Attainted No More - How Convicts Became Citizens (2012) (1.5 MB)European settlement of Australia mainly consisted of convicts and the people looking after them. The resulting penal colony was a unique social experiment that tested the British character and required a flexible approach to British law to suit the conditions. As time passed, many former convicts became wealthy and influential men who increasingly demanded an administration that was less military and more civilian. Their main concerns were the abolition of the law of convict attaint (which prevented anyone who arrived with a commuted death sentence from owning property), trial by jury and the right to vote and stand for parliament. These rights, enjoyed by any British citizen, were slowly and painfully achieved in the colony.The Perkal Brothers - Bespoke Shoemakers of Surry Hills (2014) (1.5 MB)Adam and Morris Perkal grew up in the Jewish community of a small town in Poland. Their peaceful life was shattered in September 1939 when German air force bombed their town, killing their mother and youngest brother and leaving the town in ruins. The two brothers managed to survive the ensuing Holocaust: Adam by passing himself off as an ethnic German but enduring ghettos and concentration camps, Morris by fleeing to the Soviet Union where he worked as a shoemaker. The brothers reunited in Sydney after the war and rebuilt their lives as bespoke shoemakers. They had many celebrity customers, but were happiest when making shoes to enable disabled people to walk again. John W. Ross. |
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