Kara’s family history comes to life

After almost a decade’s work researching and writing, ‘Becoming Australian’ was published in February 2023 by Kara McDonald Davis.  

A comprehensive account of the lives of her ancestors Sophia and James Davis, it was based on documents and letters which had been recently discovered in an old battered suitcase stored in the family property’s barn at Jack River near Yarram in South Gippsland.

The story is set against the backdrop of Dublin’s Italian Opera in the early nineteenth century and follows the family’s journey to Van Diemen’s Land in 1831, where they helped establish elaborate musical concerts and a piano importation business.

Following bankruptcy amid the economic chaos of the 1840’s the Davises were part of the pioneer settlement of Gippsland.

As part of her extensive research, the author first transcribed the letters and documents then sought to identify the writers and people involved.

A trip to Dublin in order to pour over undigitized Irish country newspapers in the National Library of Ireland laid the background to the first part of the book which is set in Ireland. Sligo County’s early newspapers held vital clues to understanding the background to the documents which had survived and been kept by the family.

They also filled in the mind-set and events of the early nineteenth century world which had formed the canvas for the events written about. Little was known previously of the exclusive scene of the Italian Opera in Ireland and its key players at this time.

In Part Two, the author re-tells the story of early Hobart Town’s musical world along with some of its outstanding identities using digitised newspapers on the website Trove along with other primary sources. The account presents a window into the world of educated and cultured Irish people who were early emigrants to Van Diemen’s Land during the time it was a penal colony.

The family’s early pioneering history as squatters on the southern frontier of the Port Phillip colony comprises the final section of the book.

Based on letters sent both ways across Bass Strait from the newly established frontier outpost Port Albert and Van Diemen’s Land, it tells of people and events set against the backdrop of the maritime cattle trade market carried out between the two locations.

As a publication based on primary sources, ‘Becoming Australian’ presents an original version of an aspect of Dublin’s musical world which has been little written about, along with a fascinating family story reaching into Hobart’s early musical scene and pioneering Port Albert region. It has wider implications towards understanding the fabric of early European settlement in Australia and the contributions made in the fields of music, horticulture and agriculture.

Most of all it’s a compelling kind of personal history that is related with attention to truth and historical detail.

About the author

Kara was raised in Yarram, the daughter of local grazier Neville Davis and Eril Davis, a Gippsland teacher and later Librarian at Yarram High School. She attended Yarram Kindergarten, Yarram Primary School and then Yarram High School before transitioning to MLC as a boarder for the last couple of years of her schooling. During this time, along with her siblings she was very involved in local sporting clubs; Yarram Athletics Club and Yarram Pony Club, competing at State level. She also was a member of the Yarram Tennis Club.

After graduating Kara obtained a cadetship with Yarram Standard News and Leongatha Star working for the Giles family covering local news events. After being graded, she left journalism to pursue a degree in English Literature at Monash University.

Yarram Historical Society will be holding a book launch on Saturday 1 July, 2.30-4.30pm at the Community Centre (Old Kindergarten) corner of Gipps St/Commercial Rd, Yarram, in the form of an afternoon tea.