Jessie was the eldest child of Thomas and Mary Sinclair, born in Dunrossness, on the 2nd April 1852.1 She spent her childhood in Dunrossness, where she went to the local school. The 1861 census recorded her as a ‘scholar’ living...
The usual story about the discovery of the Norseman goldfield is that it was accidentally discovered by a horse named Norseman. For example, Rica Erickson said: Station hands left work, sometimes without giving notice, to go prospecting, Larry Sinclair among...
My wife’s great great grandfather was Thomas Sinclair, a Shetland Islander who was, at the time of his death in 1868, an assistant warder with the Convicts Department. I have discussed him elsewhere on this site. As the old records...
The year after Thomas Sinclair arrived in Western Australia he got a job as an assistant warder at what was then called the Convict Establishment in Fremantle. After the convict era was over the establishment was utilised as a regular...
Writing about her experiences onboard the migrant ship Tartar, Janet Millett stated that whenever the ship encountered really bad weather her husband would go to the married persons’ quarters where he would look after the women and children, presumably to reassure...
John Skinner Prout (1805-1876) was an artist who came to Australia in the 1840s. He described his voyage out to Australia in an article in The Illustrated London News, with sketches of life on board ship. Emigrants to the Swan River Colony...
Laurence Sinclair was the youngest of the three Sinclair brothers who came to Western Australia from Shetland. He was born in Skelberry, Dunrossness, on the 30th of January 1831. It’s not known precisely when he arrived but it must have...
John Charles Playle was from Essex and arrived in Western Australia in 1842, placing him among the pioneers of the Swan River Colony. John was born in the village of Stebbing in 1821, one of the five children of John...
When Thomas Sinclair brought his family to Western Australia on the Tartar in 1863 he kept a diary of the voyage. The original is in the Esperance Museum and a copy is also held in the Shetland Museum. It is a fascinating...
Every now and then you come across a little gem on the internet. I was delighted to find Karli Florisson’s podcast “Wild: Stories from Western Australia’s Past” the other day. It is a wonderful collection of podcasts about various aspects...
© 2024 — Michael Robinson, Bedford, Western Australia.