New Bourke history tells of a colourful past
A new book tells the story of Bourke’s earliest decades through the eyes of town pioneers, the Reed family.
Along with other trailblazing families the Reeds battled floods, droughts, heatwaves, epidemics and recession to forge a new life on the Outback frontier.
The first members of the Reed family in Bourke experienced the arrival of the ‘Afghan’ cameleers, Bourke’s central role in the shearers’ strikes that led to the formation of the Australian Labor Party, inundation by floodwater, a typhoid epidemic and the horrible heatwave of 1896 that killed 47 townspeople in two weeks. Nine grandsons fought in the Great War, where three made the ultimate sacrifice.
It all began when, in 1862, a middle-aged couple, James and Frances Reed, accompanied by all ten of their adult children, left their home in Sydney to start new lives 800 kilometres away at Bourke.
James and Frances Reed each spent more than 30 years in the fledgling town, playing their part in its development while welcoming 89 grandchildren into the district.[…]
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