A Narrative Of A Visit To The Australian Colonies

London: Hamilton, Adams, And Co. & York: John L.Linney, 1843., 1843. 8vo. pp. xii, [2]plate list & errata, 560, cxliv. 3 folding engraveded maps by J.Wyld, 15 etched plates (1 folding), & 11 text illus. original blind-stamped cloth, recased (slight fraying to extremities, some foxing to plates, outer margin of folding plate slightly ragged). First Edition. Quaker missionaries James Backhouse and George Washington Walker spent six years in Australia investigating penal and Aboriginal establishments and natural history, 1832-38. They visited Van Diemen’s Land, Norfolk Island, Moreton Bay, Port Macquarie, Wellington Valley, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth, and were encouraged and given free access in their investigations by Lieut.-Governor Arthur and Governor Bourke. Their important reports (some printed here in the Appendix) were sent to these administrators as well to the London Friends and the Colonial Office, and were used by reformers of prisons and Aboriginal settlements. Backhouse and Walker also distributed religious literature, urged the formation of non-sectarian charities, encouraged savings banks, benevolent and prison societies, established a Quaker meeting house in Hobart, inspected hospitals and recommended asylums and human treatment for the insane. Backhouse, who was a botanist, collected a valuable herbarium which he sent to Kew Gardens, and in recognition of his contribution to the knowledge of Australian vegetation, particularly of the inland species, the genus of a myrtaceous shrub was named Backhousia. Included among the plates, after drawings by Backhouse, is a notable depiction of a convict chain-gang. An essential source for the period, with much invaluable information on the subjects with which it deals. Ferguson 3558. Hocken 238. Bagnall 238. Smith I p. 156.. 1st Edition. Hardcover.