Chequered Lives: John Barton Hack and Stephen Hack and the Early Days of South Australia by Iola Hack Mathews with Chris Durrant

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Wear to book corners and edges. Minor mark to tail foredge. Tiny amount of chipping at tail spine. Interior and binding are still very good.

Chequered Lives is the fascinating story of a Quaker family from England who camped on the beach in 1837 before the city of Adelaide was created but rose to own a 3000-acre estate in the Adelaide Hills.

Barton Hack built his first house where the Adelaide Railway station now stands, became a merchant who owned ships, a whaling station and the first vineyard in the Province, and was chairman of the first Chamber of Commerce in Australia. His younger brother Stephen became a grazier and explorer.

After they lost everything in the crash of 1841-1843, their lives took a very different turn.

When Barton's great-great-granddaughter, journalist Iola Mathews, opened a trunk full of their letters, diaries and memoirs, she knew she had to write the family's story. (back cover)