My Tropic Isle By E.J. Banfield Paperback $16.99 Order from Amazon Pdf download $4.99 Order Now

". . . fascinating autobiography . . . especially recommended reading for any one who has ever felt like chucking so-called 'modern life' and returning to a simpler, more basic existence in harmony with the environment and all that nature has to offer the contemplative life."

--Midwest Book Review

"No better, more human, more finely descriptive, or more enticing books have ever been written by an Australian of Australia, or indeed, by any writer of any portion of the earth's surface . . ."

--The Sydney Mail

"This is a wholly exceptional book. It is a book which has been lived, and there are not over many books like that."

--The Daily Chronicle

Born in Liverpool, England in 1852, Edmund James Banfield moved to Ararat, Victoria in Australia when he was just two. His father established a local newspaper, the Ararat Advertiser, and as a young man "Ted" followed in the journalistic tradition, first as a reporter for his father, then as a reporter and copy editor in Melbourne and Sydney, but was delighted to take a post in more remote Queensland as lead reporter at the Townsville Daily Bulletin.

As a youth he loved to seek adventure and spent his spare hours wandering the countryside and reading. In a bicycle crash during one of his rambles, his right eye was injured, and as he grew older it gave him such increasing pain that he took leave from his post as lead reporter to go to England for treatment when he was 32. Unfortunately the eye had to be removed, but while he was there, he fell in love with Bertha Golding. The couple returned to Australia to be married in 1886. The voyage back was the subject of Banfield's first book, The Torres Strait route from Queensland to England, which was published in 1885.

As his role at the newspaper matured, and as he was given more and more responsibility, his health began to fail. In fact, he was one of the first to understand the consequences of what we think of nowadays as "downsizing" and was forced to take on more and more the role of daily editor though still at a reporter's pay. He and Bertha began looking for a place to live where he might recover his health and reduce his responsibilities, and in 1896, after camping on Dunk Island for a holiday, they applied for the lease of one section.

His health worsening, Banfield and his wife decided to make a complete break and move to the island in 1897. So weakened had he become that by the time the launch brought him from the passenger steamer to the shore, he had to be helped from the small boat and literally crawled up the beach to the shade of a palm while sailors unloaded his household goods. With the reduction in stress, the balmy tropical isle and its healthy fruit soon improved Banfield's health.

He became fascinated by all of the flora and fauna on and around the island, but particularly with the birds. As he began to write articles about his life, he also campaigned to have the government declare Dunk and its surrounding islands as "Reserves for the Protection and Preservation of Native Birds." It was a struggle he maintained for the rest of his life, although the government did grant him his wish on Dunk and also named him as its first "ranger."

At the same time, Banfield was also concerned about what he saw as the dimunition of the original inhabitants of the island, native Aborigines who had become his friends and companions. The native population of the island, once quite large, had dimished to just a few members, and even those eventually sought their living on the mainland. Banfield was appalled to think that, even in just a couple of generations since the coming of the white man, so much of the Aborigines' lore and custom had been lost.

In 1908 The Confessions of a Beachcomber attracted attention worldwide, cementing Banfield's reputation as an amateur naturalist, conservationist and defender of wildlife. His next books met similar acclaim, but he became disenchanted with his publisher's commitment to his work and saw very little in royalties from books that were considered international best-sellers. The loss was not a personal hardship, but rather he had hoped that royalties would help increase his efforts to lobby even more in the cause of wildlife preservation. His greatest concern, and a foreshadowing of the future, was that one day Dunk Island would become a mere resort for tourists. It has, but the island remains a permanent sanctuary for birds.

The couple continued to live on the island with housekeeper and friend Essie McDonough until June 2, 1923, when E.J. Banfield died quite suddenly, possibly from a ruptured appendix. His wife remained alone on the island, because Essie was away, and after three days managed to hail a steamer. With the help of the crew, the man that had become known throughout Australia and the world as "The Beachcomber" was laid to rest on his beloved island.