In 1859, John and Rosa Davis had been married for nine years1. had four young children2, and lived in Macclesfield, South Australia, a colony less than thirty years old3. In February of that year, a bushfire ravaged the area and several lives were lost.
There are no less than ten contemporary newspaper accounts. The damage caused by the fire was so widespread that detail about individual losses was lost. An Inquest into the fire lists J Davis (among others) simply as houseless4. It found, “That the fire originated in a section belonging to Mr. John Heyward, near Echunga, but by what means it was started, there is no evidence to show.”
In 1859 rural Australia, communication was by post and printed newspapers. There were no fire engines, motorised or electrical devices, no weather reports, or warning systems. The Bureau of Meteorology5 and even the clichéd outback radio were more than fifty years away.
One can only guess at how this could have been experienced by these European inhabitants.
References:
- Australia, Marriage Index,1850, p 160, Vol 14 John Davis and Rosa Sophia Marry Wills (http://www.ancestrylibrary.com/ retrieved 31 January 2017) [↩]
- Adams, GF, Family History Workbook, unpublished, p 83.[↩]
- Tourist Information Distributors, “Exploring Adelaide: Brief History” (http://www.exploringaustralia.com.au/history.php?s=adel retrieved 3 January 2017) [↩]
- 1859 ‘MACCLESFIELD.’, South Australian Weekly Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1858 – 1867), 12 February, p. 5. , viewed 03 Feb 2017, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article96494916[↩]
- Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology, “Centenary of the Bureau, A hundred years young” (http://www.bom.gov.au/inside/centenary.shtml retrieved, 3 January 2017) [↩]
Leave a Reply