Grave Tales Australia: the series

The young letter writer

Dying young, Sylvia McArthur would make her mark, documenting in letters to a newspaper’s children’s page what life in rural Tasmania around the turn of the 20th century was like.

The death of the Clarke brothers

Some bushrangers became folk heroes, others were opportunistic thieves, but the Clarke Brothers were murderous thugs who hanged on duel gallows.

The grave with no bodies

Madam Weigel's patterns dressed the women of Australia for nine decades but in the large cemetery plot bought for three, there are no bodies.

The Gravedigger of Dead Island

Mark Jeffrey lived with the 1100 or so deceased residents on the Isle of the Dead, tending his own plot. But how did he avoid being buried there?

The Flynns of Tasmania

Little did Professor Theodore Flynn and his wife, Lily, of Sandy Bay, Tasmania, know that their son, Errol Flynn, would become Hollywood’s favourite son from the early to mid-20th century and die too soon at the age of 50. This is the story of the Flynns of Sandy Bay.

The plane that flew into a cyclone

A story that has passed into folk law – how bushman Bernard O’Reilly put his mind to finding a missing aircraft with seven people on board when no-one else could.  

The Giantess and the Freak Show

In the days when ‘freak shows’ were entertainment, Mrs Augusta Rewald, a Queensland resident, was exhibited as the ‘biggest woman in the world’. But did she really want to be on show, or was she cruelly exploited by her husband?

The man on the advertising poster

For more than a century, Sam Knott was one of the best-known faces on advertising billboards. But how did this unconventional man find himself fronting a beer poster?

Murder in the Botanic Garden

On a beautiful summer’s eve, January 1924, in the Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, five people's lives were about to change. A gunman was on the loose. A true-crime story from the 'Grave Tales: Melbourne Vol.1' book.

The Bradman of Billiards – Walter Lindrum

If it wasn’t for a persistent father, Walter Lindrum might never have risen to World Champion. He was nicknamed the ‘Don Bradman of billiards’ and they had to change the rules to beat him! This is Walter's story.