Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    John Laurie and the Rum Hospital
    John Laurie and the Rum Hospital
    John Laurie and the Rum Hospital
    Ebook20 pages17 minutes

    John Laurie and the Rum Hospital

    By Justin Cahill

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    2016 is the bicentenary of the opening of Sydney’s ‘Rum Hospital.’ It earned its name from the partial monopoly Governor Macquarie granted to three local merchants to import rum in return for building it Prior accounts of the Hospital’s origins focus on Macquarie, the merchants and their disputes. Yet John Laurie, the contractor’s clerk of works, was also an interesting figure. Transported for larceny, he became a wealthy trader only to lose his fortune, become embroiled in a constitutional crisis, find himself transported to Moreton Bay and re-establish himself in New Zealand.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJustin Cahill
    Release dateJul 14, 2016
    ISBN9781310064135
    John Laurie and the Rum Hospital
    Author

    Justin Cahill

    Welcome to my Smashwords profile.I am a New Zealand-born writer, based in Sydney. My main interests are nature and history.My thesis was on the negotiations between the British and Chinese governments over the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997. It was used as a source in Dr John Wong’s Deadly Dreams: Opium, Imperialism and the Arrow War (1856-1860) in China, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998, the standard work on that conflict.I wrote a column on the natural history of the Wolli Creek Valley for the Earlwood News (sadly, now defunct) between 1992 and 1998.My short biography of the leading Australian ornithologist, Alfred North (1855-1917), was published in 1998.I write regular reviews on books about history for my blog,’ Justin Cahill Reviews’ and Booktopia. I’m also a regular contributor to the Sydney Morning Herald's 'Heckler' column.My current projects include completing the first history of European settlement in Australia and New Zealand told from the perspective of ordinary people and a study of the extinction of Sydney’s native birds.After much thought, I decided to make my work available on Smashwords. Australia and New Zealand both have reasonably healthy print publishing industries. But, like it or not, the future lies with digital publishing.So I’m grateful to Mark Coker for having the vision to establish Smashwords and for the opportunity to distribute my work on it.

    Read more from Justin Cahill

    Related to John Laurie and the Rum Hospital

    Related ebooks

    History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Great Frauds In History… Joseph Hunton’s Capital Folly

      Nov 12, 2021

      Joseph Hunton was born around 1770 in Norfolk. He worked as a clothes-seller in Great Yarmouth, marrying Fulliretta Sewell in 1806, who had a fortune of around £30,000. In 1821 he moved to Lea Hall in Leyton, then a village near London, popular with

      1 min read

    • Article

      Big Business On The Frontier

      Sep 1, 2022

      Big Business On The Frontier
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Man Who Enriched London

      Jul 8, 2022

      The Man Who Enriched London
      4 min read

    • Article

      Going Off The Rails

      Dec 15, 2020

      Going Off The Rails
      5 min read

    • Article

      Sir Daniel Cooper

      Apr 10, 2020

      Sir Daniel Cooper
      1 min read

    • Article

      NATIONAL Treasures

      Jul 17, 2020

      NATIONAL Treasures
      4 min read

    • Article

      In A Nutshell

      Sep 1, 2022

      WHAT WAS THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE? The South Sea Bubble was a period of speculation frenzy and collapse on the British stock market, revolving around the fate of a single company. For years, the South Sea Company had been at the centre of a complex and t

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Men Who Made The Empire Run

      Mar 18, 2021

      The Men Who Made The Empire Run
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Acts of Union 1707

      Jul 7, 2022

      The Acts of Union 1707
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Acts of Union 1707

      Jul 7, 2022

      The Acts of Union 1707
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Worst Trades In History… The Darien Scheme

      May 13, 2022

      William Paterson was born in Tinwald, Scotland, in 1658, and spent much of his 20s working as a merchant in the West Indies. In 1687 he returned to London and made his fortune with the Merchant Taylors’ Company, becoming a notable promoter of various

      1 min read

    • Article

      ‘London Archives Revealed William’s Route To Riches’

      Aug 24, 2021

      JEAN THOMSON is a retired teacher who lives in Herefordshire. She has been researching her family history for 10 years Britain was a land of potential for the burgeoning middle classes in the late 18th century. Commerce, the legal profession, teachi

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Jagger brothers & John Burns

      Mar 30, 2020

      Brothers Sam and Frank Jagger were born in Halifax, Yorkshire in 1840 and 1843 and came to New Zealand in 1858 working on the Kaipara and then in the South Island goldfields. In 1862 they established a timber, coal and firewood business in Auckland,

      5 min read

    • Article

      A Cornish Pastiche

      Jul 17, 2019

      A Cornish Pastiche
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Road To Staffordshire

      Dec 16, 2021

      Having admired the beautiful 18th-century British porcelain made in London, Derby and Worcester, it is time we turned our attention to Staffordshire, the next area of expansion for the industry. But before we travel to Stoke, let’s first set the scen

      3 min read

    • Article

      Great Frauds In History… The Man Who Broke The Bank At Monte Carlo

      Sep 3, 2021

      Charles Deville Wells was born in Broxborne in Hertfordshire in 1841 and spent most of his childhood in France, becoming an engineer working in the Marseille shipyards. In about 1879 he ran a scheme to raise money to build a railway, then absconded w

      1 min read

    • Article

      Pioneer, Montana

      Jul 23, 2019

      Pioneer, Montana
      3 min read

    • Article

      Eight Hours Underground

      Dec 15, 2023

      Eight Hours Underground
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Cult of Brother XII

      Jun 15, 2023

      The Cult of Brother XII
      10 min read

    • Article

      Alcohol Insanity:

      Oct 8, 2021

      Alcohol Insanity:
      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for John Laurie and the Rum Hospital

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      John Laurie and the Rum Hospital - Justin Cahill

      Preface

      This year marks the bicentenary of the opening of the ‘Rum Hospital’ in Sydney. The Hospital earned its name from the partial monopoly over the import of rum Governor Macquarie granted to three local merchants, Alexander Riley, Garnham Blaxcell and D’Arcy Wentworth, in return for building it.

      Previous accounts of the Hospital’s construction focus on Macquarie, the three merchant-contractors and their disputes. This is a short account of John Laurie, the contractor’s clerk of works. He was responsible for, among other things, selling their rum.

      John Laurie has been largely forgotten by history. Yet he was one of the emancipist traders who helped develop Sydney’s infant economy and transform it from a penal colony into a free settlement.

      John aspired to be one of the Colony’s great merchants. I think he hoped to emulate Wentworth in overcoming his criminal past and making his fortune. John’s purchase of Ashfield Park was the culmination of this ambition. But his affairs suddenly collapsed and he left for New Zealand in about 1839.

      i

      John Laurie was born in 1785 near St Giles Church at Cripplegate in London and Shoreditch. He was, family tradition has it, of French descent and grew up around Hoxton. He could read and write and gave his occupation as a ‘perfumer.’

      By the early 1800s, he seems to have fallen on hard times. He joined a gang who posed as a family, rented furnished homes, stole the contents and pawned them. He tried

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1