COMMANDANT OF SOLITUDE

The Journals of Captain Collet Barker 1828-1831

By John Mulvaney and Neville Green

Publisher : Melbourne University Press Date : 1992 Format : Hardback in dustjacket Pages : 431 pages Dimensions : 25 x 18 cm. Illustrations : 8 pages of colour photos and 8 pages of b+w photos, plus line drawing maps in the text Condition : Very Good condition. Light sun fading to the spine. One bottom edge has a small dent.

After seeing service in the Peninsular War, Canada and Ireland, Captain Collet Barker (1784-1831) was posted to New South Wales, but he spent less than a month in the relative comfort of Sydney Town. He was sent to command the isolated settlement at Raffles Bay (near modern Darwin) for just over a year and was then transferred to King George Sound (Albany), both tiny communities on the furthest frontiers of empire.

Prehistorian D.J. Mulvaney and historian Neville Green have laboriously deciphered Barker's journals, revealing the texture of life in the frontier settlements. Here is Barkers's account of his day-to-day problems in the most remote settlements in the continent. He had to deal with difficult officials, unruly soldiers and escaping convicts. He had to try to meet the inflexible demands of the Colonial Office, and at the same time struggle to raise crops and animals in unfamiliar soil and climate. He took an enlightened interest in the Aborigines, and his journals provide a unique account of contact between white and black.