John Marshall and Bearbrass

Dr Liz Rushen is committed to community engagement in history and heritage. She currently works in multiple fields as an historian (author, researcher and speaker), publisher (a director of Anchor Books Australia) and community engagement (a director of Melbourne Maritime Heritage Network and former chair, History Council of Victoria). She has published widely, mainly in the field of migration history and women in colonial Australia, including Single and Free: female migration to Australia, 1833-1837 and a social history, Bishopscourt Melbourne: official residence and family home. In 2018-2019 Liz was awarded a Creative Fellowship by the State Library Victoria to research the life and writings of Edmund Finn (‘Garryowen’), a project which is ongoing.

Liz’s first biography was a study of the life of John Marshall, a nineteenth-century shipowner and emigration agent. In this talk Liz will tell us about this little known insurance broker from Yorkshire, who rose to be a key player in London's ship owning and merchant world of the early nineteenth century, and the most active emigration agent to Melbourne when the Port Phillip District first opened up to white settlement. Marshall assisted thousands of bounty emigrants from Britain and Ireland and was praised by the Port Phillip Gazette for performing 'a gigantic part in the early advancement of this colony'.