Western Victoria

Its Geography Geology and Social Condition

The Narrative of an Educational Tour in 1857

by James Bonwick

Edited with an introduction and notes by C. E. Sayers

William Heinemann, 1970, hardcover, dust-jacket

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing to edges and corners, previous owners inscription on front end-paper, minor foxing to top fore-edge, dust-jacket shows minor edge and shelf wear with minor rubbing to edges and corners (see photographs)

"The importance of James Bonwick in the annals of Australian literature, particularly in the field of history, is being increasingly recognised.  From 1844 until 1902, four years before he died in London in his eighty-ninth year, Bonwick, a school-teacher and a man of boundless energy, wrote over a hundred books and pamphlets, including histories, text-books, biographies and geographies.
A conscientious, painstaking historian and researcher, Bonwick's most notable work, The Discovery and Settlement of Port Phillip, was published in 1856, and in that year Bonwick became an inspector of denominational schools in Victoria.
The chief appeal of the Narrative rests in its critical evaluation of the primitive a schools' system of the mid 1850s, a time when the demand for State-controlled education was growing.  Within a few years of its publication in 1858, the first State education system in Victoria was inaugurated."