Australian History
Saturday, September 27, 1851. : Australian explorer Sir Thomas Mitchell wins the last official duel in New South Wales.
Sir Thomas Mitchell was Surveyor-General of New South Wales and the explorer who discovered “Australia Felix”, or “Happy Australia”, which was the rich land of western Victoria. As well as being well-known for his immense contribution to exploration, Mitchell is less known for fighting the last known duel in Australia. It was fought between Mitchell and one of the well-known early settlers of the New England district in New South Wales, Sir Stuart Alexander Donaldson.
The duel occurred on 27 September 1851 in Centennial Park, Sydney, and it is believed to have been over land – Tenterfield Station – which was a crown grant to Donaldson. As Surveyor-General, Mitchell had gazetted a town to be built on part of Donaldson’s Tenterfield Station. The enraged Donaldson challenged Mitchell to a duel. Three shots were fired, and the last one of Mitchell’s found its mark, blowing Donaldson’s hat off. Donaldson was not injured, and later went on to become the first Premier of New South Wales.
Australian History
Thursday, September 27, 1990. : The hero of the 1852 Gundagai floods, Aboriginal Yarri, is honoured with a headstone placed on his grave.
The town of Gundagai is located on the Murrumbidgee River 390 km south-west of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Australian explorer Hamilton Hume, together with immigrant William Hovell, were the first Europeans to visit when they passed through the area in 1824, and their expedition subsequently opened up the area for farming land. Explorer Charles Sturt identified a spot near Gundagai as the best crossing point of the river for coaches and drovers. A settlement gradually grew up along the Murrumbidgee River at the river crossing, and by 1852, there were around 300 people living along the river flats.
The flats had already shown they were prone to flooding, but people ignored the warnings and stayed in close proximity to the water. Torrential rain had been falling in the Snowy Mountains for most of the month of June 1852. Despite the rising river, many people chose to wait out the floods in the lofts of their houses rather than evacuate, as they were familiar with floods. However, in the early hours of 25 June 1852, a torrent swept down the Murrumbidgee valley. Houses collapsed and people were swept away. A punt sent out to rescue people capsized, its occupants thrown into the raging waters. Two Aborigines, Yarri and Jackey Jackey, showed great courage and heroism as they took their canoes out into the torrent to rescue people stranded in trees and the water. Although they rescued 49, another 89 were killed in the Gundagai flood.
After another, higher flood in 1853, the town was relocated at its current site on the hill, Mount Parnassus, above the river. Yarri, who led the rescue, has been honoured through the years with various small monuments around the town. On 27 September 1990, NSW Premier Nick Greiner formally unveiled a headstone for Yarri’s grave, which had lain unmarked for a century.
World History
Saturday, September 27, 1631. : Puritans are outraged as Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ is performed on a Sunday.
The romantic comedy “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was written by William Shakespeare between 1594 and 1596. Drawing on mythology, magic and fairies for much of its content, the play was a far cry from some of the tragedies for which Shakespeare was well known.
Puritans, an extremist religious group, raised an outcry when ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ was performed on a Sunday, on 27 September 1631. The private performance took place in the Bishop of Lincoln’s house in London. Seeking punishment for those who participated, the Puritans required that the cast member who played “Bottom”, a donkey, was required to spend twelve hours in the stocks wearing a donkey’s head and a sign proclaiming:
‘Good people, I have played the beast,
And brought ill things to pass;
I was a man, but thus have made,
Myself a silly ass.’
Due largely to the influence of the Puritans, drama was banned and theatres remained closed from 1642 to 1660.
World History
Monday, September 27, 1660. : Vincent de Paul, founder of many charitable organisations, dies.
Saint Vincent de Paul was born on 24 April 1580 at Pouy, Landes, Gascony, France. He was ordained as a priest in 1600, but captured and sold into slavery by Turkish pirates before he could take up his first parish position. Vincent de Paul converted his owner to Christianity, and was freed from slavery in 1607. After returning to France and taking up a position as parish priest near Paris, he founded many charitable organisations such as Congregation of the Daughters of Charity, and the Congregation of Priests of the Mission, also known as Lazarists. Vincent de Paul died on 27 September 1660.
Today, the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul is an international organisation, the primary mission of which is to assist the poor. The Society, which was founded in 1833, took Saint Vincent de Paul as its patron saint: thus, his name has come to be synonymous with charity.
World History
Sunday, September 27, 1722. : An Irish woman is killed by a dobhar-chu, an Irish cryptid.
The field of ‘cryptozoology’ is the study of ‘cryptids’ such as Yowies and the Sasquatch, the existence of which has not been proven. Such creatures are elusive, and belief in them is based on anecdotal sightings rather than scientific evidence.
The Dobhar-chu, roughly translated as “water-hound” or “water-dog”, is a cryptid of Irish folklore. It is an amphibious creature, reported to be a cross between a dog and an otter, with fish-like qualities. On 27 September 1722, an Irish woman known only by the name “Grace” was apparently killed by a dobhar-chu while she was washing her clothes in Glenade Lake. Screaming for help, she was heard by her husband who, with a friend, arrived too late to save her. Finding the dobhar-chu sitting atop her mutilated body, he stabbed it. The whistling noise it made as it died alerted another dobhar-chu, which arose from the lake and chased the man and his friend. However, they were able to kill it before it hurt either man.
World History
Wednesday, September 27, 1854. : The first major disaster involving an ocean liner occurs when the ‘Arctic’ sinks, killing over 300.
The “Arctic” was one of four sidewheel steamships built for the New York and Liverpool United States Mail Steamship Company, also known as the Collins Line. The Arctic was 87 metres long, with 10 metre paddle wheels on either side. It could traverse the distance from New York to Liverpool in a record-breaking nine days.
On the morning of 20 September 1854 the Arctic sailed from Liverpool with 150 crew and between 322 and 389 passengers. On 27 September 1854 it was 85km off the Newfoundland coast when it collided with the French steamship, “Vesta”, a propeller-driven steamer much smaller than the Arctic. Concerned by the water pouring in through a gaping hole in the hull, Captain James Luce attempted to make for the coast, but the ship sank an hour later. Many of the crew took the lifeboats which were already inadequate in number, and in the end not a single woman or child who was aboard the vessel survived. Captain Luce gallantly tried to save many, but dehydration and exhaustion caused them to drop off the paddle-wheel box to which Luce and others clung. Luce gave a true account of his crew’s cowardice. Of the 87 survivors overall, only 22 had been passengers. Around 350 people were killed that day.