Stan 'Walsh' - A Case of Mistaken Identity?
Stan Grant is a well known Australian journalist, presenter, speaker and author. We, like many other Australians in the old days, enjoyed Stan’s style of presentation - his apparent command of the topic at hand and his delivery with that attractive, modulated, timbre of his voice.
But in more recent times, something has changed. Stan appears to have succumbed to the beguiling call of identity politics. No longer is Stan’s reputation to be built upon what he has done, but instead it’s all about who he is. Others have observed this too, which they describe a bit more directly as, “it’s always about Stan.”
Stan has stepped beyond his old role of being an impartial journalist and presenter. He now frequently offers his own political and historical commentary based on what he claims are the lived experiences of his own family and ancestors. In other words, he seeks to influence Australian public policy based on his group identity.
A recent example of his ‘ancestral’ commentary are his words on the failed Voice referendum, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald:
“High-profile former ABC journalist and Voice advocate Stan Grant has broken his silence following the defeat of the referendum, saying Australia’s views on reconciliation were set in stone by the No vote and he doubted he would live to see a changed nation.
Grant, a Wiradjuri man who left the national broadcaster this year after his hosting gig on Q+A made him the target of racial abuse, used the JG Crawford Oration speech at the Australian National University to take aim at No campaigner Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s campaign and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s characterisation of the Voice as “a modest request”.
He also said the No vote had crushed his own hope that the voice of his ancestors would speak through him. “My country has buried my ancestors for a second time,” he said.
The veteran former broadcaster and author also referenced No Poetry after Auschwitz by philosopher Theodor Adorno, criticising a breakdown in meaningful language during significant debate. “The word itself – evil – is banal. Did the Nazis too not read Shakespeare and Goethe?” he said.
“It is hard to think of Australia as a place of evil, there is just so much sunshine, smiling faces and wide open spaces. But evil has happened here. What else should we call it? People beheaded, flour poisoned, frontier raiding parties.”
Grant said he was tired of lies and spin: “Liberal spin, I am tired of Labor spin, I am tired of Yes spin and No spin.” - SMH, 30 October 2023
Stan Grant does have some Aboriginal ancestry and he is completely within his rights to identify anyway he wants. However, when he uses his Aboriginal identity to inform his political, economic and historical views about what public policy we should adopt in modern Australia, then the rest of us have the right to critique the way he uses this identity to inform those policy suggestions.
The Ancestry of Stan Grant
Our researchers at Dark Emu Exposed decided to critique Stan’s claims about his family, to see who actually were the ancestors that he claims, “would speak through him.”
Stan has written at least three books, memoirs, detailing various aspects of his family’s ancestry, which we used as the initial sources for his claims.
HarperCollins 2004 edition (1st 2002)
HarperCollins 2017 (1st 2016)
HarperCollins 2021 (1st 2019)
Stan claims to be a descendent of the Wiradjuri man, Wongamar, who became King of Merriganoury [Merriganowry], as evidenced by his surviving breast plate, or gorget, that was presented to him by the ex-convict squatter, John Grant (Figure 2).
Stan claims that his “family’s oral history” tells him that this John Grant could have had a child with one of Wongamar’s daughters. This child, a girl, Stan claims could have been called Mary Ann. She could have been the mother of William Hugh Grant [Stan’s great-grandfather known as “Bill”] (See Figure 3).
William Grant has been recorded elsewhere as being a ‘half-caste’ Aboriginal man, which confirms his mixed parentage (detailed further into this post below).
From Stan’s memoir we learn:
Figure 1 - Excerpt from Stan Grant’s Talking to my Country, p71.
Figure 2 - King Plate given by the squatter John Grant to Wongamar. Source
Figure 3 - An alleged branch of the Family Tree for Stan Grant. This has been prepared in good faith from the publicly available records (results in black) and Stan Grant’s own unsubstantiated claims (in blue) plus the speculations of other’s (in blue).
In his memoirs, Stan has described the origins of the ex-convict John Grant, who would rise to fabulous wealth as a squatter on the lands of Wongamar and his Wiradjuri people.
Figure 4 - Excerpt from Stan Grant’s Talking to my Country, p72
Figure 5 - Excerpt from Stan Grant’s Talking to my Country, p73.
Figure 6 - Excerpt from Stan Grant’s Talking to my Country, p73.
Figure 7 - Excerpt from Stan Grant’s Talking to my Country, p73-4
Figure 8 - Excerpt from Stan Grant’s Talking to my Country, p74.
Figure 9 - Said to be a photograph of John Grant Snr who Stan Grant claims he and his family of the “Black Grants” are descended from. Source
Stan is painting an ideological picture here for his readers, one that shows how his claimed, convict Irish ancestor, John Grant, came to Australia and made a fabulous fortune - “the wealthiest Irish catholic in the colonies” - that was built on the “suffering of black people”, represented by Stan’s other ancestor, Wongamar and his tribe.
Without providing any other historical context, Stan is using speculation about his family’s ancestry [there is no proof Stan is descended from either John Grant or Wongamar] to summarise the full history of Australia’s settlement down to a simple, ‘British colonialism was as bad as American slavery; Aborigines were oppressed, dispossessed and lost everything and had no agency in their own fate’ [In a later post we will show that this picture is not true].
Stan enhances the importance of his own ancestry in claiming [conveniently] that he has a personal link directly back to King Wongamar, by speculating a union between John Grant and one of Wongamar’s daughters.
Figure 10 - Excerpt from Stan Grant’s, The Tears of Strangers, p120.
Anyone reading this narrative might come to the conclusion that the ancestral link that Stan Grant is making to John Grant is rather tenuous. Stan realises he has the same surname as John Grant, plus he knows his great-grandfather Bill [William Hugh Grant] was recorded as being a ‘half-caste’, confirming his parentage was most likely due to a union of a ‘white’ man and an Aboriginal mother.
But Stan has no real proof. He is reduced to using terms such as, “could have been” and “my family’s oral history tells me”. These are ‘red-flag’ terms to the genealogist seeking the truth of a person’s parentage. When a writer relies on terminology such as this to ‘prove’ his case for his family tree, it usually leads to what historians call ‘over-reach’ - claiming something as a ‘fact’ when in reality it is nothing more than speculation, where no corroborating evidence at all has been found.
In fact, the family historian of the “White Grants”, as Stan euphemistically calls them, Jacqueline Grant, has indicated in her book, Providence, that Stan and his family have failed to show that the forebear of Stan’s great-grandfather William (Bill) Hugh Grant was a member of the family of John Grant at all. Stan, to his credit, has published Jacqueline’s rebuke in his own book.
Figure 11 - Excerpt from Stan Grant’s, The Tears of Strangers, p90.
But Stan is livid and will not accept the rebuke. Somehow or other, Stan knows that the blood of the patriarch John Grant Snr, or that of his son John Grant Jnr, “runs through [Stan’s] veins.” And he wants them to acknowledge it.
Figure 12 - Excerpt from Stan Grant’s, The Tears of Strangers, p97
All Stan needs is to find some corroborating evidence - something to shove in the face of the “White Grants” to prove beyond doubt that Stan’s family oral history is correct - that the”Black Grants” are descended from the family of the squatter, John Grant.
And Stan does finally find it, as he describes in two of his books.
Figure 13 - Excerpt from Stan Grant’s The Tears of Strangers, p111.
Figure 14 - Excerpt from Stan Grant’s Talking to my Country, p84
So there you have it. Stan Grant has found documentary proof on a marriage certificate that the father of the “Black Grant”, William (Bill) Hugh Grant, was the “White Grant squatter” John Grant.
Or has he?
For the avoidance of doubt, we now produce a copy of the marriage certificate that Stan says “provides the only evidence” that William Hugh Grant’s father was John Grant.
Stan claims that the entry on the certificate under the column heading, ‘Father’, says: ‘John Grant (squatter)’.
We invite our readers to make their own inspection of the marriage certificate.
Figure 15 - Marriage Certificate dated 8 July 1878 between William Grant and Margaret Jane Brien. The marriage was at the Church of England Parsonage in Grenfell, NSW. A large number of details were “not given”. There is no evidence that William Grant’s father was recorded as “John Grant (squatter)”.
The illiterate witnesses who signed with crosses were John Glass and Selina Glass, their ‘marks’ being witnessed by the minister, H J Wilson. Source NSWBDM# 2653/1878
So what is going on here?
The marriage certificate above is a recent, official copy purchased from the NSW Births, Deaths and Marriages archive. It clearly does not support Stan’s claim that it records the ‘Father’ of the groom as being ‘John Grant (squatter)’.
In his book The Tears of Strangers, Stan accurately quotes all the other parts of this marriage certificate - its date (p111), its witnesses John and Selina Glass signing with a cross (p119) and the lack of details for the groom’s mother (p111) - which seems to indicates that Stan has at least seen the certificate.
This leads us readers to conclude that Stan is mistaken for some reason, or is citing another copy, or other documentation or a copy that was annotated or ammended later by Stan or somebody else with the words ‘Father: ‘John Grant (squatter)’ or, more worryingly, that Stan or someone else, is fabricating the evidence to suit Stan’s narrative.
Maybe Stan was so desperate to find evidence linking his Aboriginal great-grandfather William to the squatter John Grant, that he “just made up the evidence” so as to “reclaim his honour” in the face of the “White Grants”? Only Stan Grant himself would know the answers to this conundrum.
How this error got past the publishers is also a little disconcerting. Stan’s publisher is HarperCollins , one of the "Big Five" English-language publishers in the world, with a turnover of some US$2billion per year. Surely they must have in-house reviewers who check the ‘facts’ in their author’s memoirs prior to publication?
Obviously not, since Stan’s later, 2016 book, Talking to My Country, also published by HarperCollins, repeats these same erroneous marriage certificate claims (p84). And this book, described as being “direct, honest and forthright” even won the Walkley Book Award! (Book’s backcover blurb).
In this later 2016 memoir, Stan would have his readers imagine that his great grandfather Bill had something of a lamentable life as he oscillated, seemingly without any agency of his own, between the “black” Wiradjuri world of his mother and the “white” world of his claimed ‘father’ and squatter John Grant.
Figures 16 - Excerpts from Stan Grant’s, Talking to my Country, p84-86.
Figure 17 - Said to be a photograph of William (Bill) Hugh Grant (date unknown). Source:Ancestry.com user Kerrie Madden originally shared this on 04 Apr 2020
But then something caught our eye in this 2016 narrative of Stan’s great-grandfather. In this newer version of his family’s memoir, Stan simply says Bill had a “white wife”, but this “first marriage ended and he married again, this time to a woman of his own [“black”] people.” Stan himself is descended from this second marriage.
But then we remembered something. In Stan’s original memoir of 2002, he had described Bill’s first marriage in considerably more detail, even naming the “white wife” as Margaret Brien (Figures 18). Why did Stan drop these details in his second memoir published 14 years after the first?
Figures 18ff - Stan Grant’s family memoir, The Tears of Strangers, p113-15
The following research we believe has never before been published.
Although it has been sitting ‘in plain sight’ for the past 150 years, no biographers of the Grant family, and especially Stan Grant himself, the author of several books on his own family’s history, seem to have previously mentioned the following events, records of which we uncovered in the archives. [See Researcher’s Note in Further Reading below].
On Boxing Day in 1877, a short notice appeared in the NSW Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime
Abduction.
A warrant has been issued by the Cowra Bench for, the arrest of William Grant alias Walsh, charged with the abduction of Margaret Jane Brien, 13 years of age. Grant is about 24 years of age, 5 feet 7 inches high, medium build, dark whiskers and beard, sallow complexion, supposed to have a scar on nose or over one eye; a half-caste; dressed in dark coat, slate-coloured tweed trousers and vest, and gray felt hat, flash appearance. Supposed to have gone to Walla Walla or Bundaburra.
Figure 19 - 1877 Abduction Notice Source: NSW Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, 26 December 1877, p. 420.
Then, some six weeks later, the police make an arrest in Cowra and the suspect ends up in the Bathurst Gaol on remand, as recorded in the gaol entrance book:
Prisoner : William Grant alias Walsh
Tried: Bathurst Quarter Sessions on 5th March 1878
Offence: Carrying away Margaret Jane Brien unmarried* and under 16 years of age
Arrested: 4 February 1878, Cowra
Discharged: 7 July 1878
Source: 1878 Prisoner listing, New South Wales, Australia, Gaol Description and Entrance Books, 1818-1930. * Please feel free to email us at dark.emu.exposed@gmail.com if any reader can decipher this word of script [second line in first column of second image, Figure 21 below “..Jane Brien **unmarried** = reader Col wins as the first to decipher”]
Figure 20 - Left page extract from the arrest of William Grant alias Walsh. Source: 1878 Prisoner listing, New South Wales, Australia, Gaol Description and Entrance Books, 1818-1930
Figures 21 - Right page extracts from the arrest of William Grant alias Walsh. Source: 1878 Prisoner listing, New South Wales, Australia, Gaol Description and Entrance Books, 1818-1930
We ask readers to carefully note the discharge date for the prisoner from Bathurst Gaol - 7 July 1878.
The very next day, Stan’s great-grandfather is across in Grenfell marrying the very girl, Margaret Jane Brien he was arrested for abducting! (see marriage certificate in Figure 15 above).
Stan tells us that his great-grandfather Bill, “when in his early twenties, he and a local white girl, Margaret Brien ran off to Grenfell to secretly marry.” Unless Stan is totally ignorant of these events, many might think that this looks like a cover-up by Stan - turning a blind-eye to a fact that may reflect badly on a “proud” Aboriginal family perhaps?
We can’t know for certain what happened all those years ago, but somebody must have lodged a complaint for the police to be involved. Conviction for abduction usually results in a sentence with significant jail time. Did the authorities, Margaret’s family, or even perhaps William’s own family, pressure him to marry Margaret and make an ‘honest woman’ of her in exchange for the dropping of the abduction charge? It certainly looks that way to us - out of jail with charges dropped one day, and before a minister getting married the very next day. A colonial version of a “shotgun wedding?”.
And how did their marriage progress? Stan tells us that it didn’t last, but rather than putting any responsibility on Bill for its failure, Stan instead racializes everything by blaming the pressures on Bill for “living in two world’s”. Poor Bill. Colonisation’s fault again.
Stan makes Bill’s transition from one marriage to his next seem rather seamless.
“By the turn of the century Bill Grant had left Margaret Brien and was living with an Aboriginal woman Catherine Ryan…”
Stan admits that he was told that “Margaret Brien died never having forgiven her ex-husband” [note how Stan protects the family reputation here by ‘disassociating the family name from the culprit - he’s now just the “ex”, not “dear old grandpa Bill Grant”]. But Stan doesn’t explore Margaret’s feelings with his readers any further.
But one-hundred and twenty years ago, the people of the district could understand why Margaret was bitter.
On the 8th of March 1905, the NSW Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, alerted the local police forces to a warrant that had been issued in Dubbo:
Dubbo.—A warrant has been issued by the Dubbo Bench for the arrest of William Hugh Grant, charged with child desertion. He is about 52 years of age, 5 feet 11 inches high, medium build, dark hair and complexion, dark moustache, black eyes, scar over one eyebrow; a labourer; a native of Cowra, and is supposed to be about there now : was employed in the Roads Department for a number of years, and worked mostly in the Cowra District as a road maintenance man.
Arrest desirable, his wife and four children being destitute.
Source: NSW Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, 8 March 1905, p. 94
The case took more than a year to play out in court as Stan’s great-grandfather appeared not to want to comply with the court orders laid against him. It is not known what the final outcome was, as the records appear to fall silent on the matter.
1905 Charged
William Hugh Grant, charged on warrant with child desertion, has been arrested by Constable Constantine, Obley Police, on information supplied by Constable Madden, Cowra Police. Ordered to pay 7s. 6d. per week for twelve months. NSW Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, 22 March 1905, p. 117, Vide Police Gazette, 1905, page 94.
1905 Court
William Hugh Grant was proceeded against for disobeying an order for maintenance. The case was postponed for one month. Dubbo Dispatch and Wellington Independent, 16 August 1905, p. 2
1905 Court
William Hugh Grant, who did not appear in answer to a summons for £6 7s 6d arrears on a maintenance order was fined £12 15s. The Dubbo Liberal and Macquarie Advocate, 1 November 1905, p. 2
1905 Warrant
Dubbo. — A warrant has been issued by the Dubbo Bench for the arrest of William Hugh Grant, charged with disobeying a magisterial order for the support of his child. He is from 46 to 50 years of age, 5 feet 10 inches high, medium to stout build, very dark hair, complexion, and moustache only; has a scar over one eye; a labourer; a half-caste aboriginal. May go to Molong District. NSW Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, 8 November 1905, p. 407
1906 Charged
William Hugh Grant, charged on warrant with disobeying a magisterial order for the support of his child, has been arrested by Constables Hawkins and Johnson, Bodangora Police, on information supplied by Constable Constantine, Obley Police. Fined £12 15s., and 6s. costs, in default, three months hard labour. NSW Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, 25 April 1906, p. 147 Vide Police Gazette, 1905, page 407.
It is not known if William paid his fines or ended up incarcerated with three months hard labour.
It is a great pity that Margaret was not alive today because Stan could have gone some way to comforting her for the bitterness she felt towards her ex-husband, Stan’s great-grandfather Bill.
Stan could have repeated the points he made in his landmark 2015 speech during a debate on racism in Australia.
Holding Margaret’s hand gently, Stan could have looked into her eyes and told her it was her fault, as part of “white” Australia, that her husband had behaved so badly.
As Stan explained in his landmark speech,
‘the Australian dream is "rooted in racism” … the past haunts us [Aborigines] still, speaking of the lower life expectancy and higher rates of incarceration experienced by indigenous Australians.’
"We have struggled with dispossession, we have struggled with colonisation, conflict, we are traumatised by our history in the same way that the people I report on overseas are traumatised by their history,"
"And just trying to navigate that as a person [like grandpa Bill], as a human being, as families, as mother and fathers and uncles and cousins and brothers and sisters is extraordinarily difficult and it is tiring for Aboriginal people in Australia.”
We can imagine however, Margaret answering back to Stan’s attempt to shift the blame for his great-grandfather’s actions onto the racism of white Australia. Margaret would only have had to point out that, as a young adult, Bill had abducted her, a mere slip of a girl aged 13 and taken her ‘honour’ - that she had still married him and done the best she could on his meagre wage, raising their ten children, only to be abandoned by him and left destitute with four of the children after 27 years of marriage.
Margaret would have scoffed at Stan’s lament that, “the past haunts us still, speaking of the lower life expectancy and higher rates of incarceration” of Aboriginal men - she could have pointed out, inconveniently for Stan’s lament, that Bill had lived to the ripe old age of 83, at time when the life expectancy rate for all Australians in 1939 was only about 65yrs. Plus, she could have complained, all his trouble with the police was of his own doing and nothing to do with colonisation or his race. She had known many Aboriginal men who were fine, upstanding fathers who took good care of their wives and children.
But Stan wasn’t to be swayed in his conviction. As he stood up to leave, to preach at his next seminar of all “white” academics, he told Margaret as gently as he could, that she must have been swayed by all the misinformation and disinformation being put about on “his people.” Stan, quoting from his speech again told her that she, as a “white” Australian needed to understand that, "I've lived it, my family have lived it. I was raised on these stories. My people are extraordinary oral storytellers, and this is what we do.” (SMH).
Continuing Down the Rabbit-Hole of Stan Grant’s Family
Readers might have noticed that, in the police records of 1905 above, Stan’s great-grandfather was known officially as William Hugh Grant. This is also recorded as his name on his 1939 death certificate. However in his earlier Abduction charge in 1877, his name was recorded as William Grant alias Walsh.
What was going on here our researchers wondered? Why was William Grant also known as William Walsh?
The archives began to reveal more about Stan’s family than we had ever seen published previously, even by Stan himself in his numerous memoirs and speeches.
On the 11th of September 1872, some six years prior to his abduction of little Margaret Jane Brien, William Grant was remanded for theft.
1872 Remanded
William Grant, alias Walsh, and Eugene Glass (an aboriginal), the former charged on warrant with stealing a saddle and bridle (recovered), the property of C. O’Brien, Grenfell, and the latter charged with receiving the saddle knowing it to be stolen, have been arrested by Senior-constable Merrin and Constable Ussher, Cowra Police. Remanded to Grenfell to be dealt with.
NSW Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, 11 September 1872, p. 246
1872 Remanded
William Grant alias Walsh, charged with stealing a saddle and bridle (recovered), the property of C. O'Brien, has been committed for trial at Young Sessions. Eugene Glass discharged.
NSW Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, 25 September 1872, p. 258, Vide Police Gazette, 1872, page 246.
Our researchers wondered what was going on here. When William was brought into the police station and charged, he would have been asked his name, which was recorded as William Grant alias Walsh. Did William himself freely tell the officers he lived under two names? Or was he already known to the police, under other circumstances, as William Walsh?
But then a strange thing happened. By the time William gets his day in court, some five months later in 1873, the justice system’s preferred way to refer to him is as William Walsh alias William Grant.
It seems that the court may have had access to some intelligence that made them regard the man standing before them, Stan Grant’s great-grandfather Bill, was better referred to as William Walsh, a man who also used the alias of, William Grant.
1873 Court
Young General Sessions.— This court was opened last Wednesday before Mr. District Court Judge Forbes. Mr. Wilkinson prosecuted for the Crown. The following cases Were disposed of: — William Walsh, alias William Grant, was charged with stealing a saddle and bridle, the property of Cornelius O'Brien, Prisoner, who was a half-caste, was acquitted.
The Yass Courier, 21 January 1873, p. 2
1873 Court New South Wales, Australia, Criminal Court Records, 1830-1945
Return shewing how cases for Trial at Quarter Sessions held at Young on 15th January 1873 and adjourned 16 January 1873, before David Grant Forbes Esquire, Chairman, have been disposed of.
William Walsh otherwise William Grant
Offence: Larceny and Receiving
Sentence: Not Guilty
So who the hell was William Walsh?
Our researchers located a number of men named Walsh living around Cowra at the time, but no definitive record was found showing how the ‘half-caste’ William Walsh may have acquired his surname.
But there was one very thought-provoking bit of information that was discovered in the 1983 book, Ben Hall, Bushranger, by D. J. Shiel, an abridgement of which we reproduce here:
“In 1823 the convict ship Medina arrived in Sydney and on board was a convict called John Walsh. He was assigned to work for a landholder, John Grant, in the Blue Mountains. When Grant moved to the Lachlan to take up the Merriganowrey run near Cowra, Walsh came with him.
In 1832 Walsh received his ticket-of-leave, and by this time he was the owner of four hundred cattle … which he drove down the Lachlan thirty-three kilometres from Cowra and took up his new run at Bendoo …
In 1845 there was a massive flood at the Lachlan; Bendoo was awash, and John Walsh decided to seek drier terrain … and moved to Wheogo …
He died on 28 May 1858, at the age of sixty-one”. [2 to 5 years after the birth of William Grant alias Walsh]
However, we found no real proof that this John Walsh was the father of Stan’s great-grandfather William Walsh alias William Grant. We include this story just to show that, if we did make the claim that, John Walsh was in the area, worked with John Grant, and died a few years after William was born (and thus could have been his father by a union with an Aboriginal woman on the station), our reasoning would be actually no more tenuous than what Stan uses himself to claim his linkage to John Grant the squatter.
Remember, Stan told us that ‘great grandfather Bill was a “storyteller”; for some reason later in life he decided to add “Hugh” as an additional name; and he did have the aliases, “Grant” and “Walsh.” Because of this variability, if we were descendants of Bill Grant, we would take everything that we had heard about him in our “family’s oral history” with a grain of salt. But then again, we’re not Stan Grant on an identity politics crusade.
Maps of the District in Which these Events are Set in Central Western NSW
Figure 22 - John Grant the squatter’s original run on the Lachlan at Merriganowry. Nearby towns of Cowra and Grenfell
Figure 23 - On their marriage certificate issued at the parsonage in Grenfell, Margaret Jane Brien is recorded as being from Bumbaldry and William Grant from Kelly’s Creek (orange circle lower right)
Figure 24 - Detail of Kelly’s Creek area - said to be the home area of William Grant on his marriage certificate
Figure 25 - After departing John Grant’s employ [south of Gooloogong in map], John Walsh finally settles further down the Lachlan at Wheogo
Conclusion
Our ‘tongue-in-cheek’ title for this post, “Stan ‘Walsh’ - A Case of Mistaken Identity?”, was chosen expressly to illustrate the dangers posed to writers when they use their own ancestry, and especially the fuzziness of their claimed ‘family oral histories’, to make political and policy comments about modern Australia.
Stan Grant thinks he is a direct descendant of both the Irish convict John Grant and the Wiradjuri warrior Wongamar, although he has no real proof. We have demonstrated that he could have just as easily ended up being called Stan Walsh and perhaps even descended from the not-so-famous convict John Walsh, who could have had a union with one of the many Aboriginal woman who worked on stations at that time.
Our point here is that anyone who adopts a self-righteous, political or policy position today based on what they conclude, “is in their family’s blood”, is heading down a very dangerous path, as many Germans will attest to.
If Stan Grant wants to fight for the rights of “my people” he had better be pretty damn sure who those people actually are, and think through whether he really wants to play that race and identity game.
Our personal belief is that it is prudent to adopt the “5-generation rule” - a person, or a society in general, should largely only be concerned politically and practically in a material sense with the people 2 generations either side of you - your parents and grandparents and your children and grandchildren. These are the only people who you can know personally, have fresh and accurate memories of, care for and be responsible for, and be cared by and supported by. On a society level, this means that as citizens we only really have responsibility for what we may have done two generations back (say 70 years) and what we may do in the future over the next say, 70 years. Thus it is irresponsible for us to pay reparations today to the descendants of people who may have been wronged 150 years ago. Similarly, it is wrong and inefficient for us today to invest billions into fanciful energy projects that may (or most likely will not) have an influence on the world’s climate in 150 years time.
From our reading of Stan Grant’s work, and listening to his speeches, we are coming to the view that he is relying heavily on his ancestry well beyond the ‘5-generation rule’ to inform his politics. As such, we are mindful that he risks moving the political conversation in Australia towards a very dark place - a place of racial arguments, racial division and identity sectarianism, all being driven by a ‘white guilt’ for what might have happened in colonial Australia up to 250 years ago. Stan might be happy to thus become a ‘borderline hater of white Australia’, but most Australians, including most Aboriginal people, have no desire to go on that journey with him.
In some subsequent posts we will elaborate on other aspects of the ‘ideology of Stan Grant’s family History’ in an attempt to point out some of the further dangers of Stan’s crusade.
Further Reading
Researchers Note
When doing genealogical research, it is very important to substantiate the links between the records for a particular person’s name. For example, if we find three records for a “William Grant” in 1878, 1905 and 1939 we cannot just assume they all relate to the same person. We need to find one or more corrobrating bits of information that links all three records together to confirm it is the same William Grant and not two, or even three, different people who just happen to be called William Grant.
In the research into Stan’s great-grandfather, we know that the William Hugh Grant on his 1939 death certificate is the same person as the William Hugh Grant on the 1905 Court proceedings (above) who is the same person as the William Grant alias Walsh on the abduction charge sheet of 1878 (above) because, in all three documents, there is a corroborating link - the name of his victim, later his wife : Margaret Jane Brien.
It would be virtually impossible for there to be two or three different people both called William Grant, each with a victim or wife called Margaret Jane Brien. Thus, this one man is the same person in all these records.
Similarly, we can make a linkage from the 1878 record of abduction by a William Grant alias Walsh to the 1872 police gazette person named William Grant alias Walsh and onto the person named William Walsh alias Grant in the 1873 court hearings (above). We know Stan’s William Grant alias Walsh is a ‘half-caste’ and the court records show that William Walsh alias Grant was also a ‘half-caste’. We know Stan’s William Grant operated in the Grenfell and Cowra districts and he had two Aboriginal friends, or family members, named Glass who witnessed his marriage certificate. We know that an Aboriginal man named Eugene Glass was charged with stealing alongside William Walsh alias Grant (later discharged). This is pretty good evidence that Stan’s great-grandfather William Grant also had an alias William Walsh.
Updated 25 June 20224
