Cirrus@Austlit

19th-Century Australian Travel Writing

Henry Hussey (1825-1903) was an evangelist, millenarian, printer and historian, who printed the South Australian Register and the Adelaide Observer during the gold rushes. In 1855 he published an account of his fifteen year residence in Australia in The Australian Colonies. According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Hussey progressed from printing to publishing Evangelical and millenarian journals, and to bookselling at his Bible Hall and Tract Depot in Adelaide. Published in 1897, More than Half a Century of Colonial Life and Christian Experience was his autobiography. The manuscript provides a detailed account of his life working for the church and described South Australia in its early stages. Living in Australia as a printer and pastor, his publishing saw him engage in literary endeavours. According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography he won the 1862 Gawler Institute competition for a history of South Australia, a project that allowed Hussey access to government archives and the papers of George French Angas; this led to Hussey becoming Angas’ private secretary in 1865.