Caroline Louisa Waring Atkinson (1834-1872), known as Louisa Atkinson, was an Australian writer, botanist, and illustrator; she is best known for her natural history journalism.
Atkinson was born on February 25, 1834, the fourth child of James and Charlotte Barton Atkinson. James, a successful farmer, was also a magistrate; Charlotte was well-educated and artistically gifted. Atkinson was born at her parents' estate, Oldbury Farm, in the lower Southern Highlands of New South Wales. She was born less than fifty years after the first British fleet arrived in Australia, carrying convicts to colonize Australia. At the time of her birth, she was one of only 12,000 people of European descent who were Australian-born. In the Australia of her time, convicts sent from England, Scotland, and Ireland were a common part of society. They labored on farms and in towns, and when they escaped, became "bushrangers," or outlaw bandits. Aboriginal people and the white settlers often had bloody clashes, and the Aborigines began to be pushed off their old territories by force and through attrition brought on by European diseases.
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