The Australian ‘History Wars’ at Sovereign Hill.

Sovereign Hill’s Free Educational Resources – A Guide.

How? When? Why? – The Industrial Revolution in Australia.

Environmental Changes to Victoria’s Landscapes.The Eureka Rebellion – what we can and can’t ever know.Women on the Goldfields Part 1 – 19th Century Womanhood.Women on the Goldfields Part 2 – Working Outside the Home.Women on the Goldfields Part 3 – Working in the Home.The Gold Rushes of Victoria and California Compared.Study History with help from the Sovereign Hill Museums Association.Why is the Museum called Sovereign Hill?.Kirsty Murray – Teaching Notes (click to download PDF) What a fabulous foundation for an excursion to Sovereign Hill! If you’ve used this book, please tell us what you’ve done with your students. Highly recommended as a novel for students to read alone or as a text that could be read aloud to your class. It is a powerfully written story which will stimulate empathy in your students and the historic setting has been thoroughly researched and accurately portrayed. We have seen this novel used successfully in year 5/6 classes and with year 8s where it was studied as a text in English. Reading this novel puts a human face to the stories of the famine and is an excellent way to introduce the gold rushes to your class.

Those girls now have over 30,000 descendents but few people outside their ancestors are aware of their stories. Most of them had lost at least one parent to the Great Hunger – the Irish potato famine of 1845-1850. She eventually obtains work as a scullery maid for a wealthy Melbourne family before making her way to the Ballarat goldfields.īetween 18, over 4000 girls, like Bridie, between the ages of nine and twenty were taken from the workhouses of Ireland and sent to Australia. At the age of eleven she becomes one of the Irish Orphan Girls sent to Australia to work as servants. The story follows the trials of Bridie O’Connor who finds herself alone in the workhouse after her family die of hunger during the Irish potato famine. Bridie’s Fire published by Allen and Unwin

Bridie's Fire by Kirsty Murray