'A landmark and revealing joint biography of Elizabeth and John Macarthur, from one of Australia’s most respected historians.
'Arriving in 1790, Elizabeth and John Macarthur, both aged 23, were the first married couple to travel voluntarily from Europe to Australia, within three years of the initial invasion. John Macarthur soon became famous in New South Wales and beyond as a wool pioneer, a politician, and a builder of farms at Parramatta and Camden. For a long time, Elizabeth’s life was regarded as contingent on John’s and, more recently, John’s on Elizabeth’s.
'In Elizabeth and John, Alan Atkinson, prizewinning author of Europeans in Australia, draws on his work on the Macarthur family over 50 years to explore the dynamics of a strong and sinewy marriage, and family life over two generations. With the truth of John and Elizabeth Macarthur’s relationship much more complicated and more deeply human than other writers have suggested, Atkinson provides a finely drawn portrait of a powerful partnership.' (Publication summary)
'For some time now, Elizabeth Macarthur has taken form in the work of scholars as an individual distinct from the ‘domestic life’ that has long been recognised as fundamental to the powerful ‘public’ role of John and the Macarthur family in Australian settler colonial history. Here Atkinson shifts the spotlight away from these two individuals to examine the dynamic partnership they produced as a couple, which enabled both to ‘achieve’ in the terms of settler society. Their collaboration was rare, Elizabeth being among the few educated settler women in the colony, and this brought a host of advantages to John beyond domestic comforts and even complex management of their farm in his absence. As Atkinson shows, the man with a wife in the colony had an additional range of transnational sociabilities with both women and men that were critical to establishing new relationships of trust in an unfamiliar locale and sustaining others across the globe. These may have been all the more significant for this couple, since John was widely regarded by contemporaries as challenging or, more politely, restless. Atkinson sets the Macarthurs’ partnership in this wider fabric of connections that supported them, but equally constrained and bound them to old frameworks, ideas and ties.' (Introduction)
'As the book cover tells us, Elizabeth and John Macarthur were the first married couple who chose to travel to the new colony of New South Wales, arriving in 1790, both aged twenty-three. John has come down to us as the legendary soldier, entrepreneur and pastoralist who became one of the largest landholders in the colony, promoting the colonial wool industry, tussling with a string of governors (including William Bligh, overthrown in 1808), speculating in trade, and generally earning the epithet ‘perturbator’, bestowed upon him by Philip Gidley King. John’s lengthy periods away from the colony left Elizabeth in charge of their affairs, and she has also been credited with the family’s survival and success. Here Alan Atkinson explores the dynamics of their marriage and family life across two generations.' (Introduction)
'John Macarthur has been a polarising figure in Australian history since HV Evatt’s rehabilitation of his adversary, William Bligh first appeared in 1937. Evatt cast Macarthur as a defender of landed wealth; brilliant but without ‘scruple or ‘pity’ (1944, Rum Rebellion, 197). MH Ellis countered this revisionism in his sympathetic 1955 biography of Macarthur. John’s longstanding place as nation-builder was reinforced with Gordon Andrews’ 1966 design of the new colourful two-dollar note featuring a handsome Macarthur and an equally impressive merino ram; a brilliantly distilled history lesson for Australians for 20 years. Decades later he was a ‘colonial bully’.' (Introduction)
'Alan Atkinson wants to rescue John and Elizabeth Macarthur from the judgements of history'
(Publication summary)
(Publication summary)
'John Macarthur has been a polarising figure in Australian history since HV Evatt’s rehabilitation of his adversary, William Bligh first appeared in 1937. Evatt cast Macarthur as a defender of landed wealth; brilliant but without ‘scruple or ‘pity’ (1944, Rum Rebellion, 197). MH Ellis countered this revisionism in his sympathetic 1955 biography of Macarthur. John’s longstanding place as nation-builder was reinforced with Gordon Andrews’ 1966 design of the new colourful two-dollar note featuring a handsome Macarthur and an equally impressive merino ram; a brilliantly distilled history lesson for Australians for 20 years. Decades later he was a ‘colonial bully’.' (Introduction)
'Alan Atkinson wants to rescue John and Elizabeth Macarthur from the judgements of history'
'As the book cover tells us, Elizabeth and John Macarthur were the first married couple who chose to travel to the new colony of New South Wales, arriving in 1790, both aged twenty-three. John has come down to us as the legendary soldier, entrepreneur and pastoralist who became one of the largest landholders in the colony, promoting the colonial wool industry, tussling with a string of governors (including William Bligh, overthrown in 1808), speculating in trade, and generally earning the epithet ‘perturbator’, bestowed upon him by Philip Gidley King. John’s lengthy periods away from the colony left Elizabeth in charge of their affairs, and she has also been credited with the family’s survival and success. Here Alan Atkinson explores the dynamics of their marriage and family life across two generations.' (Introduction)
'For some time now, Elizabeth Macarthur has taken form in the work of scholars as an individual distinct from the ‘domestic life’ that has long been recognised as fundamental to the powerful ‘public’ role of John and the Macarthur family in Australian settler colonial history. Here Atkinson shifts the spotlight away from these two individuals to examine the dynamic partnership they produced as a couple, which enabled both to ‘achieve’ in the terms of settler society. Their collaboration was rare, Elizabeth being among the few educated settler women in the colony, and this brought a host of advantages to John beyond domestic comforts and even complex management of their farm in his absence. As Atkinson shows, the man with a wife in the colony had an additional range of transnational sociabilities with both women and men that were critical to establishing new relationships of trust in an unfamiliar locale and sustaining others across the globe. These may have been all the more significant for this couple, since John was widely regarded by contemporaries as challenging or, more politely, restless. Atkinson sets the Macarthurs’ partnership in this wider fabric of connections that supported them, but equally constrained and bound them to old frameworks, ideas and ties.' (Introduction)
