Goldfields to Graceville

Goldfields to Graceville is a tale of successive generations of a family spanning almost two centuries, scattered across three continents. The eleven children of Amos Radcliffe and Olive Jepson, clothiers in the West Riding of Yorkshire, are the first generation. Two emigrated to America, four went to Australia in the 1850s, while the others remained in Britain. The families of Amos and Olive’s children are the second generation. The narrative centres on their son, Amos, his enigmatic life partner, Sarah Peach and their thirteen children in Australia, the last of whom passed away in 1976. Both generations experienced enormous social, cultural, political, and technological changes driven by the Industrial Revolution, the impetus of empire and a providential sense of manifest destiny. The life trajectories of the siblings in each generation varied considerably. Yet, within this variability, three themes emerge: a desire to teach, a facility with music, and an orientation to community service. Their stories are told with twenty-first-century sensibilities.