The story of James Hardy Vaux, convict and writer of Australia's first dictionary. If you wear 'togs', tell a 'yarn', call someone 'sly' or refuse to 'snitch' on a friend then you are talking like a an Australian colonial convict of old. These words, and hundreds of others, once left colonial magistrates baffled and police confused. The flash language of criminals and convicts had marine officer Watkin Tench complaining about the need for an interpreter in the colonial court. That man turned out to be James Hardy Vaux - conman, pickpocket, absconder and thief, born into comfortable circumstances in England yet so drawn to a life of crime he was transported to Australia three times.
Softcover book
Published 2021
312-pages |
