Charlotte Barton

[2] The book titled A Mother's Offering to her Children: By a Lady, Long Resident in New South Wales.

[7] In 1826 Charlotte Waring came to New South Wales to take up a position as governess to the family of Hannibal Hawkins Macarthur.

She became engaged during the voyage to James Atkinson, a highly respected agriculturalist and author of the first substantial book on Australian farming.

James Atkinson died in 1834, and Charlotte married Oldbury's overseer George Bruce Barton in March 1836.

[2] A Mother's Offering,[12] which predates subsequent Australian literature for the young by a decade,[6] is written in the genre of children's conversation textbooks, a dialogue between mother and children,[13] reflecting the importance of family conversation to education in the home in the nineteenth century, and follows the pattern of literature by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in its expository question-and-answer format concluding in pious moralising.

[16] The book covers a variety of topics, from natural history, often as an example for human morality,[17] to geology, shipwrecks and the customs of the Australian Aborigines.

And yet there is scientific understanding evident in her accounting for explosions heard in the bush 'as loud as cannon' with reference to theories of Sir John Herschel.

Aalders auction catalogue included the following biography: Born in London in 1796 [sic], Atkinson was a remarkable figure, carrying her family's interest in art and science to act as governess for Hannibal Macarthur in 1826, meeting James Atkinson on ship (The Cumberland) to Sydney and marrying soon after, moving to his home at Oldbury, near Sutton Forest.

This is background to this precious bound work of 30 illustrated pages, each 18.5 x 20 cm, that certainly show evidence of her study in London with artist John Glover.

The spectacular possum, and the ineffable owl would all proffer memories and tales of a more peaceful time, yet the burden shown by her rendering of the old Aboriginal chief is tempered by her vision of the Aboriginal mother and child, with the woman carrying the flame and keeping it lit during dark times.

While there are one or two English scenes directly bearing on her family background, the majority of images are of the minutae of a naturalist's life in colonial New South Wales.