If you spent your childhood years in Australian schools then you may remember the name Hamilton Hume. And maybe, like me, you might also remember the story of Hume and Hovell, who built a boat out of a bullock dray to cross a mighty river (which we now know as the Murray) on their way from Sydney to Port Phillip. It was an incredible expedition and opened up land into which the young colony could expand.

This young man, Hamilton Hume, with his understanding of, and respect for, the Indigenous people, and his detailed knowledge of the Australian bush, led many other successful expeditions. But somehow within the life of the colony this native-born Australian didn’t rate as highly as his English counterparts like Sturt, Mitchell, Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth. And he has been almost forgotten in the history books.

Hamilton Hume lived through tumultuous times: the opening up of land for the squatters, the destruction of Aboriginal society, cruelty meted out to convicts, the bushrangers’ rebellion, the gold-rush years, self-government and racial unrest that led to the White Australia Policy. This book, which is anything but a dry history, brings the first 80 years of this settlement alive with its personal stories of love, hate and bravery, interspersed among the fascinating historical facts that I never learned. Robert Macklin calls Hamilton Hume ‘our greatest explorer’, and now that I’ve read this enthralling but at times shocking story, I totally agree.

Reviewed by Merle Morcom