Arthur Ransome and his Australian connections

Originally history matters columns in the Armidale Express, this series of posts tells a little of the story of the well known English children's writer Arthur Ransome and his Australian and New England connections.  The idea for the series as well as key source material came from Armidale's Cathie Lamont, a Ransome aficionado.

Arthur Mitchell Ransome was born in Leeds on 18 January 1884, the eldest child of Cyril Ransome and his wife Edith nee Boulton. Ransome's Australian connection comes through his mother, the daughter of artist and pastoralist  Edward Baker Boulton.

The first part of the series focuses on Ransome and his fascinating early life,  Here we have revolution, spies and a long term romance mixed in with writing.

Russian beauty: Leon Trotsky's secretary Evgenia Shelepina. Tall, attractive and intelligent, Evgenia became the love of Arthur Ransome's life. Update. For reasons I do not understand, Google has blocked this photo although it is out of copyright and widely available

Our focus then switches to Edward Baker Boulton, Ransome's grandfather.

Boulton came to NSW to advance himself and with his brothers built a pastoral empire that finally centred on Bergen op Zoom station just outside Walcha. Here our story briefly traces through Bolton's life in the colony. including his involvement with the small intellectual and cultural set centred on Sydney's darling point.

Boulton was always more interested in his painting than the sheep that provided the income that supported he and his huge family.

Now largely forgotten, Boulton was a reasonably significant painter whose paintings include many New England scenes.

The posts are:

• Wednesday, January 22, 2020, First pages of a literary life
• Wednesday, January 29, 2020, Arthur Ransome's life of danger and intrigue
• Wednesday, February 05, 2020, Celebrated author Arthur Ransome's Australian connection
• Wednesday, February 12, 2020, Artist and pastoralist
• Wednesday, February 19, 2020, Building dynasties in New England
• Wednesday, February 26, 2020, Purchase of Bergen op Zoom, return to England, Mary's death
• Wednesday, March 11, 2020, A complicated family
• Wednesday, March 18, 2020, Artist's bleak conclusion

The peopling of New England - Mysteries of migration

Digging deep: Evidence from the Madjedbebe rock shelter suggests early occupation from 65,000 years ago plus or minus 5,000 years.This is the second in a series on the Aboriginal peopling of New England drawn from the introductory course I have been running on New England's history.

In my last column, I spoke of the mysterious Denisovans, a new hominid species only discovered in 2010. They are significant to Australian history because it is clear that the ancestors of both the Papuans and Australia’s Aboriginal peoples met and mated with them on their journey to Sahul, the name given to the continent of which both Australia and Papua New Guinea were once part.

Over the next few columns I will tell you a little of the remarkable story of Aboriginal occupation of Sahul, including New England. It’s a story still shrouded in mystery and uncertainty, but we know enough now to at least paint a broad picture.

We do not know exactly when the ancestors of Australia’s Aboriginal peoples arrived on Sahul. The earliest date we have comes from excavations at the Madjedbebe rock shelter in Kakadu near Jabiru. There earliest occupation was dated to 65,000 years plus or minus 5,000 years.

There have been some suggestions of earlier possible dates based on circumstantial evidence such as fire patterns. Most recently, an excavation at Moyjil Port Ritchie near Warnambool identified a possible hearth dating to 120,000 years ago. However, the team was cautious in their conclusions in the absence of any associated artefacts.

The evidence from Madjedbebe also suggests a sophisticated material culture from an early date. This is consistent with an emerging body of evidence that suggests that earlier hominin species including anatomically modern humans were far more advanced and at an earlier period than previously realized.

This bears upon the question of just how the ancestors of the Aboriginal and Papuan peoples reached Sahul.

The old view based upon then perceptions of “primitiveness” saw the original settlers almost as castaways, small groups who came by accident. This now seems highly unlikely and for two reasons.   

The first is that we now know that earlier peoples were far more capable of crossing open water than previously realized. The great voyages from East Asia into Polynesia are a later and very dramatic example.

The second reason is that population analysis suggests that the survival and then expansion of the early human occupants of Sahul required a minimum foundation population measured in at least the low thousands. To my mind, there are likely to have been a number of movements spaced over time, possibly using different paths.

We don’t know what caused these migrations.

It may have been because of population pressures on existing ranges or because of pressures created by in-migration from other groups. There may have been natural disasters or, perhaps, just the normal human spirit wishing to explore new territories.

We may never know the answers here. However, we do more about what happened once the Aboriginal ancestors reached Sahul.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 1 April 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020 

The peopling of New England - the mysterious Denisovans

Neanderthal cousins: Artists reconstruction of a Denisovan girl based on the combination of skeletal and DNA evidence.This is the first in a series on the Aboriginal peopling of New England drawn from the introductory course I have been running on New England's history.

We all carry our ancestry within us, imprinted in our DNA. We all know this in part because it provides the base for the increasingly popular ancestry DNA tests. What is perhaps less recognised is the way in which the science of genomics has totally transformed our knowledge of the deep human past. 

Genomics, an interdisciplinary field of biology, focuses on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes.

Genomics allows us to map and compare DNA from even ancient specimens. It allows us to map changes over time, and to estimate when certain changes might have taken place. This has resulted in a knowledge explosion.

The mysterious Denisovans are a case in point.

Denisova Cave lies in the Altai Mountains in south-central Siberia near the border with Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia.

In 2010, a Russian team announced that the DNA analysis of a juvenile female finger bone from the site had revealed a new hominin species that they named the Denisovans after the cave. The Denisovans were cousins to the European based Neanderthals, but had separated from them several hundred thousand years before.

This was remarkable enough, but more was to follow. DNA analysis of other remains and of modern human populations suggested that the Denisovans were widely spread across Asia with two distinct lines, one in East Asia, a second in South East Asia.

Further, the results show that the Denisovans overlapped with the Neanderthals at Denisova and with both Homo Erectus and anatomically modern humans in East and South East. The widespread nature of the Denisovan trace in dispersed anatomically modern human populations suggests extensive interbreeding with multiple Denisovan populations.

The DNA analysis also revealed that in their long journey out of Africa to the ancient continent called Sahul, the ancestors of the Papuans and Australian Aborigines had met and mated with the Denisovans.

This mating probably took place in what is now South East Asia close to Sahul. However, the trace is so strong among Papuans that it raises the possibility that the Denisovans may have lived in Papua or nearby islands until as recently 30,000 years ago.

This date is well within the period of Aboriginal occupation of Sahul. It raises an intriguing question: if the Denisovans were in Papua, then the northern extension of Sahul, did they penetrate further south into what is now the Australian continent?

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 25 March 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020 

Moredun Station - the rambling ties of kinship

Artist's perspective: Moredun Station c1848, Edward Thomson was the first artist in the early colonial period to extensively paint scenes of the New England Tablelands.

The tales of old New England entwine and ramble.

In October 1853 William Gardner, the New England’s Tableland’s first chronicler, took up the position of tutor on Andrew Wauchope’s Moredun run near Ben Lomond. 

Born in Edinburgh, Andrew Wauchope had arrived in Port Macquarie from Scotland in 1838.  

This entry point was probably no accident, for Port Macquarie was the headquarters of Archibald Clunes Innes after whom Glen Innes is named.

Innes, a fellow Scot, had come to NSW with his regiment in 1822. From November 1826 to April 1827 he had been commandant of the Port Macquarie penal colony, returning to Port in 1830 to settle following the opening of the area to European settlement.

Innes was in the process of building a pastoral, shipping and mercantile empire that, at its peak would make him one of the wealthiest men in NSW. This empire included extensive New England pastoral interests, beginning with Waterloo Station in 1836.

There were clear information flows among the Scots. Another Scot who arrived a little later in 1840 was Innes’ cousin William Tydd Taylor who would buy the Terrible Vale run.

Working men arrived too, many of whom would settle on Moredun or immediately surrounding runs. With time, their and their children’s marriages would create an entwined pattern of kinship that extends to this day.

On 22 April 1844, Andrew Wauchope married Anne Boyd The Scottish born Anne was the sister of Archibald Boyd who had the adjoining Boyd's Plains (later Stonehenge) run among his interests.

Boyd, the cousin of entrepreneur Benjamin Boyd of Boydtown fame, would lose money in his cousin’s financial crash. He ended his life in England writing flamboyant historical romances to generate cash, reportedly dying in a garret.

Wauchope, a canny manager with an ability to pick good usually Scottish staff, was a wealthy man by the time William Gardner became tutor on Moredun in 1853

In 1854, the Wauchopes decided to return to Scotland leaving the property in the hands of managers, first J T Sperling and then John Mitchell. Mitchell had begun as a worker on Moredun and would prove to be a highly competent long running manager.

Back in Scotland, Andrew and Anne had enough wealth to rent and staff some big Scottish Houses including Airth Castle in Stirlingshire. At the census of 1881 he still gave his occupation as Australian squatter!

Moredun was finally sold in 1890 following Andrew’s death, with John Mitchell acquiring his own place.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 17 March 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020 

Artist's bleak conclusion

Impressive landscape: Edward Baker Boulton's 'Australian Pastoral View'. His paintings represent a significant contribution to Australian and New England art. This is seventh and final in a series on the lives of English children's writer Arthur Ransome and his Australian connections.  

We come now to the final stage in the life of painter and pastoralist Edward Baker Boulton.

Our story began with the colourful life of English children’s writer Arthur Ransome, Boulton’s grandson. We then followed the story of Boulton’s life from England to Australia and the development of his painting and pastoral interests including the acquisition of Bergen op Zoom station outside Walcha.

We mixed with the small intellectual elite centered on Sydney’s Darling Point, accompanied Boulton though his two marriages, the births of his large brood and his multiple trips between England and Australia.

Cyril and Edith Ransome. Edith was Edward Boultons artistic confident.

From November 1875 to 1883 Boulton was based at Bergen op Zoom, focused on his painting and property management. In December 1882, daughter Edith married Cyril Ransome in England.

Edith, a talented painter, had been Boulton’s artistic confidant. He wrote to her to express his love.

Isolation and homesickness were becoming too much for Boulton. There were also financial problems.

Writing to Edith in November 1882, Boulton said that “the truth is that this property is too small for the family.” He went on: “so when I do come home, I fancy that I shall have to go out again with the family or alone… for the property must be increased.”

Things picked up, and in 1883 Boulton sailed for England leaving Nithsdale in charge of Bergen op Zoom.

In 1884 Boulton travelled widely, staying with his friend George Macleay who had taken a summer villa at Lake Maggiore in Italy. Macleay, a wealthy pastoralist and son of Alexander McLeay after whom the river is named, was a fellow member of the Darling Point set.

Boulton came back to Australia in 1887, but almost immediately returned to England to be with his English family.

In February 1890, Boulton returned to Australia with second wife Rachel for the wedding of Ransome’s daughter Mary to Stewart Donald Ryrie, the son of a prominent Monaro pastoral family. The couple were married on Bergen op Zoom on 27 May 1890.

Rachel had been reluctant to move to Australia and was not impressed by her experiences, so the couple returned to England. 

On 3 August 1893, Bergen op Zoom was marked by tragedy when Nithsdale shot himself. He had been lonely and it had all become too much.

Boulton returned to Bergen op Zoom, dying there on 11 October 1895, He is buried beside Nithsdale in the Walcha cemetery.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 11 March 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020 

A complicated family

Nature study: Mount Victoria, c 1890, Art Gallery of NSW, was one of many paintings that Edward Baker Boulton produced in the last years of his life. This is the sixth in a series on the lives of English children's writer Arthur Ransome and his Australian connections.  

At the end of 1873, Edward Baker Boulton (EBB) sailed for Australia, arriving in Sydney on 16 March 1874. He was accompanied by his 19 year old second son, Nithsdale, leaving behind second wife Rachel with sixteen children, six by his first wife Mary, ten by Rachel. 

EBB’s return to Australia seems to have been forced by economic factors. The partnership with David Bell that included management of Bergen op Zoom outside Walcha was coming to an end. EBB needed to put aside his English life and focus on the Australian assets that were the source of family income.

The family position can best be described as complicated.

Rachel did not want to uproot her settled English life and come to Australia. There were apparent tensions between Rachel and Mary’s children. In the end, all of Mary’s children (the “Australian” family) would come to Australia.

EBB himself had to support two households from Bergen op Zoom, while managing a sense of isolation from his English family and the cultural life of England and Europe.

In April 1875, EBB was forced to return to England to resolve family matters leaving young Nithsdale behind in charge of the property. He returned in November 1875 accompanied by another son, the seventeen year old George William who would later become the family stalwart managing Bergen op Zoom.

The station had now become Australian headquarters for the Boulton family While the number of Boultons living there varied, the 1876/77 electoral rolls show EBB, his brothers Thomas and George plus sons Oswald and Nithsdale all in residence.

No longer an absentee landowner, Boulton focused far more on the practical business of wool production and running a successful grazing property. However, he did not give up his love of art, nor of his desire to achieve recognition as an artist. Indeed he seems to have redoubled his efforts.

Over the 1870s he exhibited with the NSW Academy of Art. In 1879, he showed four pictures at the Sydney International Exhibition, a further work at the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1880. He was also trying to sell his art.

EBB was conscious of the conflict between his rather purist view of the role of the artist and his desire to achieve commercial success as an artist.

Writing in 1883 to daughter Edith, Arthur Ransome’s mother and Boulton’s confidant on artistic matters, he said “I am painting for money too but I trust that won’t cause me to fall off that has been the bane of many who have left nature behind & taken to ‘making pictures’”. 

To EBB’s mind, there was nothing “more pernicious, aesthetically or morally”. 

We now come to the last stages in Boulton’s life as pastoralist and painter, something that I will explore in my final column in this series.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 4 March 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020 

Purchase of Bergen op Zoom, return to England, Mary's death

Intelligentsia: Blanche Mitchell, daughter of explorer Sir Thomas Mitchell. Her letters and diaries provide a picture of the life of the small Darling Point intellectual elite including the Boultons. This is the fifth in a series on the lives of English children's writer Arthur Ransome and his Australian connections.  

On 25 August 1852, Edward Baker Boulton (EBB) and wife Mary sailed for Australia accompanied by the two children born while the family had been living in England, Emily (1851) and Edward Oswald (1852). 

EBB was now a member of the Darling Point intellectual elite whose members included Charles Nicholson and Robert Lowe, later Viscount Sherbrooke.

The family settled back happily into Darling Point life with its mixture of literary and artistic endeavour, intellectual discussion, balls, picnics and other social outings. Five additional children were born during this Sydney period.

We know as much as we do of this period because of the letters of Blanche Mitchell, the daughter of surveyor and explorer Sir Thomas Mitchell. Mitchell’s death in 1855 had left his family in some financial difficulty. Blanche seems to have been accepted as part of the Boulton family group and described their activities in her letters. 

The Boulton brothers seem to have purchased Bergen op Zoom station outside Walcha soon after Edward’s return, for in August 1853 EBB mortgaged Bergen op Zoom plus other assets to raise the then large sum of £5,900.

In 1855, EBB entered into a partnership with David Bell that would last until 1876. Bell, who seems to have lived on and controlled the actual management of Bergen op Zoom, would become a very successful pastoralist, buying Muluerindie station in 1873 then Rimbanda station in 1875.

Despite his growing success and the attractions of Sydney life, EBB missed England and Europe. On 18 May 1859, the family sailed for England on the SS Camperdown.

While advertised as a fine ship, it was a bad trip especially for Mary who was pregnant again. In December 1859 Mary died at her parent’s place in Ireland, probably from complications associated with the birth of her new daughter, also named Mary.

Following Mary’s death, EBB moved his large brood back to his English home area, installing them in Tilley House near Wem. There on 6 June 1861 he married Rachel Gwynn. Over the next ten years they would have another ten children, making for a very large brood indeed!

Edith, their first child, has already appeared in our story. An accomplished artist, she was to be the mother of writer Arthur Ransome and EBB’s confidant when it came to the painting they both loved.

During this English period, EBB pursued his artistic endeavours both painting and exhibiting. The family itself lived in some style. The 1871 census shows that they had seven servants including a governess and two nurses. I think the last three were badly needed!

I suspect that EBB might have stayed in England. However, events now intervened that required his return to Australia and to Walcha.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 19 February 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020 

Building dynasties in New England

Crystal Palace exhibition, 1851. Attended by Edward Baker Boulton and his wife, this was the first of the great expos that were such a feature of the second half of the 19th century.This is the fourth in a series on the lives of English children's writer Arthur Ransome and his Australian connections.  

Over the years that I have been sharing our past with you, themes recur. One is the way in which some of our big pastoral families identify with Australia and their immediate areas, while others are torn between their new home and the UK and Europe they left behind.

The Wrights and Northern Whites fall in the first group, Edward Ogilvie (Yulgilbar Station) in the second.

Ogilvie wanted to build a dynasty, but he was also in love with European life and especially Italian life and art. His conflicting ambitions would lead to dynastic failure.

Edward Baker Boulton (EBB) belongs to the second group. While he would die on the New England and be buried in Walcha cemetery, his heart lay elsewhere. As grandson Arthur Ransome summarized, he was always more interested in his art than his sheep.

Following his marriage to Mary Atkinson on 3 April 1850, EBB decided to take his wife to visit the Great Exhibition (the Crystal Palace Exhibition) of 1851.

Driven in part by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband, this was the first of the great international expos that were such a feature of the second half of the nineteenth century.

Few places were immune from their allure. In an earlier series, I mentioned that Armidale soap maker George Mallaby exhibited his wares at the 1900 Paris expo.

EBB and Mary had travelled to England with Mary’s parents. Initially they lived in a house that Mary’s parents had purchased, before moving to a leased place of their own.

We do not know much about this period beyond the facts that two children were born (Emily 1851, Edward Oswald 1852), while EBB continued to sketch and paint.

The Boultons were still in England when on 17 June 1851 an advertisement appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald that would change the family’s direction,   

In 1834, John McLean had taken up a run near Walcha that he called Bergen-op-Zoom, a reported tribute his relatives Allan and Francis McLean who had assisted the Dutch in the defence of that town against the French.

McLean had died, and now the 44,800 acre run was advertised for sale as part of his deceased estate.

The Boultons’ focus had been the central west. Now they were to acquire Bergen-op Zoom, in so doing bringing them within New England's history.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 12 February 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020 

Artist and pastoralist

Edward Baker Boulton, Sydney: town and harbour 1879, the Royal Collection. Boulton was a prolific painter throughout his life, including a number of New England scenes. This is the fourth in a series on the lives of English children's writer Arthur Ransome and his Australian connections.  

On 27 September 1835, Arthur Ransome’s grandfather Edward Baker Boulton (EBB) left Liverpool Docks for NSW on the Ellen. He had just turned 23.

We do not know what family discussions were held prior to his departure. We do know that he arrived in Australia with some financial resources and would later be joined by his brothers in various pastoral activities.

EBB’s love of art was already well entrenched. He took his sketch book with him on the Ellen and sketched throughout the voyage, leading to a book of pencil sketches published in 1837.

The colony of NSW was 48 years old in 1836 with a European population of 78,929. About 35% were convicts, many more the children of convicts.

There was a small upper class groups of officials, landowners and merchants who had accumulated significant wealth and were now investing some of it in new mansions including Lindsay (1834-36), Elizabeth Bay House (1835-39) and Carthonia (1841).

On 1 October 1836, Governor Bourke granted grazing rights to pastoralists beyond the “Limits of Location” in return for a £10 annual license fee to come into effect from New Year’s Day 1837. This triggered a land rush.

EBB began investing in real estate and grazing rights in Sydney and the Central West on his on his own and in conjunction with his brothers. By September 1842 he was sufficiently established to sell a large portfolio of land titles to a group including his friend Oswald Bloxome for the substantial sum of £1,700.

Bloxome (1802-1888) was ten years older than EBB. Both were interested in painting, with Bloxome becoming patron of English marine painter Sir Oswald Brierly while Brierley was in Sydney.

Both were interested in pastoral expansion. Bloxome took up a large block on the New England which he named Rangers Valley after his family home in England, The Rangers. The Boulton brothers were still focused on the Central West, where by 1848 they held 228,400 acres in the Wellington Valley.

From the beginning, EBB had set about establishing himself within Sydney’s small local elite. He joined the exclusive Australian Club in September 1838 and by1842 he had also become secretary of the Union Assurance Company.

He also continued painting and exhibiting. Much later, his grandson Arthur Ransome would remark that his grandfather was always more interesting in painting than in his sheep!

On 3 April 1850, EBB married Mary Atkinson, daughter of Anglo-Irish entrepreneur James Atkinson and wife Mary. Now established, he decided to take his new wife to England to see the Great Exhibition as their honeymoon.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 5 February 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020 

Celebrated author Arthur Ransome's Australian connection

Swallows and Amazons has number of references to Australia. This is the third in a series on the lives of English children's writer Arthur Ransome and his Australian connections.  

The late 1920s found English writer Arthur Ransome and wife Evgenia settled in the English Lake district where they would spend the rest of their lives. The Manchester Guardian offered Ransome a full time position as foreign correspondent, but he declined this in favour of a new writing project.

The result was Swallows and Amazons, published at the end of 1930, the book was the first in a series that established Ransome as one of the best and most popular English children's writers.

Swallows and Amazons follows the outdoor adventures of two families of children as they sail and play on one of the local lakes. The Walker children (John, Susan, Titty and Roger) sailing a borrowed dingy, Swallow, meet up with the Blackett children (Nancy and Peggy) in their dingy Amazon.

The book is a lovely picture of outdoor life and of adventures centred on Nancy and Peggy's uncle Jim Turner (Captain Flint) and assorted baddies.

Swallows and Amazons has a number of references to Australia.

The Walker children's mother Mary Walker was Australian. At one point in the book, Titty Walker muses: "I wonder whether the real Queen Elizabeth knew much about ships". Mother responds that, "Queen Elizabeth was not brought up close to Sydney Harbour."

Arthur Ransome had never visited Australia. Why, then, the references to Australia?

The answer lies in Arthur's mother, Edith, the daughter of Australian grazier Edward Baker Boulton and his second wife Rachel Gwynn.

Arthur was only 11 when his grandfather died in 1895, but retained clear recollections of him. He would have learned more from his mother, for she was close to her father. They shared an interest in art and frequently discussed their painting in the regular letters that passed between them.

This brings us to the Australian leg of our story described by John Edwards in his 2004 book, Edward Baker Boulton: Australia's Forgotten Artist.

Lavishly illustrated with Boulton's own paintings, the book traces Boulton's life from his birth in England in 1812 to his death at Walcha in 1895.

Edward Baker Boulton was born in Shropshire, England, on 29 August 1812, the sixth child of Thomas and Elizabeth Boulton nee Baker. Despite economic ups and downs, the Boultons were a prosperous middle class family with some capital.

As described in previous series, NSW boomed during the 1830s. Wool prices were high as were stock prices, fueled by demand for sheep and cattle to stock the new land claimed within the ever expanding frontier. Speculation in land and stock was rife, with fortunes being made and sometimes lost.

In 1835, Edward Boulton decided to join this rush.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 29 January 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020