Joyce O'Farrell
Joyce contacted me recently (2016) and very generously passed on several Handcock family photographs as well as a lot of useful information that she obtained while researching her own family history and that of her late husband, who is related to my great-grandmother, Bridget Handcock. I intend to include this new material in my biography of Peter Handcock when I update it in the near future.
Jim Unkles
Jim embarked on a campaign over 6 years ago to obtain pardons for the Bushveldt Carbineers officers and ever since has worked tirelessly towards this goal. I first contacted him about 12 months after he began and I am very glad that I did.
As a descendant of Peter Handcock I am very appreciative of the work that he has done on behalf of all the descendants and I know that at times this has been at great sacrifice to himself. I hope that eventually he is justly rewarded for his efforts.
You can access Jim's website here http://breakermorant.com/.
Dave Wheeler
Dave very generously sent me a bundle of research material about my great-grandfather that he obtained from the Bathurst Historical Society. Dave is the publisher of a blog titled Dave Wheeler's Thoughts and Yarns and he has recently written (April 2016) an excellent paper titled "A Canberra Boy Visits Bathurst, The Birthplace Of Lieutenant Peter Joseph Handcock, A Scapegoat Of The Empire". (click here to view). Dave has some strong and forthright views and this paper on Peter Handcock, as well as his many other anecdotes and essays, makes for a very interesting and enjoyable read.
Steve Playford and Ted Robl
We first made contact not long after I started communicating with Jim Unkles. They are both keenly interested in this matter and for many years have been researching and accumulating documents from many sources. They have both been very generous in sharing both material and ideas with me and I can say that thanks to Ted and Steve I now know much more about this affair than I did before I met them. While we don't always agree I have a great deal of respect for their knowledge and opinions.
They have a website which can be accessed here
In addition to many other pieces of information I would particularly like to thank Ted for pointing out to me that there is no evidence that Rev. Heese witnessed the shooting of the Eight Boers and also for drawing to my attention that the Rev. Joshua Brough's letter to my great-grandmother had been published much earlier in a local Bathurst newspaper. I am grateful to Steve for publishing the kind remarks that Maj. Thomas made about my great-grandfather in his excellent article "No Surrender" in the forum of the Bushveldt Carbineers website and also for the many valid points he made in that article. Steve has read some of my papers and has offered a lot of useful criticism, advice and suggestions.
Lt.Col. Barry Caligari (Retd.)
I have never met or been in contact with Barry Caligari but I would like to thank him for his petition to the British Government back in 2002. His paper "The Morant Affair" has provided me with much encouragement and I am truly grateful.
Bill Woolmore
I had the pleasure of meeting Bill Woolmore a couple of years ago at the moot court hearing in the Victorian Supreme Court. I have found his book "The Bushveldt Carbineers and the Pietersburg Light Horse" to be an invaluable resource and I am very appreciative of the time and effort he obviously spent in producing it.
