1. Build a community of like minded people people who are connected to St Helena Island in any way.
2. Add to the historical research on the island, particularly the social history and fill the gaps in our knowledge currently.
3. Be the central location for genealogists to find lost family members who were once on the island.
4. Raise the profile of the island and its heritage by connecting with the past and actively caring about its future.
5. Share information about the prison community – prisoners, warders and today’s St Helena Community through the medium of story.
6. Get accurate and up to date information on St Helena out to the public via a variety of digital mediums.
Why?
Connection to our world and each other.
I believe that a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of all that come before us, can give us the perspective and the appreciation of our place in time and in this land.
Through understanding comes connection – to the place we arein, the culture or society we belong to, and to what has shaped us to be the people we are today and tomorrow.
I would like to uncover the forgotten stories of people in this blog. Ordinary people living ordinary lives, largely undocumented in history. Women. Aboriginal People. people from other cultures such as Chinese and South Sea Islanders, that were largely unrecorded in any meaningful detail. Ordinary people doing everyday deeds that allow us to glimpse a life in another dimension yet much like our own.
Saddler’s Workshop, St Helena HMPE. Laurie Collection.
Who?
Stories about people, for people
We’d like to create two way conversations with and share information between a variety of interested people:
Private individuals who have a family member connected with the island as a prisoner or warder.
Locals in Moreton Bay and South East Queensland who enjoy knowing the stories of the land around them.
Those interested in the natural heritage of the island, Environmental History, flora and fauna and conservation.
Historians who enjoy making the connections between people, places and time – including historical events, colonial Qld, the rest of the world, society at the time and more.
How?
Uncovering ‘The Story that lies Beneath’
An archaeological dig of some sort is necessary in order to unearth and uncover the hidden stories and deeper understandings.
Document, Colonial Secretary’s Correspondence
St Helena’s stories will be told through a variety of means:
