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Philip Hiern born in Barnstaple, Devon in England in 1842. Arrived in 1852 in Australia on steamship the Cleopatra with his parents Henry and Grace. In 1869 Hiern accompanied Gilbert B. Richardson during an expedition in the Great Victoria Desert. Richardson made sure the water sources, which we now know as Philips Ponds, were named after Philip Hiern. For the novel DESERT OF GUILT the story of the discovery of the pools was radically romanticized.
Sources:
A Pioneering Spirit. The Story that began with Philip's Ponds door Liz Jackson (2008) http://www.samemory.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?c=6713
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/60315392
http://www.blaxland.com/ozships//docs/1853/853t0018.htm
Philips Ponds water pools just outside Woomera, which owe their name to their discoverer Philip Hiern. The ruin near the pools once was a hotel, owned by Hughie, who built the place with his own hands with the material that was available on the spot. In Woomera’s heyday this was a popular playground of the children who grew up in Woomera. They would scare themselves with the story that you could hear a crying baby as soon as you would light a fire near the ruins of Philips Ponds.
Ex-Woomeritie Phil Spehr writes:
‘I remember vividly sitting out around a dwindling campfire at Phillip Ponds scaring ourselves witless with talk about the min min and our own nonsensical urban myths, or returning late to the village and having to walk through the cemetery in the pitch black.’
Source: http://homepage.powerup.com.au/~woomera/memor35d.htm
In his book STILL IN THE BUSH Len Beadell describes how a place called Hiern Hill was important to the surveying of the Woomera site. Beadell had to find a suitable site for the rocket range that the British and Australian governments needed for testing rockets in outback Australia. The first security entry gate for Woomera was sited at Philip Ponds in 1947.
Read: Still in the bush by Len Beadell, Rigby Limited,Adelaide 1975
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG54Zvsg6WE
Pimbagate checkpoint with barrier that separated Woomera from the rest of the world. Without a security pass you could not enter Woomera.
Platations Throughout the 16th century, English monarchs struggled to control Ireland by imposing English language, English customs and the Protestant faith. Part of this policy consisted of 'planting' English farmers, merchants and craftsman in Ireland by giving them land and incentives to settle there. English sources from this period portray the Irish as uncivilized and rebellious savages who needed to be subdued. That is why the English defeated the Irish clan, confiscated their land, drove off the native people and planted the land with loyal English and Scottish settlers.
Ribbon Society a catholic secret society set up at the beginning of the 19th century as a counter part to the Protestant Orange Order. Its main aim was to fight against the miserable conditions in which the vast majority of catholic tenant farmers and rural workers lived in the early 19th century.
Source: http://www.lurganancestry.com/ribbonmen.htm
