r/AgeofExploration

Ludolf Backhuysen, Ships in Distress off a Rocky Coast, 1667, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund.

There’s something strangely fascinating about old paintings of ships caught in storms. Once the ocean turned against you, there wasn’t much you could do except hope the ship held together. Paintings like this make me wonder what it actually felt like to be on one of those ships, watching the storm close in while the ocean threw you around.

It’s one of the reasons I love the Age of Exploration, when every voyage meant facing the ocean without knowing what waited for you beyond the horizon.

Reibey, at that time named Mary Haydock, was sent to the nascent colony of New South Wales in 1792. After working in the service of Major Francis Grose, Mary later married Thomas Reibey, a freeman and businessman from Ireland.

When Thomas died in 1811 and his business partner passed away soon after, Mary took over the business and helped grow it into a hugely successful enterprise. Later in life, she also became involved in philanthropy, contributing to church life and education in the burgeoning colony.

(You can read more details about Mary Reibey's life on our website, here.)

Images: Miniature watercolour of Mary Reibey, c.1835/Australian $20 bank note

p.s. Thanks to an Age of Exploration Reddit reader Top-Expert6086 for the tip!

First of all, a big thank you to everyone who has joined the sub and especially those who contribute to the discussion! I feel like there is a lot of interesting debate and – very importantly – some pretty funny people here too. I'd also add that (almost) everybody is very respectful, which is not always easy considering the oft-delicate subject matter.

Secondly, I would like to ask something. I know that Reddit is really not the place for making appeals or going all marketingy. But somehow Reddit has been the Age of Exploration place so far – I guess there are quite a few history buffs floating around on here.

Anyway, I really do promise only to do this on very rare occasions, as it's not the done thing.

So as you may know, we have a site linked to the sub, theageofexploration.com where we explore this era in more detail. This is a pretty new website, and every single article (and Reddit post) is (often painstakingly) written and researched either by myself or one of the other writers.

This isn’t a problem, exactly. The Age of Exploration is kind of a passion project, so I will be happy to do it for free for many years to come.

At the same time, if just 1% of our Reddit members were able to support us financially, it would be a massive help for us in both maintaining the site and dedicating more time to researching and writing articles, and also tracking down more paintings of weird animals eating colonial adventurers in far and distant lands for Reddit.

In fact, if even 0.1% of our Reddit readers supported the site (and the sub) through Patreon it would make a big difference and would generally be quite a boost.

Of course we also try to offer something in return to our Patreon members:

• Exclusive articles, images and mini-posts (e.g. ancient Chilean cannons, letters written by lost members of the Franklin expedition)
• Monthly updates about our latest plans
• Starting in November, the chance to vote on future articles and research

You can find our Patreon site here: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheAgeofExploration

Just to try and entice you a little bit more, I also added a 50% discount on the first month’s membership for our Reddit readers, which is available until 9 October. The promocode is: AOESUB26. 

(So you know, you can cancel after the first month if you really want 🙂 )

There is also free membership available on Patreon for anyone who wants to show their support but doesn’t really want to make a financial commitment – it’s still a huge help and a real fillip for me and the rest of the team, and actually we try to do quite a few posts for free members too.

Okay, that's all, back to the history posts!

Jonathan B

p.s. Image: Shipping on Stormy Seas, by Aert van Antum

The lithograph was published in the book Sir Walter Raleigh, The Discovery Of The Large, Rich And Beautiful Empire Of Guiana. Raleigh wrote the account one year after his 1595 journey to the region.

Although Raleigh failed to find El Dorado, discover any new lands or bring home wealth for his queen, the book itself was a huge success and captured the imagination of the English public back home.

(The Age of Exploration will be delving into this adventure and the subsequent book at a later date.)