The Chronicles of the Burbury Family is a book which was written by my great-grandfather, Alfred William Burbury, in 1939. Its full title is Chronicles of the Burbury family in Tasmania and England with Memories of Methods, Conditions and Individuals in the Early Days of the Midlands, which is a bit long, so I usually refer to it as "Alfred's Chronicles".
As the name implies, the book covers some of the history of the Tasmanian Burbury family before they came to Tasmania, as well as after. The original copies, of which there are about thirty, were produced on a Gestetner machine and distributed to various members of the family around the state. It is quite a valuable source of information about the Burbury family during the early years in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), and is also filled with a wealth of detail about the lives and times of the settlers in the Midlands area.
Although the book is a wealth of minute detail, my great-grandfather didn't always get everything right. For instance he refers to a "Sir Edward Catesby" who was apparently a Gunpowder Plotter, whereas the Plotter's real name was Robert and he was never a knight. It's also interesting to note that Alfred entirely glosses over the real reason why his grandfather Thomas Burbury came to Tasmania.
In transcribing Alfred's book, I have basically kept to the same format and style of the original, while carrying out as little editing as possible. One editing step that I have taken is to break the text up into a few more chapters with my own chapter headings added where appropriate. Also, I have corrected obvious spelling mistakes. However, I have kept Alfred's idiosyncracies of punctuation and phraseology intact, because I think that these aspects help us to understand and appreciate his work just as much as does the actual content.
Preface
Chapter 1 - Introduction
Chapter 2 - Inglewood
Chapter 3 - Inglewood (cont'd)
Chapter 4 - The Railway
Chapter 5 - Scholastic
Chapter 6 - The Lake Country
Chapter 7 - Places and Personalities
Chapter 8 - Sport and Recreation
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