Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve
The much admired historian, Emeritus Professor of History at Monash University, Graeme Davison, when bequeathed a 200 year old grandfather clock from his great-aunt Cissie, was inspired to research his family. The warmth with which he pursued his mission is obvious and his delving into Scottish, Industrial English and early Australian social history is remarkably touching. This is not to say it lacks the rigorous method of the historian.
His research is meticulous and he blends these facts with his obvious love and admiration for what he discovers of the 400 year old family history.
On the Scottish English border in the 17th century, the Scottish ‘reivers’ were wild frontiersmen, living and battling in the harsh environment, crossing the borders to raid villages there. Davison, from somber Methodist roots, Oxford educated, found learning of this rather appealing!
Ancestors from this region, records show, eventually migrated south to the town of Annan then later to Carlisle. There, it was William Davison who bought the clock from his neighbour, Hodgson, who was a clockmaker. William and his family, who was skilled in working with tin, sought opportunities in the Birmingham of the Industrial Revolution.
Life there in the desperate crowding and constant struggle of Industrial England was hard. Tales of better conditions, even acquired wealth, tempted the family to set off for Australia.
The book continues with the indomitable struggle to make a comfortable life in this new, strange, often inhospitable land with the spirit that springs from their staunchly held Methodist faith.
Down through the centuries, their religion guided the families and resulted in their being staunchly self-disciplined, hardworking and fair minded. Their temperance emphasised the importance of honest dedication to work and family values, with the husbands taking on the responsibilities of bread winners and the wives, of children and household duties.
Graeme Davison’s own father was a fine example of this….but also admired for his respect for others. An employee was also a friend. As boss, he ignored hierarchy.
History, of course shaped his ancestors in unique ways. The dark struggles the slums created, the long often dangerous hours spent at work, the diseases that emerged, spurred the Davis’s to seek a better place to live.
Australia initially was not the Utopian answer to their hopes, but their innate determination and perseverance won through.
They suffered the catastrophic World Wars until in the aftermath of the second. Graeme, one of the fortunate baby boomers, enjoyed growing up in the ‘Golden Age’ where opportunities abounded and when Graeme himself forsook the family tradition of manual labour and spent five years at Melbourne University acquiring his degree in History. This led to experiencing life at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar……a dramatic contrast to the paths trodden by his ancestors.
This research into his forbears illumined his appreciation of his great good fortune, even though their lives, were like ‘memory – live theatre with constant new productions of the same’.
My Grandfather’s Clock is a history that will appeal to many Australians. It is a beautifully drawn picture of an immigrant family, moulded by their generations’ background that brought them to these distant shores, which illuminates Graeme Davison’s own realisation of being a descendant of a family we cannot help but admire.
The humble clock ticks on as an accompanying witness to much that has occurred in the past two hundred years since William Davison acquired it. To more fully grasp details of these lives, this book is enthusiastically endorsed.
My Grandfather’s Clock
[2023]
by Graeme Davison
MUP
ISBN 978 0522879 58 2
$37.99; 305pp