Born on this day
Sunday, February 22, 1857. : Sir Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout movement, is born.
Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell was born on 22 February 1857 in Paddington, London. He was a keen outdoorsman who enjoyed hunting, canoeing and yachting. Baden-Powell’s military career offered him opportunities to develop skills that would later become the essence of the Boy Scout movement, and he impressed his superiors enough to be transferred to the British Secret Service, where he continued to work as an intelligence officer.
After some years of this and other military experience, he wrote a small manual entitled “Aids to Scouting”, which summarised lectures he had given on military scouting exercises to help train recruits. The lectures concentrated on training young men to think independently and with initiative, and to survive in the wilderness. Although intended for military use, the training manual soon became widely used by teachers and youth organisations. Baden-Powell consulted with the founder of the Boys’ Brigade, Sir William Alexander Smith, and subsequently re-wrote the manual to suit the youth market. He held the first camp to test out his reworked ideas in July 1907 on Brownsea Island, for 22 boys of mixed social backgrounds.
Born on this day
Saturday, February 22, 1879. : Norman Lindsay, one of Australia’s best-known artists, is born.
Norman Alfred William Lindsay was born on 22 February 1879 in Creswick, Victoria, Australia. After leaving home at age 17, he began working as principal cartoonist for the Australian Bulletin in Melbourne, whilst developing his skills as an artist. His paintings were controversial for their time, concentrating on nudes, often incorporating pagan themes of gods and goddesses, nymphs and satyrs, in an Australian bush setting. Much of his work, which includes watercolours, lithographs, and etchings, can be found at his former home at Faulconbridge, New South Wales, now the Norman Lindsay Gallery and Museum.
As well as his prolific output of paintings, Lindsay was a writer who completed eleven novels between 1913 and 1950. His best-known work is possibly “The Magic Pudding”, a children’s classic about a sarcastic and bad-tempered walking, talking pudding that can be whatever food it wants to be, and eaten without ever running out. Lindsay died on 21 November 1969.
Born on this day
Thursday, February 22, 1962. : Australian icon, the ‘Crocodile Hunter’ Steve Irwin, is born.
Stephen Robert “Steve” Irwin was born on 22 February 1962 in Essendon, Melbourne, Victoria. He moved to Queensland when he was still a child, where his parents developed and ran the Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park. In 1991, Irwin took over the running of the park, which was later renamed “Australia Zoo”.
As a passionate environmentalist, Irwin became known for the television program “The Crocodile Hunter”, an unconventional wildlife documentary series which he hosted with his wife Terri Irwin. Irwin’s outgoing personality, energetic vitality and outrageous antics in the series made him an international celebrity. He also starred in Animal Planet documentaries, including The Croc Files, The Crocodile Hunter Diaries, and New Breed Vets.
Australia lost one of its most popular icons and ambassadors in the early afternoon of 4 September 2006. Steve Irwin was filming an underwater documentary off the Great Barrier Reef, when he was fatally pierced in the heart by a stingray barb. He is survived by his wife Terri, daughter Bindi, born in 1998 and son Robert (Bob), born in 2004.
Australian History
Wednesday, February 22, 1792. : The first land grant to convict James Ruse is officially added to the NSW colonial records.
James Ruse was born on a farm in Cornwall around 1759. At age 22, he was convicted of burglary and, due to severe over-crowding in British gaols, spent over four years on the prison hulks in Plymouth Harbour. He was one of the convicts who was transported in the First Fleet to New South Wales, sailing on the ‘Scarborough’. By the time he arrived in New South Wales, his seven-year sentence was almost over.
Governor Phillip was aware of the need to build a working, farming colony as soon as possible. Thus, in November 1788, Phillip selected Ruse to go to Rose Hill (now Parramatta), west of Sydney Town, and try his hand at farming. Ruse was allocated one and a half acres of already cleared ground and assisted in clearing a further five acres. He was given two sows and six hens, and a deal was made for him to be fed and clothed from the public store for 15 months. In return, if he was successful, he was to be granted 30 acres. Ruse’s farming venture was indeed successful, and in February 1791, he declared that he was self-sufficient. Late in March 1791, Governor Phillip rewarded Ruse with the first permanent land grant in the new colony, consisting of thirty acres, including the area he was already occupying. However, the first land grant was only officially added to the New South Wales colonial records almost a year later, on 22 February 1792.
Australian History
Wednesday, February 22, 1928. : Bert Hinkler becomes the first person to fly solo from the United Kingdom to Australia.
In 1919, when the Australian Federal Government announced a race in which it was offering £10,000 prize for the first Australians to fly from England to Australia within 30 days, this signalled a new era of ‘firsts’ in Australian aviation. The race was won by brothers Ross and Keith Smith, while would-be competitors W Hudson Fysh and Paul McGinness were motivated to start the air service that became Qantas when funding for their place in the race fell through. There were yet two more major players in Australian aviation history in the 1920s: Charles Kingsford-Smith and Bert Hinkler.
Herbert John Louis (Bert) Hinkler was born in Bundaberg, Queensland on 8 December 1892. His father was a sugar mill worker, but Bert’s interests lay elsewhere. By the time he was 20 years old, he had already successfully built and tested his own gliders capable of carrying a man, flying them along the beach at Mon Repos, near Bundaberg. Hinkler left for England to work for the Sopwith Company the year before World War I broke out. He then served in
the air force during the war, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. After the war he joined AV Roe & Co in Southampton and was
Chief Test Pilot from 1921 -1926. It was from England that Hinkler launched his attempts to be the first to fly solo from the UK to Australia.
War in Egypt and Syria forced Hinkler to abandon his first serious bid to fly to Australia. On his second, successful attempt, he departed England in his Avro Avian (G-EBOV) on 7 February 1929. After a trip lasting 16 days, he touched down in Darwin, Northern Territory on 22 February 1929, beating the previous record of 28 days which had been set by Ross and Keith Smith.
Hinkler was killed in Italy in January 1933 while attempting another solo flight from England to Australia. His life and achievements are commemorated in the Hinkler House Memorial Museum in his home town of Bundaberg.
Australian History
Monday, February 22, 1965. : Australia’s Royal Mint, built for the purpose of producing new decimal currency, is opened.
Australia relied on currency sent from England during the first decades of its establishment as a British colony. Both the NSW Legislative Council and Victoria’s Legislative Council petitioned Her Majesty Queen Victoria in 1851 and 1852 respectively to establish a branch of the Royal Mint (London). NSW was successful, and a branch of the Royal Mint began operations in Sydney on 14 May 1855. It was not until Victoria’s extensive growth and wealth ensuing from the goldfields that another petition was successful. The Melbourne branch of the Royal Mint commenced operations on 12 June 1872.
With the planned introduction of decimal currency in the 1960s, the Commonwealth Government decided to establish a Mint in Canberra. This new Mint would supersede the London branches of the Royal Mint in Sydney and Melbourne. As it was commissioned to produce Australia’s decimal coinage, the Royal Australian Mint was therefore the first mint in Australia not to be a branch of the Royal Mint, London. The Royal Australian Mint, Canberra, was officially opened by His Royal Highness, The Duke of Edinburgh, on 22 February 1965.
World History
Saturday, February 22, 1879. : Frank Woolworth opens the first Woolworth store.
Franklin Winfield Woolworth was born on 13 April 1852 in Rodman, New York. Although he was the son of a farmer, Woolworth aspired to be a merchant, working for six years in a dry goods store. He noticed that leftover items were priced at five cents and placed on a table. Capitalising on the idea, he borrowed $300 to open a store where all items were priced at five cents. Woolworth opened his first five-cent store in Utica, New York, on 22 February 1879.
This first store was unsuccessful, so at his second store which was established in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in April 1879, Woolworth expanded the concept to include merchandise priced at ten cents. The second store succeeded, and Woolworth and his brother, Charles Sumner Woolworth, opened a large number of five-and-ten-cent stores. In 1911, the F.W. Woolworth Company was incorporated, uniting 586 stores founded by the Woolworth brothers and others. Although the Woolworth name has largely disappeared from the United States, it is still known in parts of the Commonwealth. However, the “Woolworths” chain operates under separate ownership and has no connection to the original American Woolworth.