A top Australian Technology: WiFi

In the 1990s, there were no smart phones or other wireless devices. You had to connect your computer to actual wires. 

Many companies around the world had invented wireless technology, but the stumbling black was reverberation.

Reverberation is an echo that distorts the signal caused by radio waves bouncing around.

Australia's CSIRO invented and patented wireless LAN (WLAN) technology that allows wireless phones and computer devices.

The Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) chip developed by Australian radio-astronomer John O'Sullivan and his colleagues at CSIRO was one centimetre square, with 95,000 transistors.

However, CSIRO did not invent core elements of its wireless technology. They developed a solution to the "multipath problem" of interference to radio waves indoors. 

As Isaac Newton wrote in a letter to Robert Hooke in 1675, “If I have seen further [than others] it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”.

The Opera House, the tourists & their selfies, the new buildings & the vibrant pace of a big city...SYDNEY, NSW. YAZMDG (19,900 images)

Ships were Giant Birds, Monsters or Floating Islands

In 1788, Aboriginal people of Botany Bay and Port Jackson saw a fleet of ships for the first time, and having no context to understand such a sight, thought the ships were giant birds, monsters or floating islands. (1.)

The men climbing the masts, were  thought to be devils or possums.

Lithograph of the First Fleet entering Port Jackson, 26 January 1788, by Edmund Le Bihan

However, within a a few years, Aboriginal people were accompanying the British on various voyages. 

"Young Bundle", an Aboriginal orphan boy from the Cowpastures area, accompanied William Hill of the NSW Corps to Norfolk Island on board the brig Supply on 22 March 1791. (Watkin Tench, Journal)

Thomas Chaseland, child of a convict and Aboriginal woman, was born about 1773, and travelled with about 20 whaling and sealing expeditions. 

Thomas is first mentioned in the crew list of the Jupiter (Captain Bunster), which left Sydney on August 6 1817, for Hobart, as "Thomas Chaseling, son of a settler at Windsor by a native woman" (Cumpston 1970:44).

Thomas married Puna, sister of a prominent Maori chief named Te Matenga Taiaroa.

In March 1801, "Yeranabie" (Yaranabee) and Worogan, an Aboriginal husband and wife, sailed with Lieutenant James Grant aboard the 60-ton sloop Lady Nelson.

During the 11-week voyage they visited Jervis Bay, 170 kilometres south of Sydney, and Westernport and Churchill Island in Port Phillip Bay, now Victoria.

Aboriginal man, Bungaree, joined the crew of HMS Reliance on a trip to Norfolk Island in 1798. He then accompanied Matthew Flinders and his brother, in 1798, on the sloop Norfolk, on a coastal survey as an interpreter, guide and negotiator with Aboriginal people.

Bungaree was recruited by Flinders on the first circumnavigation of Australia between 1801 and 1803, in the Investigator.

Bungaree by Augustus Earle (1826)

Bennelong and Yemmerrawanne, Aboriginal men of Port Jackson, accompanied Governor Arthur Philip to England in 1792, where, some reports claim, they presented to King George III. Bennelong spent two years in London. 

Yemmerrawanne and Bennelong stayed in London with Henry Waterhouse, an English naval officer. 

Yemmerrawanne died in Britain after a serious chest infection.

Bennelong, also unwell, was sent back to Sydney in February 1795 on HMS Reliance, the ship carrying surgeon George Bass to the colony. Bass nursed Bennelong back to health.

Sam Poo: Chinese Bushranger

Sam Poo came to Australia from China to try his luck during the gold rush.

In 1865, Sam was scratching about unsuccessfully the worked-out gold claims in the Mudgee region as a "hatter" (a man who lived and worked by himself) when he decided to become a bushranger.

News soon circulated about a man of Chinese appearance who had stuck up a woman and her daughter on the Mudgee road. According to the woman, Elizabeth Golding, Poo said in pidgin-English, "if I cannot have my will of the girl, I will of you".

More reports surfaced about an armed Chinese man "bailing up" travellers on the Talbragar—Mudgee road. He had also threatened to shoot two stockmen.

Constable Ward, of Coonabaraban had been escorting a prisoner to Mudgee, when he met two men who claimed that a Chinese bushranger was robbing people at Barney's Reef. 

After finding Poo's camp, Constable Ward approached Poo and said, "What are you doing — put down your gun." Poo replied, "you policeman — me fire".  

Poo fired point blank at the constable, severely wounding him. As he fell, the constable fired at Poo, as Poo ran deeper into the bush.

Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld. : 1866 - 1939), Thursday 20 February 1936

The constable was found by two men and taken to Birriwa station and treated by Doctor William King, who rode 45 miles (72 kilometres) to treat Constable Ward. But he could not be saved. 

 

A manhunt in search of Poo ensued, until he was finally tracked down by Aboriginal tracker Henry Hughes in a gully 10 miles (16 kilometres) from Cobbora.

Poo fired at constables M'Mahon and Burns and ran off.

Tracker Hughes found Poo, and gun shots were exchanged.

Constable Todd fired and grazed Poo's head and neck, and Burns tried to grab Poo, but Poo tried to fire again. Burns hit Poo with the butt-end of his rifle, fracturing his skull.

On 10 April 1865, Poo was indicted on shooting at tracker Henry Hughes with intent to kill.

Hughes said in his testimony that Poo's gun shot hit the rim of his hat.

On 10 October 1865, at Bathurst Court House, Poo was tried for the murder of John Ward.

The government interpreter Sing Shigh, did not understand Poo's southern dialect. And Poo seemed to have no understanding of what was going on.

On 19 December 1865, Poo was hanged at the Bathurst Gaol. 

Empire (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1875), Friday 13 October 1865

Armidale Express and New England General Advertiser (NSW : 1856 - 1861; 1863 - 1889; 1891 - 1954), Saturday 30 December 1865

The First Australian Greeks

The first known Greeks to Arrive in Australia came in 1829. 

The seven Greeks were convicted of piracy by a British naval court, and were sentenced to transportation to the penal colony of New South Wales. They were later pardoned. 

Two of the Greeks, Ghikas Bulgaris, known as Jigger Bulgari, and Andonis Manolis, stayed in Australia. Jigger Bulgari married an Irish woman, and they had many children together.

Jigger is buried at Nimmitabel Pioneer Cemetery. And Andonis Manolis' grave is in the cemetery at Picton.

Ghikas Bulgaris, known as Jigger Bulgari, Nimmitabel Pioneer Cemetery.

The grave stone of Antonios Manolis, at Picton's cemetery, NSW

The first known free Greek settler to Australia was Katerina Georgia Plessos (1809–1907), who came to Sydney with her husband, Major James Crummer, in 1835.

The couple met on the island of Kalamos, where Crummer was the island's commandant. Katerina, the niece of a friend of Lord Byron, was a refugee from the Greek wars of independence.

Mary Bryant: She Escaped the Australian Penal Colony

Born Mary Broad in Cornwall, England, the daughter of a fisherman. Mary was convicted of highway robbery for the theft of a woman's bonnet and transported to Australia on the First Fleet.

Initially, Mary was sentenced to hang on 20 March 1786, but her sentence was commuted to seven years' transportation by the Judge.

Taken from Exeter jail to the hulk, Dunkirk off Plymouth, to alleviate the overcrowded jail, Mary lived with other convicted women in appalling and unhealthy conditions. These hulks were run by private individuals as floating prisons.

Conditions on the Dunkirk were so bad that the officer in charge complained: "many of the prisoners are nearly if not quite naked." The women prisoners held on board were brutalised by the marines supposed to be guarding them. (1.)

A hulk at Portsmouth In which convicts wcro housed pending deportation.

Mary was transported aboard the ship Charlotte and gave birth on the journey to a baby. However, after arriving in Australia, she married a fellow convict, William Bryant, and they had a child together. 

William was put in charge of fishing to provide food for the colony. But he was caught selling fish on the side, and received a 100 lashes. He made a plan to escape by boat.

Bryant obtained a chart, compass, quadrant, two muskets, ammunition and food from a Dutch mariner. And on a moonless night, William, Mary and the children, along with seven convicts, escaped in the governor's cutter.

After a hazardous voyage of sixty-nine days, the group reached Kupang, on the island of Timor, and posed as survivors from a shipwreck.

The truth soon came out that Mary, William and the others were escaped convicts, and they imprisoned by the Dutch governor. 

The fugitives were sent back to Britain to stand trial, but Mary lost William and both of her children on this journey. Of the group, only Mary Bryant, Allen, Broom alias John Butcher, Lillie, and Martin arrived back in England on 18 June 1792.

Escaping the expected death sentence, the escapees were ordered "to remain on their former sentences until they should be discharged by due course of law".

James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck, a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, took up Mary's case and lobbied the Home Secretary for royal pardons for her and the four Botany Bay escapees.

On 2 May 1793, Mary Bryant was pardoned and she was released from Newgate prison. Mary returned to her family in Cornwall, and Boswell provided her with £10 a year until his death in 1795.

This view of Newgate Prison when it was inside the old city gate, shows 'Dr Hales' machine for the ventilation of prison apartments above the battlements.

However, Allen, Broom alias Butcher, Lillie, and Martin had to wait until 2 November 1793 to be released by proclamation.

The Nanya Tribe: One of The Last to Live a Traditional Lifestyle

Nanya (c.1835-1895) was a member of the Maraura tribe of the lower Darling area. His tribe and others had been displaced due to European expansion and were living on camps and stations.

Oral tradition is that Nanya had a strong-will, and he came into conflict with his tribe because he wouldn't follow the strict marriage rules. He started a taboo relationship with a woman of his own moiety group, which is forbidden and punishable by death.

So Nanya, his lover, and another woman left his camp at Popiltah station, forty miles (64 km) north of Pooncarie and set off to the arid and unsettled land between the South Australian border and the western Anabranch of the Darling River.

Living in the remote area, known as the "Scotia blocks" for next the three decades, the group grew to include many children and grandchildren

The Nanya Clan lived off the land by hunting and gathering and obtaining water from the roots of various plants. However, by the 1890s, there were more sightings of the "wild tribe" as livestock spread into the region. 

A party led by local station owners set out in 1893 to capture the Nanya family, which now numbered 30 individuals. Later that year the clan were coerced by the party to return to the Popiltah station.

The Nanya family, shortly after their capture in 1894

The Nanya clan were in excellent physical condition and very healthy, but not for long. Within a few years, Nanya's children died from diseases to which they had no immunity, or became unhealthy and obese. One son, Billy, took his own life.

Nanya and two of his daughters

Nanya died in 1895 and was buried near the Great Anabranch.

When Burke and Wills Ran Out of Food

The Burke and Wills expedition, led by Robert O'Hara Burke and navigator William Wills, set out 20 August 1860, to cross the Australian continent from south to north.

Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills, Photograph - 1862

On the return journey, the expedition ran out of food, and when the remaining camel died, they had no means to carry enough water to  allow the crossing of the Strzelecki Desert. Burke and Wills were stranded at Cooper's Creek.

The Yandruwandha Aboriginal people, however, managed to live in these harsh conditions, by collecting and processing the sporocarps (seed-like spore cases) of the Nardoo fern, to make Nardoo cakes.

Seeing the Aboriginal people eating Nardoo cakes, Burke and Wills decided to collect Nardoo fern and make their own, Nardoo cakes. But to safely eat the plant, it must be processed to remove the high levels of the enzyme Thiaminase, which causes Thiamin (Vitamin B1) deficiency or Beri-Beri.

Common nardoo, Marsilea dummondii, on a pond in the Dandenongs, Casliber

Burke and Wills didn't know about the plant poison. So, as they made and ate their cakes, they became weaker and soon died.

The Yandruwandha people did not know about the poisons in the plants either. However, they had cultural knowledge passed on by social learning.

Over their long history, especially when food sources were scarce, Yandruwandha individuals would have used trial and error and over time, made discoveries about processing the Nardoo to make it safe for consumption. This knowledge was passed through the generations, by cultural knowledge and imitation.

Social learning is a very effective means to pass on knowledge, that persists over time and this helped the Yandruwandha people to survive by processing a toxic food. Burke and Wills did not have this cultural knowledge, so the toxic food killed them.