Detective work leads to a remarkable life story
Published on 23 July, 2009
About 4 years ago, Emeritus Professor Ken Dutton was called on to inspect a hand-written volume found during a stocktake in the library at the University of Newcastle.
The volume was mostly written in French and the archivist remembered that Professor Dutton had been a French specialist. LINK here for more on VIDEO
Neither the French nor the English contributors were readily identified but sustained detective work has since revealed the volume's amazing history.
It turns out the pages were originally used as lecture notes by General Francoise Jarry, a distinguished French officer who co-founded the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst.
A few years after General Jarry's death, early in the 1800s, the young Charles Gray arrived at Sandhurst and befriended Jarry's widow.
No-one knows for sure how Gray ended up with Jarry's lecture notes, but he found there were 40 blank pages at the back of the book which he later used as a diary of his life as a settler in Australia.
His military life included taking part in the Siege of Bharatpur in India, service in Spain and Portugal and the famous Waterloo campaign against Napolean's forces in 1815.
As a retired Lieutenant-Colonel, Gray emigrated to New South Wales with his wife and family and settled on a property near Port Macquarie, which was worked by convict labour.
He later moved to Ipswich as Police Magistrate (1853) and in 1859 accepted the invitation to become Parliamentary Librarian and Usher of the Black Rod in the first Queensland Parliament.
Professor Dutton's interest in the Jarry-Gray volume led to the unearthing of detailed hand-written accounts of Gray's military service.
All this research has informed the soon-to-be released book That Gallant Gentleman, to be published by CQUniPress.
Also coming soon from CQUniPress are The Sky Racers (about the first England to Australia air racers), Master Mariner (the remarkable story of Captain Harold Chesterman) and Desert Tsunami (changing the way you think about Australia's interior).
For more details visit: http://www.outbackbooks.com