Corruption and Skullduggery: Edward Lord, Maria Riseley and Hobart’s tempestuous beginnings

This classic and colourfully illustrated work - reprinted to meet continuing wide demand - tells the story of much of the surprising and hidden shady criminal past of leading figures in early Tasmanian society.

It tells the fascinating story of the officer and the convict, Edward Lord and Maria Riseley, who made a fortune in early Hobart by their business and networking skills - only to throw it away in the 1820s by extravagance and financial incompetence (Edward) and sexual infidelity (Maria).

This is also the real story of early Hobart, not whitewashed as it usually is to show our glorious beginnings or because the gullible historian actually believes the official sources. Glossing over embarrassing scandals was the least of it. No one in Van Diemen’s Land wanted to be there: they were all either sent there (convicts, guards, officials) or, as convicts claimed and was all too often the case, they fled from Britain only one step ahead of the law (free settlers).

Everyone wanted to make a fortune, and they weren’t too scrupulous about how they did it. Fleecing the British government was the most popular way, but they also fleeced each other, exploited, embezzled, stole ... Almost no one in Hobart’s first twenty years has a creditable record. (Don’t gloat, Launcestonians: your story is even worse, just not yet told.) Oddly, convicts come out better than the rest, though possibly only because they lacked opportunity. However, Maria Riseley, the ex-convict, seems to have been one of the few business people who was not corrupt. Tough yes, corrupt no (or else she hid it much better than anyone else).