I’m researching Australian colonial history in order to write a historical novel based on the life of Sarah Wentworth, and documenting my progress as I go.

Reading and learning

Having ploughed through two biographies of William Charles Wentworth and his father D’Arcy Wentworth, I’m now moving on to new books and background material, to get more perspective, background and colour for Sarah’s story.

The Colony: A History of Early Sydney, a prize-winning volume by Grace Karskens has been a fantastic find, thanks to a writer friend*.

The third chapter opens like this: “When the Europeans arrived in the Sydney region, writes Aboriginal activist and elder Burnum Burnum, ‘they landed in the middle of a huge art gallery’.

Karskens goes to write about over 10,000 Aboriginal artworks on the shorelines, calling Sydney ‘the world’s largest outdoor museum of Indigenous art’. It’s a beautiful beginning to the story of Sydney, and honestly, not one that I knew much about. I’ve been aware, of course, of Aboriginal dispossession, but have not understood much of their culture, history and art. She writes in detail about the Eora people of Sydney and their encounters with the Europeans arriving in their murri nowie, or ‘strange canoes’. I have found it both fascinating and challenging to think about.

Karskens also writes about the initial settlements and farming efforts of the early Europeans, the building and social structures of the society that developed and grew, and the changing lives of the many people who flocked here to make new lives for themselves. She has a whole chapter on the experiences of women, which I can’t wait to get into.

Also on my list to read is Sarah Wentworth: Mistress of Vaucluse, the biography of Sarah Wentworth by Carol Liston. This is out of print, so I’ll need to head to the State Library on my writing days this term.

Creating a timeline

Before I get into Sarah’s story, or even dig more into The Colony, however, I’ve decided to develop a timeline based on the Charles Wentworth biographies. I’m not someone who can hold data-type details in my head very easily. I tend to let go of numbers and dates and go with ‘vibes’ and feelings, but for this project, I know I’ll need to have a firm hold on what things happened when, mostly because Sydney developed and changed very quickly.

So my next task is to create Charles’ timeline and overlay it with Sarah’s timeline. Then I’ll go back and add colour, life, background and texture from The Colony.

Funding and grants

Back in February, I was one of 500 people who applied for arts funding from the NSW government - with a total ask of $29 million. Unfortunately I wasn’t one of the 131 successful applicants who received a share of $7.7 million. The official feedback is: “the application showed some originality and quality but didn’t adequately meet the merit criteria in a very high quality field.”

I’m disappointed of course, but I’ll still pursue the project. Sarah is in my head and I think about her frequently.

Here are two little Sarah wonderings for you:

• Just before the family left for England on their final trip, Sarah installed the equivalent of a shark net at the beach on their Vaucluse property, for safer swimming. I wonder: was it for the children only, or had she learned to swim as well? Did she love the water like I do, and find herself taking time to enjoy the sparkling blue harbour on a bright Sydney day?

• Charles Wentworth said some truly horrendous things about Aboriginal people over the years. And yet, I wonder if Sarah had a different attitude? The family’s much-loved Aboriginal servant travelled with them to London, but Sarah encouraged him to return home when the weather turned out to be too cold for him. In later years, Charles Wentworth paid for and provided food for ‘the last Aboriginal king’, Warrah Warrah, who had paralysed legs, and set up camp at Rose Bay. Was he influenced by Sarah to spend these funds? I wonder.

*My friend lent me her pristine copy of The Colony but I’m going to purchase another copy and give it to her. Not only do I want to write in my own book and make notes, but I managed to put a solid crease in the cover of her copy. Oops.

Catch up with the project from the beginning. Here’s the very first post introducing ‘The House’.