Dicky White Part 2: Love, liquor and lunacy

Ratbags & Roustabouts

In this episode, we meet up again with convict highwayman Dicky White as he faces the tyranny of Major Foveaux on Norfolk Island, builds a pub in Launceston, and gets locked up in a madhouse in London.
After the trials of the voyage to New South Wales on board the Hillsborough convict ship, Dicky White finds himself first in the settlement of Port Jackson and then shipped off again to Norfolk Island.
There, under the harsh rule of Lieutenant-Governor Joseph Foveaux, he fights to survive. But it is there that he also meets the love of his life, Sarah Clayton. Except she already happens to be married.
When the settlement is closed down, Dicky and Sarah, as well as Dicky’s son John and Sarah’s son Henry, start a new life in Launceston, Van Diemen’s Land. There, Dicky builds the Launceston Hotel — and also builds a name for himself as a generous, albeit eccentric, businessman and centre of the community.
But things take a turn when he decides to return to England, with his reception not what he had envisaged. Will he manage to escape London a second time?
00.00 Introduction
02.26 Life in Port Jackson
05.27 Dicky gets sent to Norfolk Island
10.29 Dicky and Sarah meet
17.12 Norfolk Islanders sent to Launceston
28.05 Dicky returns to London
29.07 Dicky is put in a madhouse
31.40 Wedding bells
33.19 Preview of next episode
Credits:
Theme music: ‘Wellerman Epic Shanty’ by EBunny via Jamendo
Sound effects: Pixabay

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