PublishedNational Library Of Australia, May 2015 |
ISBN9780642278623 |
FormatSoftcover, 224 pages |
Dimensions25cm × 22cm |
In
a single leather-bound volume of 238 unlined pages of parchment, Surgeon Arthur
Bowes Smyth describes his two-and-a-half year journey with the First Fleet from
Portsmouth in England to the new colony in Australia and back. He is a frank,
articulate and observant writer, and his diary, a treasure of the National
Library of Australia, covers life at sea, stopovers in the slave port of Rio de
Janeiro and the tropical paradise of Tahiti, and three months of early
settlement in Australia.
As surgeon to more
than 100 convict women on the Lady Penrhyn, Bowes Smyth gives an insight
into the plight of these women, sentenced to transportation, and their children.
In First
Fleet Surgeon, author David Hill brings to life the voyage of the Lady
Penrhyn and the early months of settlement at Port Jackson (modern-day
Sydney) through Bowes Smyth's colourful language and frank anecdotes. Each
chapter includes a page of Bowes Smyth's handwritten diary entries accompanied
by a full transcript, and is richly illustrated with paintings, lithographs and
maps from the National Library of Australia's collection. Information boxes on
subjects such as eighteenth-century medical knowledge, brewing beer on board,
and a surgeon's typical day provide context to Bowes Smyth's story.
