Cirrus@Austlit

On the 6th January, probably in 1837, the author (James Martin) embarked on a journey via a steamer on the Parramatta River, to Parramatta, North Rocks and Windsor on the Hawkesbury River. The author briefly mentions the residences of John Macarthur, Richard Rouse, 'Mr Macdougall' and George Suttor.

The White-Boys, or Whiteboys, (also called Levellers) were an eighteenth century Irish secret society that defended, with violence, Irish tenant farmers rights.

Elena Grainger in her biography of James Martin, Martin of Martin Place, describes this work as 'a story of a ride from Dublin to Cork demonstrating his lifelong aptitude for convincing descriptions of places he had never seen but had read about' (23). The story may have been retold to Martin by his mother or father who were from Cork, Ireland.

Source: Grainger, Elena. Martin of Martin Place (1970): 23

An imposter, Mr Bedford, tricks a colonial family, Mr and Mrs Dibbs and their daughter, out of 500 pounds sterling, two horses and their pride. It is revealed at the end of the story that the impersonator 'was the celebrated Lord Lascelles!'.

'Lord Lascelles' (John Dow alias John Colquhoun alias Edward, Lord Lascelles) was a conman in the colony of New South Wales in the early 1830s. The Sydney Herald newspaper of 27 July 1835 notes that 'The celebrated "Lord Lascelles," with other convicts, embarked on board the brig Siren, on Saturday last, under a military guard, preparatory to "His Lordship's" transmission to Hobart Town.' (3)

In her biography of James Martin, Martin of Martin Place, Elena Grainger describes this work as 'the basis of his chapter under that name in the Sketch Book' (23). The work is similar in writing style and some content to the work of the same title in Martin's Australian Sketch Book (1838).

Source: Grainger, Elena. Martin of Martin Place (Sydney, Alpha Books, 1970): 18, 23