Born on this day
Tuesday, August 28, 1877. : Charles Stewart Rolls, one of the founders of the Rolls-Royce Ltd automobile company, is born.
Charles Stewart Rolls was born in Berkeley Square, London, on 27 August 1877. In 1902 he became a motor dealer and on 4 May 1904 met up with engineer Sir Frederick Henry Royce. Royce had started an electrical and mechanical business in 1884 and made his first car, a “Royce”, in his Manchester factory in 1904. In 1906, Rolls merged his firm with that of engineer Royce to become a co-founder of the Rolls-Royce car manufacturing firm.
Rolls was also a pioneer aviator and was the second person in Britain to be licensed to fly by the Royal Aero Club. In 1910, he became the first man to fly across the English Channel and back nonstop. On 12 July 1910, he also became the first British pilot to die in a flying accident when the tail of his Wright Flyer broke off near Bournemouth.
Australian History
Tuesday, August 28, 1894. : Paddle steamer, the “Rodney”, is burnt by unionist shearers in protest at it being used as a strike breaker.
During the 19th century, shearers in Australia endured meagre wages and poor working conditions. This led to the formation of the Australian Shearers’ Union which, by 1890, had tens of thousands of members. January to May 1891 saw the Great Shearers’ Strike, marked by violent and destructive clashes between shearers and troopers. The end of the strike in May 1891 was not the end of industrial action.
Falling overseas wool prices in 1894 forced the proposal by the Pastoralists Association to cut the shearing rate by 12.5%. A new strike began. The “Rodney” was a large paddle steamer, built at Echuca in 1875. The 32 metre vessel, one of the finest, most powerful steamers on the river, was vital to the transport of goods and passengers along the Murray-Darling River system.
On 28 August 1894, the Rodney was transporting non-union labour upstream to the shearing shed at Tolarno Station on the Darling River. It was also hauling a barge carrying goods and supplies for the stations enroute. As it reached a woodpile two miles above Moorara Station, it was boarded by 150 striking shearers who removed the passengers, then proceeded to soak the Rodney in kerosene and set it alight. The paddle steamer was irreparably damaged after being burnt to the waterline.
Today, the remains of the Rodney can still be seen, lying low down in the riverbed near Polia Station, about 40 kilometres north of the town of Pooncarie, 107 kilometres south of Menindee and around 100 kilometres north of Wentworth. The site remains of historical significance, an indication of the ferocity of the shearers’ dispute. In 1994, the destruction of this noble vessel was commemorated in an event which attracted over 700 people from the sparsely-populated surrounds.
Australian History
Thursday, August 28, 1941. : Party dissension causes Robert Menzies to resign as Prime Minister.
Robert Gordon Menzies was born in the Victorian town of Jeparit on 20 December 1894. In 1928 he entered politics after being elected to Victoria’s Legislative Council for East Yarra. After six years in Victorian state politics as Attorney-General and Minister for Railways (1928–34), he was elected to federal parliament as Member for Kooyong. On April 18, 1939, he was elected leader of the United Australia Party following the death of Joseph Lyons eleven days earlier, and became Prime Minister on 26 April 1939.
On 28 August 1941, party dissension led Menzies to resign as Prime Minister. However, after forming the Liberal Party of Australia from the remnants of the UAP in 1944, Menzies regrouped to become Prime Minister for the second time on 19 December 1949 when the new Liberal Party, in coalition with the Country Party, beat Labor. He then remained as Prime Minister for another 16 years, a record which has not been broken in Australian politics. He retired in 1966, and died in 1978.
Australian History
Saturday, August 28, 1993. : The first of the Australian-designed and built Collins class submarines is launched.
The first Australian submarines, the HMAS AE1 And AE2, were commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) in 1914 and deployed during World War 1. They were followed by the J Class submarines, commissioned in 1919, and the Oberon class in the 1960s and ‘70s. None of these submarines were produced in Australia. In 1982, the Collins Class project was established to provide six new Australian submarines for the RAN.
The Australian Submarine Corporation was established in 1985 at Osborne, South Australia and, two years later, began designing and constructing the Collins Class submarines. The name was chosen to honour Vice-Admiral Sir John Augustine Collins who was among the first graduates of the Royal Australian Navy, having joined the intake at age 14. He served in both world wars and was the Chief of Navy from 1948 to 1955.
HMAS Collins was the first of the Collins Class submarines. Formal construction of the vessel began in February 1990. The bow section was built by Kockum’s Shipyard in Sweden, and numerous other components were also produced in Sweden and shipped to Australia for assembly at ASC’s facility in Port Adelaide, South Australia. HMAS Collins was launched by shiplift in Adelaide by Lady Phyllis Collins, widow of Vice Admiral Sir John Collins, on 28 August 1993. However, it was not complete, and was removed from the water several weeks later for completion. It was commissioned in Adelaide in July 1996.
World History
Sunday, August 28, 1791. : The HMS Pandora, after collecting some of the Bounty mutineers from Tahiti, runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef.
The HMS Bounty, also known as HM Armed Vessel Bounty, is best known for the historical story of the Mutiny on the Bounty while being captained by Lieutenant William Bligh. The famous mutiny on the Bounty occurred in April 1789 when, nursing numerous grievances against Bligh’s draconian ways, Master’s Mate Fletcher Christian seized the vessel from Bligh on their return from Tahiti back to England. Bligh and numerous Loyalists were set adrift on a 7m launch. Further numbers of supporters remained on the Bounty, but the launch was already at sea level and could not take on any more men.
While Bligh, with nothing more than a sextant and his memory of Cook’s maps, made his way to Timor in the small launch, the Bounty returned to Tahiti. Numerous men, both mutineers and Loyalists, opted to take their chances in Tahiti, while Christian sailed further, searching for an island where he could settle without fear of being found by an English ship. He knew he would most certainly be hanged for mutiny against his captain. Christian eventually made his way to Pitcairn Island, where the remaining crew and a number of native Tahitians who had accompanied them established a new settlement. Bligh made it back to England in March of the following year, where he was honourably acquitted for the loss of his ship.
The HMS Pandora was a 24-gun “Porcupine Class” frigate and Royal Navy warship. Commanded by Captain Edward Edwards and carrying 133 men, the ship departed England in November 1790 to track down the mutineers. After securing the Loyalists and 14 of the 25 mutineers in a cramped, box-like cage aboard the Pandora, Captain Edwards spent another four months unsuccessful searching for Fletcher Christian. With supplies low, and having lost two boats and twelve men, he made for Timor.
Around 7:20pm on the evening of 28 August 1791, while trying to find a passage through the Great Barrier Reef, the ship ran aground on an outcrop on the reef, now referred to as “Pandora Reef”. With a gaping hole in its hull, the Pandora quickly began taking on water. Initially, the prisoners were still trapped in their cage, but Bosun’s mate William Moulter defied the Captain’s orders and released the men. In the end, four prisoners and 31 men from the Pandora died, while the ship was completely destroyed. Eighteen days and 2200km later, the remaining men were able to reach Timor in four boats. The men collected from Tahiti were again placed in prison until they could be returned to England. Interestingly, among their new fellow prisoners were William and Mary Bryant, convicts who had managed to escape in a boat from the penal colony in Sydney and make their way up the east coast of Australia until they reached Timor.
World History
Wednesday, August 28, 1963. : Martin Luther King delivers his famous “I have a dream” speech.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He became a Baptist minister, and African American civil rights activist. In his fight for civil rights, he organised and led marches for desegregation, fair hiring, the right of African Americans to vote, and other basic civil rights. Most of these rights were successfully enacted later into United States law with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Prior to this, King delivered a powerful speech outlining his dream for racial harmony. He spoke of his dream for freedom before a 250,000-strong crowd of civil rights protesters at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. Perhaps the most famous segment of his speech included the words, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by their character.”
Martin Luther King’s life was tragically cut short when he was shot in the neck by a rifle bullet in Memphis, Tennessee, on 4 April 1968. James Earl Ray was convicted of his murder and sentenced to 99 years in prison. But while King’s life was taken from him prematurely, his legacy lives on in the equal rights now enjoyed by millions of African-Americans in the USA.
World History
Wednesday, August 28, 1996. : The final divorce decree is granted to Prince Charles and Lady Diana.
When Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer married, it was classed as a fairytale wedding. Charles, 32, and Diana, 20, were married at St Paul’s Cathedral in a ceremony attended live by 3500 guests, and viewed by a television audience of 750 million. Difficulties within the royal marriage were reported within a few years, in 1985. Fifteen years after the “fairytale wedding”, the marriage ended in divorce. Diana agreed to relinquish the title of “her royal highness,” to be known in the future as Diana, Princess of Wales.