SOUTH Australia was meant to be the perfect colony: free settlers, no crime and no mental illness. But plans go awry and within three years plans for a permanent gaol were well established along with a governor to oversee it: William Baker Ashton.
Researcher Rhondda Harris came upon Ashton's long-lost journal by accident while researching in the State Records of South Australia.
She had been asked by the South Australian Museum to search the archives to help in the understanding of an archaeological excavation taking place within the Old Adelaide Gaol.
Rhondda found the governor's journal by chance and almost immediately realised what a treasure she had in her hands
as it contained material she had never before heard mentioned.
Rhondda was soon absorbed by the governor's handwritten pages. They told a hidden story of early Adelaide and its underbelly, of crashes and crises and crims.
The colonists called their prison 'Ashton's Hotel' .
Over a period of a year, Rhondda transcribed the journal and began work on a book Ashton's Hotel which tells the tale of the gaol and it's first governor.
It's a fascinating book which paints a picture of life at the gaol and in the fledgling colony as well as a glimpse into the man himself.
His kindness of spirit, under nigh-impossible circumstances, shines through in this first published edition of his journal, expertly contextualised and introduced by Rhondda.
Rhondda Harris is a retired archaeologist. She studied at Flinders University where her honours thesis on archaeology and postcontact Indigenous Adelaide was both the start of her career and the beginning of a passion for researching the history of early Adelaide.
She now works on deceased estates, sorting through the accumulations of lives. She sees this as a sort of archaeology and it is a job she loves.
Rhondda moved to Adelaide in 1974, has two sons, two grandsons and a dog. Despite growing up in New South Wales, she sees Adelaide as home.
- Ashton's Hotel, Wakefield Press $39.95 www.wakefieldpress.com.au