Monday 20 July 2026
Kangaroo Island before colonisation
Presented by Dr Rick Hosking
We now know that more than 700 individuals and dozens of vessels visiting Kangaroo Island between 1802 and 1836, when formal colonisation began. They came for seal skins and salt, and some of them to settle on Kangaroo Island and other islands off the main. I’ll talk about the sealing industry, and about a remarkable novel written by William Anderson Cawthorne which represents the murder of one of the sealers, a Tasmanian called George Meredith.
Dr Rick Hosking is a retired academic from Flinders University, where he taught English and Australian Studies. William Cawthorne’s colonial novel, The Kangaroo Islanders, was written in the mid-1850s before any official or more orthodox history of the South Australian colony had appeared and is one of the few colonial novels that represents in fleeting glimpses some of the improvisational and interactive encounters between the colonisers and the colonised on the edges of the island continent. A remarkable and colourful book, this novel represents life on Kangaroo Island in the period between 1802-1836. In 2020, Rick annotated the book extensively with absorbing historical information and fascinating details of personalities and events, making this new edition a delight for both fiction fans and history buffs.
Document:
Record of Meeting
View the record of all past meetings which details all talks given at meetings by guest speakers since our foundation in 1980. Most meetings since 1985 have been recorded.
| No. | * | B | T | d | doc | Date | Topic, Speaker, Detail |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 499 | 15/11/2027 | November 2027 Meeting | |||||
| 499 (RMN 485) | doc | 20/7/2026 | Kangaroo Island before colonisationPresented by Dr Rick Hosking We now know that more than 700 individuals and dozens of vessels visiting Kangaroo Island between 1802 and 1836, when… |
Legend
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