The following anecdote was told to Hugh Richardson by his aunt Beta in the 1940s. Hugh writes: 

‘When I was about 12 or 13, my aunt Beta told me a story about a true experience she had in the early days of the Great War, and she had me in stitches. I fell about laughing, but I realise now that a lot of that was because of the way she told the story.

‘At the end of her story, I said “You must write it down, it’s so funny” and unbeknownst to me, she evidently did that, because only in the last year sometime I came across her brief scribbled note, which I have transcribed into type.’

Beta was vague about where these events took place, but noted that the hotel in question was in Devon and was named after a famous Victorian writer – the Charles Kingsley Hotel. Surprisingly enough, a likely location was quite easy to find: a pub, in a town called Northam, now known as the Kingsley Inn. The few details Beta gives about the location seem to match the Kingsley Inn’s location. Now read on … 

I was strolling up the sloping High Street of a small town in the South of England (Devon) on a cold winter’s day, when I noticed a woman chasing a man down the street. She caught him and took something out of his hand. When she returned to where I was standing, she showed me a till containing money which the man, having taking ways, had snatched from the bar of her hotel. Continue reading An Australian’s account of a fire at the Charles Kingsley Hotel, ………. Devon during the Great War

Some people. If a man does a job of work, what harm can it do to thank him? But some people would begrudge even that minor courtesy it seems.

I refer, of course, to the Gogango Divisional Board, who held their usual monthly meeting on 1 September 1896. I quote from the report of their meeting in the following Saturday’s edition of The Capricornian:

Mr A J Richardson wrote informing the Board that he had placed a finger board “To the township of Herbert” on the road from Rockhampton to Balnagowan Station at the place where the road to the township of Herbert turned off, and he had also blazed a line of trees from that place to Thompson’s or Deadman’s Point, from whence people riding or driving to Herbert simply had to follow the bank of the river downwards. He suggested that this information be made public. Later on he would survey that part of the branch road which passed through the reserve at Thompson’s Point, but for the present the blazed line would sufficiently meet the wants of the public. He believed he had acted according to the desire of the Board. Continue reading Thanks, Archie!

It seems A J Richardson was an armchair scientist in his spare time. Or possibly an amateur astronomer. In any case, he sent a letter to the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin in 1896, in which he attempted to allay people’s fears of the imminent catastrophe of a comet striking the earth. Apparently the end of the world was nigh, even that long ago.

It may be that Archibald began thinking about comets after witnessing one during his voyage to Australia in 1861.

I’m not sure how well Archie’s theory about the head of a comet acting as a giant lens and creating the optical illusion of a tail (as opposed to possessing a real tail) would play with modern astronomers, but he had clearly done some research and some hard thinking on the subject. Continue reading Archibald Richardson on comets

I’ve been trying for some time to find out exactly when (and where) Archibald John Richardson arrived in Australia, but evidence was elusive for some reason. At last, however, I’m pretty sure I have the answer. Whether the record has only just shown up in the ancestry.com.au archives, or whether I didn’t use the right search terms before, I don’t know.

Archie sailed for Australia on board the Waterloo, embarking at Gravesend in late April or early May 1861. He arrived at Sydney in the early morning of 15 August.

The date  fits with what we knew about Archie’s whereabouts: he was still in England (living in Hampshire) for the 1861 census, which took place on the 7th/8th April 1861. He sailed for Australia just a few weeks later.

The picture on the right is a painting of the Waterloo from the National Maritime Gallery website. It seems the ship is ‘decorated’ with fake gun ports to deter pirates. Continue reading Archibald Richardson’s arrival in Australia