Scholarly Scoundrel: Laurence Hynes Halloran by Jan Worthington

Laurence Halloran's scandalous life - shared with wives, mistresses and 21 children - is a stranger-than-fiction tour through the high society and low life of a bygone world. An Irish orphan he navigated sprawling capital cities and rising colonies, preached in churches and wallowed in prisons, founded schools and impersonated clergymen, fought in the Battle of Trafalgar and was transported to Australia for forgery.

Sailor, scholar, educator, murderer, swindler, adulterer - Halloran was a flawed and facinating product of the 18th century, with burning ambition and a gift for self-destructive behaviour. Richly illustrated here is the whole sordid story of his career on sea and land. How in England he was jailed for running a Navy shipmate through with a sword. How he had to flee Capetown when he enraged colonial authorities. How he arrived in Australia as a convict, and left a lasting stamp on our society.

256 pages.