Category: AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND

EP037 INSIDE THE GATES OF HELL

Prison is never nice, but the Victorian prison of Port Arthur in Van Diemen’s Land combined starvation, deprivation, desperation, and isolation. It was considered a hell on Earth. This episode covers:

  • Intro & reviews.
  • Guest podcast promo’s
  • A vision of a better future.
  • Reality check – isolation and mental health
  • Narrowly avoiding prison
  • The problems of institutionalisation
  • Post release problems
  • A modern inmate speaks out.
  • Convict labour, exploitation capitalism, big companies, echos of slavery.
  • The convict melting pot
  • A dispossible labour force.
  • Convicts and convict ancestors – image and identity in Australia.
  • The unfortunate Hannah Herbert, an epitaph

If you want to get in touch, I’d love to hear from you. You can email me at ageofvictoriapodcast@gmail.com, follow me on twitter @ageofvictoria, visit the website at www.ageofvictoriapodcast.com. The show also has a facebook page and group. Just search for Age of Victoria. Don’t forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it takes less time than making a coffee. You can also subscribe for free on most major podcast apps. If you want to support the show on patreon, or you can go to Patreon and search for age of victoria podcast or my name. Take care and bye for now.

EP036 MEET THE PRISONERS

At its heart, a prison is the people. But what kind of people ended up in the hellish Port Arthur Prison in Van Diemen’s Land? Was it really just for the worst of the worst? Or was it a machine that simple chewed people up indiscriminately. How can we begin to understand it. Join me to walk a mile or two in a convicts shoe. The episode covers

  • Intro & reviews.
  • The cultural melting pot
  • A philosophy of civilisation?
  • Who were they, these desperado’s?
  • What is a historical prison?
  • The site and the barracks; evidence of the past & imaginations.
  • Prisoners; working for their own good and other people’s greed.
  • The transportation of civilisation.
  • Christian salvation was built into the land.
  • Christianity & criminal justice.

If you want to get in touch, I’d love to hear from you. You can email me at ageofvictoriapodcast@gmail.com, follow me on twitter @ageofvictoria, visit the website at www.ageofvictoriapodcast.com. The show also has a facebook page and group. Just search for Age of Victoria. Don’t forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it takes less time than making a coffee. You can also subscribe for free on most major podcast apps. If you want to support the show on patreon, CLICK HERE or you can go to Patreon and search for age of victoria podcast or my name. Take care and bye for now.

EP035 THE UNFORTUNATE HANNAH HERBERT

How does it feel to be cast out? To lose everything you’ve ever known and be sent to the ends of the world? Want to understand what being a convict transported to Tasmania feels like? This show is for you. It covers;

– Intro & reviews.
– Introducing Hannah to the Court.
– How did it feel to be a convict?
– Her voyage.
– Another convict – Linus Wilson Miller.
– His feelings & has journey.
– The legal problems caused by convicts
– An uneasy melting pot.

 

If you want to get in touch, I’d love to hear from you.

You can email me at ageofvictoriapodcast@gmail.com, follow me on twitter @ageofvictoria, visit the website at www.ageofvictoriapodcast.com. Or reach me on the Facebook page and group. Just search for Age of Victoria.

Don’t forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it takes less time than making a coffee.

If you want to support the show on patreon, click here, or you can go to Patreon and search for age of victoria podcast or my name. 

EP034 HOW TO BUILD HELL

The journey into Empire continues as we look at Tasmania, known as Van Diemen’s Land. Here the European settlers, the indigenous people, the convict system, the bush rangers, the lure of food, the battle for land, resulted in war, conquest and genocide. The birth pang of a new world was one of agony, yet the future of a unique culture and the amazing beauty of the island were in stark contrast to the declared British ambition of making it the ultimate penal hell. Join me for the complex and painful settlement of Tasmania, and its incorporation into the Empire.

  • This episode covers

  • Guest promo and thank you’s.

  • The brief history of Tasmania and the amazing geograph and ecosystem.

  • Settlement and strategic necessity – keeping the French out.

  • First contact goes wrong – the Risdon Cove Massacre.

  • Mad Tom loves a drink.

  • Governor Sorrell vs the outlaws.

  • The sad death of the Tasmanian Whisky Industry – murdered in 1839

  • The Black War begins – the stage is set for genocide.

  • Tools of the trade – muskets & raiding.

  • A terrible place for a soldier – why colonial Van Diemen’s Land was feared.

  • What was left after? A land of possibilities.

  • The forgotten – listening to the descendants.

Thanks for your listening. I hope you enjoy. If you want to get in touch, I’d love to hear from you. You can email me at ageofvictoriapodcast@gmail.com, follow me on twitter @ageofvictoria, visit the website at www.ageofvictoriapodcast.com. The show also has a facebook page and group. Just search for Age of Victoria. Don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes, it takes less time than making a coffee. If you want to support the show on patreon, just click here, or you can go to Patreon and search for age of victoria podcast or my name.

EP033 (PT2) WHO OWNS THE LAND?

The journey into Empire continues as we look more closely at the Australia’s, and the difficult issues of landownership, native rights, and how land can tie to identity. I also cover the culture clash between the Europeans and the Indigenous Peoples. This is part 2, which covers more of the background of Empire in the Australia’s, the First & Second Fleets, the impact of liberalism and the difference in world views between the Europeans and the Indigenous Peoples, the lure of food, the battle for land, the place of science and the timeline leading to the early Victorian Era in the Australia’s. If you haven’t listened to pt1 yet, I suggest you do that before listening to this.

Thanks for your listening. I hope you enjoy. If you want to get in touch, I’d love to hear from you. You can email me at ageofvictoriapodcast@gmail.com, follow me on twitter @ageofvictoria, visit the website at www.ageofvictoriapodcast.com. The show also has a facebook page and group. Just search for Age of Victoria. Don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes, it takes less time than making a coffee. If you want to support the show on patreon, just click here, or you can go to Patreon and search for age of victoria podcast or my name.

EP033 (PT1) WHO OWNS THE LAND?

The journey into Empire continues as we look more closely at the Australia’s, and the difficult issues of landownership, native rights, and how land can tie to identity. I also cover the culture clash between the Europeans and the indigenous aborigines. This episode then breaks and in part 2, it will cover more of the background of Empire in the Australia’s, the impact of liberalism and the difference in world views between the Europeans and the Aborigines, and the timeline leading to the early Victorian Era in the Australia’s.

This part covers

  • Thank you’s to Patrons, and listener reviews.

  • Elaboration on listener feedback/comments.

  • The complexity of ethnic identity in the UK.

  • The idea of conquest as a legitimate means of ownership

  • Indigenous rights as a concept

  • The culture clash between Europeans and the Aborigines at a high level

  • Terra Nulis and settlement.

  • To whom the law applies

  • The first steps to human rights

  • Break for end of part 1.

Thanks for your listening. I hope you enjoy. If you want to get in touch, I’d love to hear from you. You can email me at ageofvictoriapodcast@gmail.com, follow me on twitter @ageofvictoria, visit the website at www.ageofvictoriapodcast.com. The show also has a facebook page and group. Just search for Age of Victoria. Don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes, it takes less time than making a coffee. If you want to support the show on patreon, just click here, or you can go to Patreon and search for age of victoria podcast or my name.

EP032 PHILOSOPHY OF EMPIRE – THE VALUE OF LIFE?

To understand the past, sometimes we need to examine our values and subject them to philosophical analysis. The British Empire was a complex, varied entity that stretched across the world and changed over the centuries. How do we understand the mindset of those people in the C19th who created it, or lived in it? This episode is designed to get you thinking and analysing big questions and unpleasant moral problems. Ultimately the answers will be down to your judgements. Be warned some material is upsetting and contains references to genocide, racism, slavery, the holocaust, abortion and critiques of religion. I hope you find it stimulating.

Topics
  • Thank you’s to Patrons, and some listener reviews.

  • The complexity of Empire, and the settler empire.

  • How common were empires?

  • Are people innately warlike and violent?

  • Is life important; the need for philosophy.

  • Is life important; what would God do, and does that make it ok?

  • Is life important; building a moral framework for atheists.

  • The worst pub bore ever – drunken philosophy.

  • The economic value of life.

  • If your people are starving, is it immoral not to invade another country?

  • The right to liberty and freedom to do what you want except when you can’t.

  • Heuristics, mental shortcuts, and cognitive biases; how bad decision making affects empires.

  • The power and danger of othering.

  • Look him in the eyes as he dies.

  • Gengis Khan, and how to turn genocides into hero worship.

  • The dangers of anarchy, law and order.

  • Some impacts of Empires; feeding the hungry, and killing other people.

  • Final thoughts.

Thanks for your listening. I hope you enjoy. If you want to get in touch, I’d love to hear from you. You can email me at ageofvictoriapodcast@gmail.com, follow me on twitter @ageofvictoria, visit the website at www.ageofvictoriapodcast.com. The show also has a facebook page and group. Just search for Age of Victoria. Don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes, it takes less time than making a coffee. If you want to support the show on patreon, just click here, or you can go to Patreon and search for age of victoria podcast or my name.