Born on this day
Thursday, September 7, 1876. : C J Dennis, Australian journalist, poet and author of ‘The Sentimental Bloke’, is born.
C J Dennis was born Clarence Michael James Dennis on 7 September 1876. Born in Auburn, South Australia, as the son of a publican, he was brought up by his prudish aunts. He was keen on writing from a young age, and several of his early verses were published in the ‘Critic’ in 1898. Dennis became editor of the ‘Critic’ in 1904, and two years later he helped launch the satirical weekly magazine, ‘The Gadfly’. After this, he worked as a freelance journalist in Melbourne, until his big success, ‘The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke’.
‘The Sentimental Bloke’, as it came to be known, was a love story, written in slang. Initially rejected by a Melbourne publisher, it was picked up by Angus and Robertson and published in 1915. It became an immediate success for its irreverent larrikinism and use of Australian slang.
C J Dennis continued to write other satirical verses which were also popular. He died in 1939.
Born on this day
Monday, September 7, 1936. : Buddy Holly, rock ‘n’ roll singer of the 1950s, is born.
Buddy Holly was born Charles Hardin Holley on 7 September, 1936, in Lubbock, Texas. Growing up in a musically minded family, he played the violin, piano and guitar, and debuted in country and western music. He moved into the arena of rock ‘n’ roll, and became one of the first to use overdubbing and double-tracking during production of his music. He is best known for the songs “That’ll Be the Day” and “Peggy Sue.”
Buddy Holly was killed in a plane crash in 1959, along with fellow rock ‘n’ roll musicians Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson. His death was recorded as ‘the day the music died’ in Don McLean’s classic ‘American Pie’.
Australian Explorers
Thursday, September 7, 1815. : Australian explorer John McDouall Stuart is born.
John McDouall Stuart was born in Dysart, Fife, Scotland, on 7 September 1815. He arrived in South Australia in 1839. He had a passion for exploration and gained experience when he was employed as a draughtsman by Captain Charles Sturt on an expedition into the desert interior. Sturt hoped to find the inland sea which had eluded him since he first followed the Murray River in the late 1820s. All the explorers found was Sturt’s Stony Desert and the Simpson Desert. After Sturt’s second-in-command, James Poole, died of scurvy, Sturt appointed Stuart in his place. Both men survived to return to Adelaide, but suffered greatly from scurvy. The effects of this remained with Stuart for a year, and returned to haunt him later during his own explorations in the early 1860s.
Following his experience with Sturt, Stuart was determined to cross Australia from south to north. It was on his fifth expedition and third attempt to cross the continent that he succeeded, returning alive, blinded from scurvy, but alive. His health suffered for the rest of his life, and he died in 1866, aged fifty years.
Australian Explorers
Wednesday, September 7, 1825. : Major Edmund Lockyer arrives in Brisbane to explore the upper reaches of the Brisbane River.
Edmund Lockyer was born on 21 January 1784 in Plymouth, Devon. He arrived as a British soldier in Sydney, New South Wales, in 1825.
Later in 1825, Lockyer was given command of an expedition to explore the upper reaches of the Brisbane River, which ticket-of-leave convicts Pamphlett, Finnegan and Parsons had discovered, and informed explorer John Oxley about, in 1823. A new convict settlement had been established on the Brisbane River after the 1824 attempt to colonise the Redcliffe Peninsula had failed, due to lack of fresh water. Lockyer’s commission was to explore further up the Brisbane River and report to the Governor.
The expedition left Sydney on 2 September 1825 in the cutter “Mermaid” and arrived at Brisbane on 7 September. Lockyer then used a smaller boat to explore the river. He became the first to sight coal on the banks near the junction of the (now) Bremer and Brisbane Rivers.
Lockyer later went on to lead an expedition to claim Western Australia for Britain. He established a military base at King Georges Sound which originally bore the name of Frederick’s Town: it was later renamed Albany.
Major Lockyer died on 10 June 1860. The Lockyer Valley and Lockyer Creeks west of Brisbane are now named after Edmund Lockyer, first explorer of the southeast beyond the coastal waters.
Australian History
Monday, September 7, 1936. : The last known Thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger, dies.
The Thylacine is, or was, a carnivorous marsupial living in Australia, specifically the island of Tasmania, up until the twentieth century. It is believed that the Thylacine existed on the Australian mainland until the introduction of the dingo. Although the Thylacine is often called the Tasmanian Tiger or Tasmanian Wolf, it is neither of these. Its body was similar in shape to that of the placental wolf, but it was a marsupial, putting it in an entirely different class. It stood about 60cm tall, with a body length of up to 130cm, not including its tail, up to 66cm long.
With the arrival of the European settlers in Tasmania, the Thylacine was doomed. Farmers shot the creatures, fearing their threat to livestock, while hunters prized them as trophies; these acts were supported by the government of the time which offered a bounty of one pound for every dead adult Thylacine and ten shillings for each dead Thylacine joey.
The last known specimen of the Thylacine died in the Hobart Zoo on 7 September 1936. The last captive animals were exhibited in zoos, where their needs were not understood, and the Thylacines in Hobart died from exposure. Despite numerous apparent “sightings” over the years, not one of these has ever been confirmed, and the Thylacine is now officially classified as Extinct.
Australian History
Sunday, September 7, 1986. : The last section of the sealed National Highway around Australia is completed, between Fitzroy Crossing and Halls Creek.
The first road in Australia, outside of Sydney, was completed in 1815. William Cox was commissioned to build the road to Bathurst, using convict labour. The original Great Western Highway covered 161 km and incorporated twelve bridges. This road was just the first step in the highway network that would eventually extend across and around the entire continent.
The National Highway Act was initiated in 1974 as a means to establish a fully sealed national highway around Australia. The Federal government funded the building of the highways, although construction and maintenance was the responsibility of the various State and Territory Governments. The final section of the sealed highway around Australia was opened on 7 September 1986. It had taken five years to widen and seal the 289 kilometre section of the Great Northern Highway between Fitzroy Crossing and Halls Creek in Western Australia. Although other sections of the National Highway were rerouted in ensuing years, the Fitzroy Crossing-Halls Creek link was considered to be the last section to be sealed.
World History
Saturday, September 7, 1940. : The German airforce begins the ‘Blitz’ – its intensive bombing campaign on London in WWII.
The London Blitz was an intense bombing campaign on London in World War II by the German air force, the Luftwaffe. The Blitz took its name from the German word Blitzkrieg, meaning ‘Lightning War’. Hundreds of civilians were killed, and many more injured, in the initial attack which took place on 7 September 1940. The first raids were concentrated on the heavily populated East End, as about 300 bomber planes attacked the city over a 90 minute period. The attack started a series of fires which lit up the night sky, guiding in the German forces for another attack, commencing about 8:30pm.
Prior to this sustained attack, the German air force had spent a month attempting to decimate the British air force. Failure to achieve this objective had resulted in the Blitz, designed to crush the morale of the British people. The Blitz lasted for over 8 months, killed about 43,000 civilians, and destroyed over one million homes. During the Blitz, the Luftwaffe lost most of its experienced aircrew and hundreds of aircraft. By drawing the focus away from the British air force, it gave the RAF time to regroup and rebuild. Despite the Luftwaffe’s best attempts, the British people never lost their morale or their fighting spirit.