Bristol's Australian Pioneer - Chris Stephens
Bristol's Australian Pioneer - Chris Stephens
Educated at Clifton College and a cricketing team-mate of Gloucestershire’s W G Grace, Robert Bush was an extraordinary man with a lineage back to the first Bishop of Bristol.
Bush travelled to Australia in 1877 to explore the area north of Perth. After several hazardous expeditions, he settled down to become a successful sheep farmer, an influential politician and a founding vice-president of the Western Australia Cricket Association.
ISBN: 9781909446069
Size: 156mm (W) X 234mm (H)
Pages: 352
Published: 22.08.2016
He returned to Bristol in 1905. Now, a multi-millionaire, he bought Bishop’s Knoll mansion with its extensive gardens and views over the Avon Gorge.
Bush quickly established a civic and business life back in Bristol and served as Sheriff in 1912. At the start of WW1, Bush wanted to do something for his adopted country, so he converted Bishop’s Knoll into a 100-bed hospital for Australian wounded. More than 2000 Australian soldiers were treated and recovered there.
In the 1970s, Bishop’s Knoll was demolished and the gardens and arboretum came under the care of the Woodland Trust. A replica of a 1919 commemorative plaque that once adorned the hallway, now stands in the gardens – a fitting reminder of what once stood on the site and a tribute to Mr and Mrs Bush and the extraordinary work they carried out there during the First World War.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris Stephens was born in 1942 and educated in London at Dulwich College and Guys Hospital Dental School. When he retired from academic dentistry in 2002, he was able to spend more time undertaking charitable work for the Woodland Trust and the Dry Stone Walling Association of Great Britain of which he had been Deputy Chairman. In 2002 he founded the SW England branch of the Association.
His interest in local history arose through helping to rebuild the dry stone walls of Dolebury Warren Wood in Somerset owned by the Woodland Trust and this led to the publication of a book on the life of its flamboyant 18th century owner, the Reverend Dr Sedgwick Whalley. This second book came about in a similar way and again concerns the life of a former owner of a property now in the care of the Woodland Trust. Chris is an Emeritus Professor of the University of Bristol and was awarded the OBE for services to dental education in 1999. He is an Honorary life member of both the British and European Orthodontic Societies and a fellow of the British Dental Association.
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