On the origins of the term Lazaret

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Lazaret, Lazarus, Peel Island, Venice

During my studies into the former lazaret (leprosarium or leper colony) on Moreton Bay’s Peel Island, people often asked me where the term lazaretoriginated. The obvious connection is with the biblical parables about Lazarus: ‘The rich man and Lazarus’ (who was a leper) and ‘Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead’ (another Lazarus who was not a leper). Perhaps it was the conflation (often erroneous merging) of these two parables that led to the declaration of Lazarus as a saint.

Saint Lazarus Island

In the 12th century, leprosy appeared in Venice as a result of trade with the Levant (Middle East). Thus, a leper colony—hospital for people with leprosy—was established at the island, which was chosen for that purpose due to its relative distance from the principal islands forming the city of Venice. It received its name from St. Lazarus, the patron saint of lepers. The church of Saint Lazarus (San Lazzaro) was founded there in 1348. Leprosy declined by the mid-1500s and the island was abandoned by 1601. Over the following years, the island was leased to various religious groups but by the early 18th century only a few crumbling ruins remained.In 1717 the island was ceded by the Republic of Venice to an Armenian Catholic monk, who established a monastery with his followers. It has since been the headquarters of the Mekhitarists and, as such, one of the world’s prominent centers of Armenian culture and Armenian studies.

Saint Lazarus Island in 2013 (photo Anton Nossik)

During the nineteenth century, many prominent people visited the island: the English Romantic poet Lord Byron from November 1816 to February 1817; composers such as Offenbach, Rossini, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner; writers included George Sand and Marcel Proust; monarchs from Spain, Austria, Britain, and France. 

Today Saint Lazarus Island continues as an important centre for Armenian studies, and is a popular tourist destination.

An Innocent Abroad (London and New York)

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London, New York, travel

Dolphin Lamps long Chelsea Embankment

At a recent meeting of our local Probus Club, I was intrigued to hear one of our members talk about her first tourist impressions of London. While her husband was studying at a business college, she was left to explore her fond Monopoly Board sites of London. Being left to her own devices, she found the process an empowering experience in a place she loved to explore, and it has endured with her ever since.

It brought to mind my first empowering experience of London, too, and It was just 50 years ago this November. It occurred suddenly as I was riding home in a London cab from Phyllis’ flat in Pimlico to my digs in Earl’s Court. We had been to a ball and it was sometime after midnight. I think it was our first night out together. As the cab weaved through London’s streets whose names were so familiar and yet so new to me, I felt a bit of a dandy in my dinner suit and leaning on my umbrella as if it were a cane (I didn’t wear a top hat!). Suddenly I felt that London belonged to me, or more accurately, I belonged to London.

Another ‘owning’ experience occurred to me in New York some forty years later when I left Phyllis and daughter Karen frantically shopping at Macey’s while I decided to take a leisurely walk back along 7th Avenue through the once thriving Garment District to our hotel near Times Square. Once again I suddenly felt this experience of belonging to the city. I think it resulted from the security of having loved-ones close by, but still having the freedom to explore such a world famous city on my own.

Reminder of the once flourishing Garment District in New York

Reminders of Peoples Past – 08 – Gustav Dux

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Bribie Island, Gustav Dux, Moreton Bay

Dux Creek is part of a canal development on Bribie Island

Johann Carl Gustav Dux, known as “Gus”, was born in West Prussia, on 1st June 1852.  Johann worked as a seaman, jumped ship in Cooktown, N.Q., and then worked his way down the coast until he arrived at German Station, now known as Nundah (a suburb of Brisbane).

Johann married at the age of 20 to Wilhemine Rose, 24 Years, from Grunhage, West Prussia.  When she died at the age of 28, he married Bertha Lange, age 17 years, from Weinsdorf, West Prussia.  Their first child, Friedrich Carl August Dux, known as “Augie”, was born on 2nd August 1878.

Dux Creek on Bribie Island was named after Gus, who eventually settled in what is now known as Dux Street, Caboolture. At the time, Dux Street ran right down to the Caboolture River, and it was from here that Gus did his fishing, crabbing and oystering, culling oysters from oyster banks at Pumistone Passage, north of the Caboolture River, and on Bribie Island. It was a long hard pull by rowboat from Caboolture down the Caboolture River to Bribie Island for Gus, so he would camp overnight when he worked his oyster banks.

William, another of Gus’s sons, carried on his father’s business, and was known locally as Billy, the crabman.

Gustav Dux outside his shack at Burpengary (Caboolture) around 1895

Reminders of Peoples Past – 04 – The Archer Brothers

via Reminders of Peoples Past – 04 – The Archer Brothers

Swooping Birds

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Redlands

Swooping Birds – the sign says it all

It’s Spring (well, in Australia anyway): the bees are a’swarmin and the birds are a’swoopin – all in the cause of protecting their offspring. Attacks have been so relentlesss in my street that a neighbour contacted the local Councillor for help. The above sign was the Council’s answer to the birds. Personally I think it would make a great name for a house. There is something poetical about it – something in the vein of ‘Honeysuckle Cottage’.

The added bonus is that it might keep unwelcome hawkers outside your property, in much the same way as ‘Beware of the Dog’ warnings – and you don’t even need to keep one as a pet!

Piloting the Ronald Reagan into Brisbane

Source: Piloting the Ronald Reagan into Brisbane

Closure and Closure

 

Sounds like a firm of lawyers doesn’t it, but no, for me it’s to tell you that:

1. I am closing the Moreton Bay History part of my webpage (which means that you won’t be able to log on using the  http://www.moretonbayhistory.com address after next week).

I opened my Moreton Bay History webpage in April 1997 and after nearly 20 years, I think I’ve said all I need to about the bay’s history. However I’ll try to keep the blog section open for the occasional blog. Hopefully, barring technical difficulties in the transfer, you may still log in to the blog using the following address:

peterlud.wordpress.com

2. My second closure is to finish writing ‘the novel’ which I began way back in 1970. After being constantly put on the back burner for the past 47 years due to the demands of my history writing, I’ve made it my new year resolution to finally seek closure on the ‘novel’ project. It won’t be a number one bestseller and will probably be seen by nobody but myself, but like learning to play the guitar, it will satisfy a lifelong ambition.

I’ll keep sending my new blogs to Facebook and Google+ so I hope we can still keep in touch.

Hopeful author, Peter Ludlow, beginning his novel on a £5 typewriter at Ridge Road, North London in 1970

London Bitter Sweet

Kensington Gardens

Part of the idea I had when I came to London this visit was just to sit in Kensington Gardens and watch the grass grow while sunning myself in the gentle English light.

Oxford Street in the rain

However the sunny weather Phyllis and I had experienced last week in the west of England sadly did not accompany us eastward to London. Yet in many ways reaching the capital felt like coming home: the overfamiliar landmarks, the crowded trains of the underground, the public Laundromat,…and the bleak cold weather that heralded in the first days of the English ‘summer’.

Tube station on London’s Underground

Being back in London again after I first arrived here 48 years ago was a bitter- sweet experience: it was wonderful for us to tread the footpaths of the West End once again, but sad to realise that our bodies just couldn’t manage them as they once did so easily.

We visited our old Boots shop in Victoria Street where we had both worked but found it to be overrun by a mass of building work. As if to give a nod to the old days, some of the buildings’ facades were being preserved, but little else.

Facade in Victoria development

However Phyllis’ former flat at 33 Moreton Place, Pimlico and mine at 10 Nevern Square, Earls Court remain unchanged, still slumbering quietly as they have done in our dreams.

2015 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,400 times in 2015. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Stories from Cowan Cowan – 1:

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Cowan Cowan, Moreton Bay, Moreton Island, WWII

Map of Moreton Bay showing the main shipping channel

Cowan Cowan is a tiny settlement on the western side of Moreton Island a few kilometres north of Tangalooma. On this map, it is situated just where the main shipping channel almost touches Moreton Island. In the early days, when a ship entered Moreton Bay, a pilot vessel would be dispatched to guide it safely into port. In 1848 because of its proximity to the shipping channel, the Pilot Station was moved from Amity to Cowan Cowan on Moreton where, by 1860, it was recorded as having in residence two pilots, nine boatmen, and others, all living in wretched conditions. Later the Pilot Station was shifted still further north on Moreton to Bulwer.

Crew of the 6 inch gun at Cowan Cowan

At the commencement of WWII, there were three Forts built to protect the entrances to Moreton Bay. The main shipping channel, via the North West Channel between Bribie and Moreton Islands, was guarded by Fort Bribie, a garrison situated on the northern end of the island where the channel passes closest to the beach, and by a similar Fort at Cowan Cowan where the channel passes closest to Moreton Island. Fort Rous, on the southern end of Moreton Island guarded the bay from any shipping attempting to enter via the South Passage. At each of these Forts was a pair of six inch guns. Bribie was sea firing, Rous was sea and bay firing, while Cowan was bay firing only because the height of Mount Tempest proved too large an angle for the guns to fire over to sea.

Roy Gardner, of Bechmere tells us of his wartime experience at Cowan Cowan:

‘In 1939 when war was imminent, I was sent with the Engineers over to Cowan Cowan to build facilities for a garrison to be stationed there. We firstly cut our own timber to build a bridge over the swamp behind Cowan, then constructed a rifle range where the land begins to rise to Mount Tempest. I’ll bet it’s still there today because we made it out of ironbark. It was backbreaking work shovelling sand.

‘Next we sank a well on the Cowan side of the swamp. Up until then we depended for our fresh water on supplies brought down on the “Grazier”. Washing was done in the bay with the sharks! Then we constructed wooden towers to hold the corrugated iron tanks for the water, then ablution blocks for the showers. We then cut stumps and had them sunk and levelled ready for pre-cut huts brought down on the “Grazier”.

‘Then the artillery and foot soldiers moved in to join us 120 engineers. I remember we had Church Parade on Sundays conducted by Padre St.George from Sherwood. Sickness was the only exemption, but one Sunday a few of us buzzed off and went for a walk along the beach. We saw a lot of sharks in the water nearby and one of my mates fired off three quick shots at them. The parade heard this and thought the island was being attacked. The alarm was raised. Needless to say we were not very popular!’

‘Curly’ Meath, of Wilston writes:

‘The fort at Cowan Cowan possessed two 6 inch guns to protect the entrance to Moreton Bay. In one encounter, the bridge was blown off a mystery vessel which failed to respond to its challenge of identification. The vessel turned out to be a ‘friendly’ minesweeper and several crew were killed in the encounter.’