fenn Kemp’; Shakespeare, In Tasmania; Alexander, Governors’ Ladies, pp. 75–77; Mickleborough, ‘Lieutenant-Governor William Sorell: Appearances of Respectability’; ‘… the most seditious, mischievous’ from Mickleborough’s thesis for MA; Chapman, The Diaries and Letters of G.T.W.B. Boyes, vol.1, p. 360. On Ellinthorp Hall see Hobart Town Gazette, Saturday 15 Sep 1827, p. 4; Hoe, Tasmania, p. 336. On departure ball see Hobart Town Courier, 7 Dec 1838, p. 2. On life on board sailing ships see Button, Flotsam and Jetsam, pp. 25, 34–35. ‘One of the loveliest days that it was possible to conceive’ JA to TA, 4 May 1887, BCAM. ‘Second-rate dandies and roués’, Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, vol. 2, p. 819. On life and schools in Brussels see Bock, A Hand-book for Travellers on the Continent; Brontë, Villette, ch. 9; Strachey, Olivia, p. 13; and Frost, A Face in the Glass, p. 5. On Julia’s Huguenot forebears see AWR, p. 6; GWJS, p. 19. On Captain Chalmers see Chapman, ‘G.T.W.B. Boyes and Australia’, p. 69; NZL, p. 191.
2 – Entering Society
Descriptions of colonial society in VDL in the 1840s found in Bolger, Hobart Town, pp. 63, 55–56; Button, Flotsam and Jetsam; Loring, Compelled to Tiers, p. v; Fenton, A History of Tasmania; Graves, Exile; Stoney, A Residence in Tasmania; GTWB; and Walker, Reminiscences of Life in Hobart 1840s–1860s. On the silence around the decimation of the Indigenous population see Russell, ‘Unsettling Settler Society’ and Mackaness, Recollections of Life in Van Diemen’s Land, p. 33. On the lives and difficulties of women & the impact of gossip and scrutiny in the small community of Hobart see Meredith, My Home in Tasmania; Rae-Ellis, Louisa Anne Meredith; Russell, This Errant Lady; Nixon, The Pioneer Bishop in Van Diemen’s Land 1843–1863; Clarke, A Colonial Woman; Alexander, The Ambitions of Jane Franklin, particularly chs 12–13 and her article ‘Gender’. On JA’s reference to her upbringing see GWJS, p. 133; JA to TA, 18 Feb 1876, BCAM; and LTAY, p. 179. On the problems of servants see Richardson, An Annotated Edition of the Journals of Mary Morton Allport, p. 121; GTWB; Tilsley, ‘Bookselling’; and for a fictional version see Graves, Exile. On the cultural life of early Hobart, including the cultural role of the Franklins see Mackaness, Some Private Correspondence of Sir John and Lady Jane Franklin, and Recollections of Life in Van Diemen’s Land; Russell, This Errant Lady; Nixon, The Pioneer Bishop in Van Diemen’s Land 1843–1863; Stoney, A Residence in Tasmania; Clarke, A Colonial Woman. On JA’s riding skill see The Observer, 23 Sep 1845, p. 2. On turfy conversation and preference for dancing see Meredith, My Home in Tasmania, pp. 12, 173. On JA’s participation in Government House tableaus see Lady Caroline Denison to JA, Sat 1849(?), BCAM and in AWR, p. 5. On the art scene in Hobart see Meredith, My Home in Tasmania; Gilmour, Elegance in Exile; GWJS; Boyce, ‘Britishness’; Barrett, ‘Francis Russell Nixon’. On JA’s physical appearance see NZL, p. 198 and Aurora Raby by W.P. Frith, A.R.A. in Heath’s Book of Beauty, 1847. On Thomas Bock see GWJS, p. 132 and Gilmour, Elegance in Exile.
3 – A Colonial Belle
On Boyes’s view see GTWB, p. 103. ‘Plebeian blood’ see Annie Baxter in ABJ, p. 67. On Annie’s responses to JA see ABJ, pp. 70–71. On Waverley’s Amy Robsart see NZL, p. 198. On Richard Dry see Baker, The Life and Times of Sir Richard Dry, pp. 42–43. On rumours see ABJ, p. 80. On JA’s father see AWR, p. 6 and TA to JA, 11 Mar 1887, BCAM, in which TA refers to JA’s father as ‘a thorough gentleman if ever there was one’. On New Norfolk cottage scene see ABJ, p. 85 and GTWB, p. 84. On trust see Chester Eardley-Wilmot to JA, 1844, BCAM. On Eardley-Wilmot’s governorship and dismissal see Russell, ‘Ornaments of Empire’; GTWB, p. 84; Gilchrist, ‘The Victim of his own Temerity’; Stieglitz, Six Pioneer Women of Tasmania, p. 32; Fitzpatrick, ‘Mr Gladstone and the Governor’, pp. 31–45; Alexander, Obliged to Submit, pp. 168–77; Roe, ‘Eardley-Wilmot, Sir John Eardley’. On Boyes’s view on engagement see GTWB, p. 105. On JA seeking reassurances from Richard Dry see ABJ, p. 108. On Annie’s response to the engagement being broken off and Chester’s marriage see ABJ, pp. 99, 265. On Wainewright and JA’s portrait see Crossland, ‘Wainewright: the Tasmanian portraits’, pp. 99–103; Turnbull, ‘R. Crossland, Wainewright in Tasmania, Melbourne 1954. A Review’, pp. 32–33; Anderson, Dictionary of Australian Artists Online. On JA’s further alleged flirtations and engagements see ABJ, pp. 134–41, 155–57; NZL, pp. 178–79. On Percy’s expulsion see Edwards, Of Yesteryear and Nowadays, p. 95 and Colonial Times, 26 Sep 1848, p. 4. On fixation on marriage: Elizabeth Grant Smith, in her memoirs, said everybody was always busying marrying her off, except her mother who ‘had no wish for any marriage, it would only throw so much more trouble on her … she did not understand this craze for marrying’. See Smith, Memoirs of a Highland Lady, pp. 395–99. The same fixation is picked up in Lancaster’s novel Pageant, set in nineteenth-century Tasmania, and the historian James Anthony Froude recalled his grandmother saying that she had been a fool to marry. She had, she said, ‘everything a young woman could desire; a kind father, an ample property. Her picture had been painted by Sir Joshua. What could have possessed her?’ in Markus, J. Anthony Froude, p. 6. On William Sorell’s view of marriage and his closeness to his children see William Sorell to JA, 10 Feb 1860, BCAM; ABJ, p. 384.
4 – An Unusual Man
On Dr Arnold biography: Life of Arnold was written by Arnold’s former pupil Arthur Penrhyn Stanley and first published in 1844. On Dr Arnold see TAHF, ch. 1; AWR, vol. 1, ch. 1; AVW, pp. 12–13. On young TA’s looks and character see TAHF; AVW, pp. 25, 31; W. Arnold, ‘Thomas Arnold the Younger’, p. 128; GWJS, p. 133; AWR, vol. 1, p. 40; MA, The Scholar-Gipsy; NZL, p. 72. On TA’s appointment as inspector of schools and the usefulness of Dr Arnold’s name see NZL, pp. 116, 130; AVW, pp. 54–63. On TA and JA’s meeting see TA, TAAM, BCAM; Graves, Exile, p. 75; NZL, p. 183. On JA’s character see TA, TAAM; MHW, Helbeck of Bannisdale, pp. 47–59; and AWR, ch. 1. On Arnold, Rugby School, and Queen Adelaide’s visit see Strachey, Eminent Victorians; AVW, pp. 12–13;
5 – Finding Love
On TA’s fascination for and pursuit of JA and their engagement see TA, TAAM; NZL, pp. 108, 178–84; ABJ, pp. 294, 324. On JA causing jealousy see TA, TAAM; NZL, pp. 183–84. On reaction to JA’s engagement see ABJ, p. 294; LTAY, p. 219. On Thomas Collinson falling in love with JA see LTAY, p. 219; For TA’s letters to JA while travelling see NZL, pp. 180–83. On TA’s desire for Julia and his desire to change JA completely see TA, TAAM; NZL, p. 184; LTAY, p. 4. For description of the ball held at the Custom-house see The Courier, Wednesday 24 Apr 1850, pp. 2–3. On JA’s reasons for marrying see ABJ, p. 320; MHW to Willy Arnold, 7 Apr 1888, TCCL; and TA, TAAM, BCAM. On Julia’s search for a deeper connection with life see TA, TAAM, BCAM and also MSS of a novel he began writing in c. 1853, with his character Lucy based on Julia. He writes in his novel of Lucy (Julia) going frequently to church