Price, John, diarist. INFORMATION FROM KEITH V. SMITH ------------------------------------- Aged about 20 in 1798. Servant to John Hunter. Made on an expedition on 26 January 1798, probably around Bargo. Diary in HRNSW, appendix to vol 3, but probably not under his name, as it was not then known. Reproduced in article by Chisholmn, Alec C., 1957. ’The Romance of the Lyrebird’ JRAHS, 43:iv., including facsimile page of the page concerned. Originals are in the Brabourne Papers in the Mitchell Library. The article tells a good story about how all this came about, including good coverage of John Wilson, ex-=============================== John Price Journal extract for 26 January 1789, from: ’Journey into the interior of the Country New South Wales', 24 January - 2 February 1789 CY 3005/242 ------------------------------ SOURCE State Library of New South Wales papers of sir joseph banks Home Ý About the Library Ý Online collections Ý Papers of Sir Joseph Banks Section 7 - Governors of New South Wales Letter received by Banks from John Hunter, 21 August 1801 (Series 38.21) Notes: Enclosing journal extract of John Price titled 'Journey into the interior of the Country New South Wales', 24 January - 2 February 1789, and '2nd Journey', 9 March - 2 April 1798. With note written in the hand of John Hunter, ca July 1801. Author: Price, John Hunter, John, 1737-1821 Date: 24 January - 2 February, 9 March - 2 April 1798, ca July, 21 August 1801 Series: Series 38: Correspondence, being mainly letters received by Banks from John Hunter, with related papers, 1795-1802, 1807 Frame numbers: CY 3005 / 237-262 ---------------------------------- INFORMATION FROM DAVID NASH, IN A POSTING ON ’The wombat trail’, 16 Jan. 2009: <http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/elac/2009/01/the_wombat_trail_1.html> ‘We can be fairly sure that the 'wombat' word was first written down in 1798 by 19 year old John Price, an "intelligent lad" who had come to Australia with Governor Hunter as a servant. Price's manuscript journal extract is not only extant, but is marvellously on open view in the online Papers of Sir Joseph Banks at the State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW) " see page CY3005/242 in Series 38.21. Here is how Price wrote the word: clearly whom-Batt. We have only one other word of an Australian language written down by Price: cullawine 'koala', which suggests he was using English conventions. From Price's spelling alone, we would be uncertain whether the first syllable of whom-Batt was meant to be read as English whom, i.e. [hum] not [wom]. As for Price's final double-t, this could have been his way of signalling an un-English kind of voiceless coronal stop (otherwise he would have simply written the second syllable as English bat) " or perhaps his way of avoiding the suggestion that the animal was a kind of bat (though the OED tells us that the animal bat (and the implement bat) could be spelled batt in the 18th century). No matter, as we'll see, we have more later evidence for the word's pronunciation. Price came to learn this word through an unusual chain of events. While on an expedition dispatched by Governor Hunter to demonstrate the non-existence of an inland colony of Irishmen(!), Price had wombat dung pointed out to him by ex-convict John Wilson on 26 January 1798 in the area of present-day Bargo (100km southwest of Sydney; the route was meticulously retraced by Cambage 1920, with further commentary by Chisholm 1955). Wilson was apparently the first of the colonists to encounter the wombat, and he had learnt of it because after he was freed (about 1792) he had gone bush and "had been herding with the savages in different parts of the country" (Collins 1802). Wilson was declared an outlaw in mid 1797 and gave himself up, and was then assigned by Governor Hunter to guide some expeditions into the hinterland.’ ----------------------------- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM K.V. Smith: Price, John, diarist. Aged about 20 in 1798. Servant to John Hunter. [Journal] made on an expedition on 26 January 1798, probably around Bargo. Diary in HRNSW, appendix to vol 3, but probably not under his name, as it was not then known. Reproduced in article by Chisholmn, Alec C., 1957. ’The Romance of the Lyrebird’ JRAHS, 43:iv., including facsimile page of the page concerned. Originals are in the Brabourne Papers in the Mitchell Library. The article tells a good story about how all this came about, including good coverage of John Wilson, ex-convict, who became Bun-bo-e, and was killed by aborigines in 1800. =============================