Dispatched Downunder: Tracing the Resting Places of the First Fleet
Australian History Local History Reference Antiquarian & Collectible Colonial History Genealogy & Family History Cemetery & Burial Studies
“Dispatched Downunder: Tracing the Resting Places of the First Fleet” is the indispensable field guide for anyone fascinated by Australia’s founding story. Author and Fellowship of First Fleeters researcher Ron Withington personally visited every known grave, cemetery and memorial from Norfolk Island to Tasmania to photograph headstones, cross-check parish registers and map exact GPS co-ordinates. The result is a 2013 hard-cover reference that goes far beyond the passenger lists found online: it tells you who lived, who died, where they were buried (and, just as importantly, where the graves are now lost under carparks or paddocks). Libraries regularly flag the book “missing” because it is borrowed and never returned; second-hand copies are snapped up by family historians who need the meticulous transcriptions of weather-worn inscriptions that no longer exist in situ.
What makes this copy especially attractive is condition: clean, tight pages with only minor shelf scuffing—no ex-library stamps, no inscriptions, no sun-fading that plagues most copies left on dashboards during cemetery crawls. It is the revised, expanded edition printed by the Fellowship itself, so every map, sketch and index page is present—vital because later digital reprints omit several plates for copyright reasons. Whether you are tracing a convict forebear, planning a heritage tour of New South Wales burial sites, or filling a gap in an Australiana collection, owning a solid hardback ensures the book survives the repeated flipping and note-taking that genealogy demands.
Collectors value the volume for three stand-out features: (1) the only complete gazetteer of First Fleet burials ever attempted; (2) 200-plus photographs of headstones taken before weathering and vandalism took their toll; and (3) Withington’s lively biographical vignettes that turn bare names into real people—thieves, marines, midwives and the colony’s first hangman. Because the print-run was small and the Fellowship rarely reprints, copies in this condition now trade for double the original cover price. Secure it now and you hold the key to Australia’s earliest European footprints—literally from the grave up.
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