Thursday, December 10, 2009
Who was visitor 1560?
It was a returning visitor from Victoria, Australia. Could it be Charles Joseph La Trobe (1801-1875) La Trobe is probably the best known person of Huguenot descendant in Australian history. He was the first Lt-Governor of Victoria, and saw that colony through its difficult early years. His dedicated and high-minded influence on government affairs is only now beginning to be appreciated. His family originated in Languedoc in the South of France. La Trobe's first book, The Alpenstock: Or Sketches of Swiss Scenery and Manners, was published in 1829 and his second, The Pedestrian: A Summer's Ramble in the Tyrol, came out in 1832. As tutor or mentor La Trobe accompanied the dashing young Count Albert de Pourtalès during a tour of America which began in 1832. They visited the chief cities of North America and sailed down the Mississippi to New Orleans, and then toured the prairies with the American author, Washington Irving. According to Irving, La Trobe 'was a man of a thousand occupations; a botanist, a geologist, a hunter of beetles and butterflies, a musical amateur, a sketcher of no mean pretensions; in short, a complete virtuoso; added to which he was a very indefatigable, if not always a very successful, sportsman'.
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