200 years of Swire: John Samuel Swire, 1825-1898

By Special Collections, SOAS Library|16th August 2016|Collections & Research|0 comments

John Swire may have established the firm of John Swire & Sons, but it was his son, John Samuel Swire, known as ‘the Senior’ who can be credited with laying the foundations of the business we know today. He was just twenty one when he took control of his father’s company, but it was clear that he had inherited his father’s work ethic and shrewdness along with a great sense

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“Indigenous Australia” & the Dawes Notebooks

By Special Collections, SOAS Library|1st May 2015|Behind the scenes|0 comments

[Note: This blog may contain the names and images of deceased Aboriginal people] “When the British ships arrived, there were about 270 different Aboriginal languages in Australia. Today, only about 60 or 70 are spoken on a daily basis. Of these, roughly half a dozen are considered to be strong and are being passed from adults to their children, according to John Hobson, a lecturer at Sydney University.” (Source: BBC news

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