Cirrus@Austlit

'At the core of Bennelong and Phillip: A History Unravelled is Kate Fullagar’s sharp critique of the historiography produced by earlier historians about the two key figures in the development of the Colony of New South Wales: Wangal leader Bennelong and Arthur Phillip, the first governor. Fullagar is fed up with histories which reduce these two men’s lives to mere emblems, framing them in oppositional tropes representing either the arrival of modernity (Phillip) or cultural depravity (Bennelong). Phillip is routinely cast as the beginning, bringing modernity while Bennelong an ending, their lives consistently linked and readily retold in directly causal ways. Bennelong’s history, Fullagar contends, has never been conceived outside of Phillip’s colonial story. And yet she brings them together again here, another dual biography, but with a massive twist.' (Introduction)

'Between 1876 and 1904 the executioner in New South Wales was a man by the name of Robert Howard, more commonly known during his day as Nosey Bob. Nicknamed Nosey Bob for the lack of a nose, caused by a horse hoof to the face (or was it syphilis? Franks asks), Howard holds the unenviable record, at twenty-eight years, for the longest term as executioner in the colony. There were only two others who came close, Thomas Hughes and Alexander Green (twenty-three and twenty-one years respectively). The remainder of the hangmen between 1788 and 1908 each lasted only a handful of years. Howard’s two direct predecessors ended their careers within a short time and spent the rest of their lives battling severe alcohol addiction. Howard too had a propensity to drink, according to records of his minor run-ins with the law, but his ability to keep sober for the job, his quiet life with his family in Bondi, his unassuming nature when carrying out the sentences, and his own issues with writing mean that there is relatively little available for unearthing.' (Introduction)