Charles Edward Augustus de Boos, 1819-1900: His Life, Work, and Writing (2014)

This essay has two parts.De Boos's life story is the concern of the first part, as it contributed significantly to his writing and is therefore essential to an understanding of it.His reporting for The Argus in Victoria and the Herald in New South Wales meant that no writer had more knowledge of the goldfields, and this provided him with the settings for much of his fiction.His travels in Europe, Victoria and New South Wales brought him into contact with all kinds of people.As a teenager, he experienced war in Spain.His Huguenot ancestry-religious persecution, migration-surely influenced his attitudes to the 'little people,' the 'diggers,' women and children, the Chinese, and the Aborigines, as did his commitment to the Church of England and the Freemasons.All of this and more he brought to the settings and concerns of his many and varied writings.These are discussed in the second part of the essay. Life and WorkDe Boos was born in London in 1819, of Huguenot ancestors from the Normandy region of northern France, who have been traced back to around 1600.At the beginning of the eighteenth century, they fled to England, seeking refuge from religious persecution (Gwynn).Like so many others, at the time and later, they settled in the Spitalfields district of East London, and were involved in various aspects of the silk trade, especially dyeing and weaving.They were members of the Huguenot churches, especially the French Church of Threadneedle Street.The immediate London family of de Boos illustrates the gradual assimilation of the Huguenots into English life.He and his six siblings were baptised in the Church of England.His father appears to have been an accountant, and by the mid-1820s, the family was living in the Westminster district of London.From accounts published during his lifetime (Heaton 54), de Boos was educated in Addiscombe (in south London), most likely at the East India Company Military Seminary.As well as military subjects, he had a sound classical education.Then, whilst still in his teens, he participated in the Carlist wars as a member of the British Auxiliary Legion that fought in support of the Queen of Spain.He arrived in Sydney on the barque Australasian Packet on 22 October 1839.Just what he did initially is not clear.Except for a statement in his obituary, no evidence has been found that he took up farming in the Hunter Valley.There is evidence to support his working for the Sydney Monitor and possibly the Sydney Gazette, which ceased publication in 1841 and 1842 respectively.He is mentioned as one of a number of 'significant contributors' to the Monitor (Wilde, Hooton, and Andrews 734), while some years later, he wrote of his first trip to Goulburn 'at the end of 1839,' which could well have been as a reporter (Sydney Morning Herald [SMH], 20 January 1871, 5), a trip that marked the start of his extensive travelling in Australia.For the four years from August, 1842, nothing has yet been found to indicate where he was or what he was doing, other than that he visited New Zealand.Then, in August 1846, he re-appeared, and for the next twelve months, he was Secretary of the Maitland Jockey Club and actively involved in the life of the local community.Returning to Sydney, he most likely worked as a reporter for one of the contemporary newspapers, both in Sydney and beyond.In May 1848, he married Sarah Stone, aged sixteen, the daughter of a publican, and less than a year later, the first of their thirteen children was born (six survived for no more than three months).In August 1849, he published The Metropolitan, a weekly journal of politics, literature, science and the arts.It was initially well received, but no evidence has been found that it lasted more than four issues. 2 In April, 1850, he and his family sailed to Melbourne, where he was immediately employed by The Argus and reporting on Victoria's political affairs.In 1851, he began his long association with gold-mining, visiting and reporting on the gold discoveries at Ballarat, Castlemaine (then known as Mount Alexander and Forest Creek), and Bendigo, and later on gold-mining in the Ovens Valley.He was most likely The Argus reporter at the first mass