'Wild Colonial Greeks' by Peter Prineas

  'Wild Colonial Greeks' by Peter Prineas Reviewed by Louise Wilson in Goodreads, Jan 28, 2021  I opened this book with a considerable degree of curiosity. Having closely studied the experiences of Australia’s earliest convict settlers, I wondered how the author would tackle this topic and what he would unearth. The title ‘Wild Colonial Greeks’ is a nice play on Frank Clune’s ‘Wild Colonial Boys’ but the Greeks in this fascinating book were not wild boys – they just lived in wild places. We follow their various adventures during Australia’s tough frontier period in the second half of the 19th century. I found it fascinating to learn about the different range of hardships suffered by Greek immigrants. Some of it was of their own making, if and when the ‘Mediterranean temperament’ clas

  BOOK 'WILD COLONIAL GREEKS' PUSHES BACK DATE OF GREEK SETTLEMENT IN AUSTRALIA         In my book ' Wild Colonial Greeks', published in early December 2020 by Australian Scholarly Publishing / Arcadia , I present evidence that a Greek from Corfu named George Manuel was living in Australia in 1823, and possibly earlier. This was well before the arrival of the seven pirate-convicts in 1829, considered Australia’s first Greeks.   It is hard to believe that no Greek – not even a sailor – set foot in Australia until four decades after the First Fleet, and not surprising that some time and effort has been expended in searching for an Hellene who came to our shores before the seven pirate-convicts of 1829.   Historian Hugh Gilchrist speculated about Greeks who may have come earlier. Effie Alexakis and Leonard Janiszewski kept the hope alive, noting that while the earliest Greek contact with Australia is unknown, there may be an issue of the