Mary Ann and Captain Piper

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​Point Piper sits on Sydney Harbour and is considered to be Australia’s most exclusive suburb. It is named after Captain John Piper, a Scots-born military officer who became a prominent public servant and landowner in New South Wales.

In 1805 while serving as Commandant of Norfolk Island and aged thirty-one he began an affair with bare-footed fourteen-year-old Mary Ann Sheers, the daughter of convicts. This is their story.

Creative non-fiction can be a difficult genre to read (and review). In this case, it will depend on the extent of the reader’s prior knowledge about the early days of Australia’s colonial history as to how one will come to appreciate this work that is literally jam-packed with everybody who was anybody in early 19th Century Sydney - the Macarthurs, Macquarie, William Bligh, the Wentworths, Redfern, Foveaux, Marsden, etc. - the list is endless. 

While the research is meticulous, in some ways it is so lavish and detailed that it overwhelms and is dangerously close to an “info dump”. It is occasionally broken up with fictional spoken narrative - some of it mundane or bafflingly inconsequential - as well as extracts from real letters and documents. There are also contemporary images, including portraits, paintings and sketches.

Basically, if one likes their books to share inner emotions or demonstrate actions in the narrative, i.e. the writerly rule of “show, don’t tell”, then this one fails as there is just way too much telling. On the other hand, if you want a chronological history lesson about these early Australian colonialists and are not bothered about digging deep into their characters or what made them tick, then it succeeds and it will make an excellent reference source.

Piper’s charm, affability and failings do find some expression, although as a younger man he also exhibited a typical Regency cad attitude, having several relationships with girls that today would be considered criminal due to their young age and with whom he fathered a number of illegitimate children. It was not unusual for the time and many of Australia's founding families have a similar background so this is an honest portrayal of  history. 

Yet somehow Piper formed a life-long bond with one of his teenaged conquests, Mary Ann, who had fourteen pregnancies with him through to her forties, most before they finally married. She buried a number of those children and lost many other individuals who were close to her. She may have come from humble convict beginnings and learned how to present herself and negotiate the challenges of society, eventually managing to keep Piper on the straight and narrow, but she remains placid and elusive and we never get a really solid grasp of how - or why - their marriage succeeded in spite of the odds.

  
Three stars
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