YOU’RE INVITED: BOOK LAUNCH
11.00am 9th December 2017
The Personal Diary of
John Clark Junior
From Queenscliff to the Goldfields
A record of life in 1800s Victoria
Join us at the Queenscliff Maritime Museum, next Saturday morning, to learn about the collaboration between our Historian Les Irving-Dusting and local Writer and Publisher Greg Wane in bringing the story of John Clark Junior’s personal journal to print.
The journal describes how 15 year old John Clark Junior survived the shipwreck of the Columbine whilst emigrating with his parents from Scotland to Melbourne. Just hours away from their destination John’s parents were drowned after the Columbine hit a reef near Ocean Grove. John survived the wreck and was the only one to see Melbourne.
Les and Greg have painstakingly transcribed the copperplate script handwriting which flowed across the journal pages telling of a young man’s thoughts, struggles, and triumphs. John’s adventures and journeys tell of time spent in early Queenscliff, being in Melbourne during Ned Kelly’s hanging and life on the Goldfields.
The personal journal includes a detailed description of the shipwreck and beginnings in a new land of opportunity and is a very interesting and insightful read.
The diary was discovered when, upon hearing of an exhibition about the Columbine at the Queenscliffe Maritime Museum, Margaret Bassett, a local resident from Colac, contacted the Museum to say that she had an old diary, that had been kept with personal papers belonging to her great-grandfather which was written by John Clark Junior.
WHEN:
On Saturday 9 December 2017 – 11.00am
Tea and coffee provided.
COST:
FREE ADMISSION!
LOCATION:
Queenscliffe Maritime Museum
2 Wharf Street, Queenscliff, VIC 3225
CONTACT DETAILS:
Wendy Parker or Les Irving-Dusting
info@maritimequeenscliffe.org.au
03 5258 3440
This book is proudly published in Australia for the Queenscliffe Maritime Museum.