FATHERS OF THIS COLONY

Wendy Evans / trad music

We left behind our homeland, the land where we were born
We sailed on the Parmelia**, around the wicked Horn
We had but few possessions; the other folk were grand
But we were richer far than they, because we loved the land.

In storms we reached our new land, the land that we have tamed
The gentry spoke in anger and said someone should be blamed
What use were silks and satins then; we blessed our homespun cloth
And hardy life that knew the land and braved the tempest wrath.

At last the ship offloaded us and cargo we had brought
The gentry brought their furniture, and carriages and port
Beside their piles of riches, our start in life looked poor
But basic needs and stock and seeds, and tools we brought ashore.

When given land, we cleared it soon with toil and aching back
And sowed the land and prayed for rain and built a simple shack
The gentry told their servants to clear acres by the score
But we knew what to sow and when, and so our land grew more.

We pioneered with heartbreak, because Nature asked for blood
We fought with drought and tempest, with fire and with flood
We built Western Australia. Will Men recall what’s true
That land, Men built this nation, and each day they fight anew.

Chorus:
It was not gold that built this land, but those who loved the earth
Their wisdom and their labour and their patience gave it birth
No rich man built this country, save other people’s toil
The Fathers of This Colony were those who loved the soil.


Another song from the 1979 Bi-Centenary recording project “Bound for Western Australia” by poet, Wendy Evans and musicians, The Settlers (Alan S. Ferguson & Sean Roche).
I have not found this track online and just hope that one day, someone will upload the whole excellent LP to the internet.


** WIKI tells us that the Parmelia was an 1825 Quebec-built barque, sold in 1827 to a director of the British East India Company. In 1829, it brought the first settlers and civilian officials to the new Swan River Colony, in what would become Western Australia, sighting the new colony on June 1st (= the beginning of winter).

Captain James Stirling, the civil superintendent of the colony, arrived on the HMS Challenger, with HMS Sulphur carrying a detachment of the 63rd Foot Regiment.   Stirling assumed the duties of Pilot on the Parmelia, for her grand? entrance into the new colony, and long story short, after a day of bad weather, she ran aground on a sandbank and lost her foreyard, rudder, windlass, spare spars, longboat and skiff, - and was leaking at a rate of 4 inches (10 cm) per hour and then rode out a storm at anchor for three days before finally being brought to a safe anchorage.
Passengers were unloaded on June 8th.   

Perhaps not such an auspicious start to the new British colony!!


R-J