Cirrus@Austlit

19th-Century Australian Travel Writing

The authorship of Out and About has been attributed to James Bonwick, teacher, author, historian and archivist, who moved to Hobart in 1841 to manage the proposed normal school. Bonwick published school textbooks, Discovery and Settlement of Port Phillip (1856), John Batman (1867), Curious Facts of Old Colonial Days (1870), Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians (1870), and The Last of the Tasmanians (1870). Out and About is divided into three separate narratives, the first relevant to Australia. It contrasts the life of a school teacher in Australia compared to that of England. Bonwick composes a travel narrative of Australia describing misadventures as a school teacher in the bush, his conversations with Aboriginal people, the gold diggings, as well as accounts of the different types of schooling in Australia. Bonwick also comments on the gambling, drinking, and general immorality of the diggers, and the negative effects this has on the youth within the colony. In this work the author predominantly travels across South Australia and Victoria.

See also the note in University of Melbourne catalogue attributing second work 'The California Overland Express' to William Tallack.