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Abstract

Richard Stickney (d.1834) was a young Quaker from the North of England. His
sister, Esther, was a friend of George Washington Walker, the Quaker who accompanied
James Backhouse on a missionary journey to Australia in 1831, and she asked him to
look for her only brother, young Richard, who had run away to sea on an Australia
bound ship, because of hardships in his job. By 1834, however, he had written to his
sisters from Sydney but, before G.W. Walker was able to trace him there, his uncle
Isaac Stickney received news of his nephew's death by drowning in November 1834 at
the mouth of the Manning River N.S.W., from Thomas Soltit who kept the "Jolly Tar"
public house where Stickney lodged in Sydney. Isaac Stickney wrote to Governor Burke
of New South Wales enclosing Soltit's letter and asking for further information. This,
together with information and papers from the Port Master, was given to Backhouse
and Walker, who discovered that Richard had used an assumed name "Robert Smith" and
had been employed by Thomas Steel as one of the seamen sailing up the East Coast for
cedar on a small coasting craft which sank near the mouth of the Manning River, and
that Steel had Stickney'S watch, gun and some old books (nautical works and 3 or 4
religious Friends' works).
Stickney's own letter to his sister Sarah in 1834, with these papers, expressed
regret at the grief he had caused his family and described his impressions of Sydney.
He found that "the country born inhabitants are now becoming numerous and will soon
form a sufficiently distinct people, they are a facsimile of the Americans both in body
and mind, tall rawboned and muscular, with a most exalted opinion of themselves indeed
in most athletic exercises as cricket, rowing or boxing they bear away more than
their share of prizes. They are mostly ignorant to the last degree." The "currency
lasses" he thought "not very elegant" but "there is one accomplishment not generally
reckoned in the female list in which they excell they can most of them .swim." He
remarked too that 99 percent of the children had fair hair. Richard Stickney attended
the Friends (Quaker) Meeting House in Sydney when he had time.
George Washington Walker wrote to Esther Stickney also of Quaker matters, his
journey, botanical specimens, etc.

Item Type:	Other
Authors/Creators:	Stickney, Richard and Walker, George Washington and Soltit, Thomas and Stickney, Esther
Keywords:	Tasmania, van diemens land, social history, history, colony, colonial, Australia, indexes, University of Tasmania, Library, private deposits, archives, Collections, catalogue, Special, index,
Publisher:	University of Tasmania Library Special and Rare Materials Collection
Collections:	Other Special Collections
Additional Information:	University of Tasmania Library, Special and Rare Materials Collection - Private Deposit S.9
Item Statistics:	View statistics for this item

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