Australia’s Founding Mothers

by Helen Heney

Thomas Nelson Australia, 1978, [First Edition], ISBN 0170050912, black and white photographic plates, hardcover, dustjacket  

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, previous owners sticker on front endpaper, dustjacket shows a little edge and shelf wear with a little rubbing, bumping, chipping and marking (see photographs)

“The significance of the part played by women in founding the colony at Sydney Cover and in bearing the first generation of Australians is shown dramatically in this account of the various roles played by bond and free from the departure of the First Fleet until the end of Macquarie’s governship.
the British Government took on itself a heavy responsibility when it transported women of child-bearing age to a colony of sex-starved men.  Most of the convict women suffered ruthless sexual exploitation; all the involuntary exiles – whether wives of officials or prisoners – suffered unappeasable nostalgia and homesick-ness in a remote and hostile land.  Yet they survived and their children flourished.
Helen Heney brings to life the ebullient London prostitutes who so bothered and shocked their gaolers; the well-behaved prisoners who formed the majority; the quarrelsome or steady de facto wives; the free women who helped or ignored the disadvantaged.  Here, too, are Margaret Catchpole and Mary Reibey, as well as the wives of officials (Mrs Richard Johnson, Mrs Samuel Marsden, Elizabeth Macquarie, Anna Josepha King, Elizabeth Macarthur), and Bligh’s fiery daughter, Mary, who remains an enigma...”