Written in his own words by an emigrant who first travelled to New South Wales in 1848, The Life and Adventures of Mr George Robertson Nicoll will be launched at a celebration to be held in Edinburgh on 14th May this year at National Records of Scotland, H.M. General Register House, Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The journal, completed in 1897, charts the life-story of George Robertson Nicoll, born in Dundee, Scotland in September 1824 and died at Ventnor on the Isle of Wight in April 1901. During his life-time, George travelled to and from Australia on a dozen occasions, making a living for himself and his family through ship’s carpentry, gold digging, farming, shop keeping, house building and latterly, coastal trading. Unusually for a craftsman, George kept a journal, and, thanks to his careful record-keeping , we learn about social, cultural and family life in Dundee in the first half of the nineteenth century, as well as about the trials and tribulations of immigrant work and life in New South Wales in the second half of the century. We also get insight into early international tourism, as George, by then retired and wealthy, travelled to Canada and America, France and Italy, the Middle East, China and Japan in the last ten years of his life.
George Robertson Nicoll’s unpublished journal is available to access in its original leather-bound form at the National Library of Australia (NLA) in Canberra and is also available digitally. Now published for the first time by the Scottish Record Society (with kind permission of the NLA), the journal is introduced and edited by me; George is my third great grand uncle. In addition to transcribing the hand-written journal, end-notes and appendices have been added, so there is much for both the family and academic historian to follow up and enjoy.
The Life and Adventures of Mr George Robertson Nicoll is available this year from the Scottish Record Society (SRS) through subscription only (most major libraries are subscribers) but will be available to order online more broadly next year. ISBN 978-0-902054-11-0.
Get in touch with SRS direct or email me, Viv Cree, on v.cree@ed.ac.uk/
