Read The Ghost of Waterloo Online
Authors: Robin Adair
The Ghost of Waterloo (43 page)
Money, unlike weights or measures, makes for more confusing conversions. It is difficult to accurately weigh and relate monetary values in the late 1820s with today’s. It helps to know, however, that there was one penny, twelve of which made a shilling. And twenty shillings made a pound. Now, consider that tobacco then cost three shillings to three and six a pound, eggs one and six to three shillings a dozen, bread two and a half to threepence a pound, and mutton six to seven pence a pound. A man’s good suit cost nine to ten pounds and a dozen bottles of claret thirty shillings.
A tradesman could earn about six shillings a day. A female servant, fed and clothed, cost ten to fifteen pounds a year. A farm labourer received twelve to twenty pounds a year, plus weekly rations of seven pounds of beef and a peck (fifteen pounds) of wheat.
And what price a human life? In Britain until 1827, even a child could be transported for life, even hanged, for grand larceny – which meant stealing personal property worth more than a shilling.
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to a host of ghosts – of long-dead diarists, journalists and historians – and to as many modern students and researchers of Australian colonial roots and Napoleonic lore.
Prize-winning editor Nicola Young was midwife to the Patterer’s birth and attended assiduously again this time. As always, I appreciate her clear head, cool eye and gentle touch. My thanks, too, to Bridget Maidment, who carried on the good work.
Anne-Marie Reeves and Cathy Larsen’s design is a wonder, lifting the Patterer clear off the page. And Michelle Atkins’ picture research deftly helps bring the past to life.
Women’s Weekly
colleague Keith Barlow’s publicity shots made me feel young again. Almost.
The friendship and skills of my long-time physician Dr Starlette Isaacs sustain me. Typically, she took in her stride my sudden interest in mercury treatment for syphilis, and poisoning and stabbing. Dr Leslie Glen stirred in me an interest in Bonaparte. I’m grateful to Sue Kusko for her unflagging support.
I also salute my knowledgeable comrade Tony Chilton, an expert on the British military, who has marched with me on many a famous campaign (usually in the comfort and safety of a watering-hole).
To my patient wife, journalist Julie Kusko, always at the side of the Patterer, much thanks.
Picture credits:
page 5
– by H. Heath, reproduced from C. Willett Cunnington & Phillis C. Cunnington,
Handbook of English Costume in the Nineteenth Century
, Plays Inc., Boston, 1970;
pages 19
&
67
– by Harry Clow, reproduced from Anthony Livesey,
Battles of the Great Commanders
, Michael Joseph, London, 1987;
page 79
– Hulton Archive, Getty Images;
page 94
– by Jack Cassin-Scott, reproduced from his
Costume and Fashion in Colour 1760–1920
, Blandford Press, Poole, Dorset, 1971;
page 116
– reproduced from Bryce Fraser (ed.),
The Macquarie Book of Events
, Macquarie Library, Sydney, 1983;
page 169
– engraving of a drawing by Joseph Fowles, State Library of New South Wales;
page 199
– reproduced from Sean Jennett,
The Making of Books
, Faber & Faber, London, 1973;
page 216
– Dixson Collection, State Library of New South Wales;
page 222
– by John Batchelor, reproduced from A. B. C. Whipple & consultants,
Fighting Sail
, Caxton, London, 1978;
page 228
– lithograph, c. 1836, by Robert Russell, Rex Nan Kivell Collection, National Library of Australia;
page 244
– miniature, c. 1785–90, Dixson Collection, State Library of New South Wales;
page 279
– Dixson Collection, State Library of New South Wales.
MICHAEL JOSEPH
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First published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2011
Text copyright © Robin Adair 2011
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
ISBN: 9780857963550
*
Recounted in
Death and the Running Patterer
