Fractured Families Life on the Margins in Colonial New South Wales

Countless convicts and free migrants arriving in New South Wales struggled with limited prospects, discrimination, and misfortune, and many of them turned to the Benevolent Society, Australia’s first charity founded in 1813, for assistance and sustenance. In this rich and revealing book, Tanya Evans collaborates with family historians to present the everyday lives of these people. We see many families who have fallen on hard times because of drink, unwanted pregnancy, violence, unemployment, or plain bad luck, seeking help and often shunted from asylums or institutions. In the careful tracing of families, we see the way in which disadvantage can be passed down from one generation to the next. Fractured Families helps to reclaim these unknown lives and sheds light on the often random nature of betterment and progress.

Tanya Evans is a senior lecturer in the department of modern history at Macquarie University. She has worked as a historical consultant for numerous television production companies in Britain and Australia, including the Australian series of Who Do You Think You Are? She is the author of Unfortunate Objects: Lone Mothers in Eighteenth-Century London.