Royal Reels: Gambling

Political

WILLIAM JOHN MACLEAY, POLITICIAN/ZOOLOGIST & the MACLEAY FAMILY

The cover is addressed to W.J. MacLeay (sic)  Esq MLA, Australian Club and the 1d red-orange New South Wales ‘Laureate’ stamp was cancelled with a barred grid obliterator with 10 vertical lines characteristic of the Sydney G.P.O. ( Figure 1). The reverse postmark confirms that Sydney was the point of origin with a small unframed SYDNEY/ MY 6/ 185 ( )/ C/ N.S.W.  The vendor states that the year date

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WILLIAM CLARK HAINES, GRAZIER & POLITICIAN, PREMIER of VICTORIA

The entire has a 1d brown and a 3d steel-blue ‘Half Length’ stamps of Victoria cancelled by the barred numeral ‘75′ of Shelford prepaying the 4d inland letter rate to Melbourne and showing but not seen on the reverse, despatch and arrival datestamps of 10 April 1856. It is addressed to William C. Haines, Chief Secretary Office, Melbourne (Figure 1). William Haines (1810-1866), was born at Hampstead, England, son of

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WILLIAM ANDRADE, ANARCHIST, BOOKSELLER , & ANTI-CONSCRIPTIONIST

The incompletely seen cartoon advertising cover shows a caricature of an eastern gentleman apparently standing on a log fishing; the text reads ‘No Ketchem Ten Days return to The House of Mystery and Magic, Will Andrade, 173 Pitt St., Sydney’. It is addressed to Messrs S.S. Adams & Co., Ashbury Park, New Jersey, U.S.A. It has a blue AIR MAIL sticker and the one shilling six pence Airmail and the

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WESTERN AUSTRALIA ATTEMPTS SECESSION IN THE 1930’s

I have no recollections of the persistent concerns that the W.A. residents had about staying in the Australian Federation, right up to the end of WW II in 1945. Moreover, even in the 1970’s a Westralian Secessionist Movement was formed with the financial backing of mining magnate, Lang Hancock. The movement represented a conservative reaction to the centralist views of the Whitlam Labour Government. During the 1999 Federal referendum campaign,

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WESTERN AUSTRALIAN SENATOR ALEXANDER MATHESON (1861-1929)

These two covers were mailed from Perth W.A. eight days apart, almost certainly from the same sender, addressed simply to Senator Matheson. Both were underpaid with the grey ½d swan stamp, and they were postmarked with different Perth G.P.O duplexes. The first had a complete duplex with L.C. (Letter Carrier) ROOM/ 2/ AU 4/ 02/ PERTH and was addressed to St. Georges Terrace, Perth W.A. and it had a tax

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