John A Carvosso – author

About John

THE AUTHOR – John Allen Carvosso was born in Adelaide, South Australia, in 1952 and is a direct descendant of Samuel Carvosso. John is a retired engineer. He specialised in piping, associated equipment, and engineering management. He is a current member of Engineers Australia, holding chartered status. He rose through the engineering ranks to the role of Technical Director with AECOM. John´s educational qualifications include a Bachelor of Engineering and a Diploma in Technology Management. John has been a committed Christian all his life. This book is the fruit of his retirement dream. The project picked up where his father, Rex Samuel Carvosso, left off in 1994.

BACKGROUND TO WRITING THE BOOK

Samuel Carvosso was a coachbuilder and businessman in early Adelaide. He was born in Cornwall in 1814 and arrived in Adelaide in 1849 with his wife Louisa and their young family, aboard the ship Glenelg. He was also my great-great grandfather.
I became interested in his story as a boy, when my father showed me Samuel´s Cornish indenture papers dated 1828. My father also showed me the evangelist William Carvosso´s memoirs, published in 1836, and the Reverend Benjamin Carvosso´s memoirs, published in 1857. Benjamin was the first Methodist minister to preach in Van Diemen´s Land (Tasmania); he arrived in 1820 and returned to Cornwall in 1830. Both these memoirs are still in print. William Carvosso was Samuel´s grandfather, and Benjamin was his uncle.
Later, I discovered that Samuel´s older cousin, Robert Terrill Rundle, had been a missionary amongst the Cree and the Blackfoot in Canada. I was curious to know how it was that a humble Cornwall family, far removed from the centres of power and influence, were inspired, and able, to live such adventurous lives during an era when ordinary folk usually did not.
Some years later, Malcolm Bryant, from the South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service, contacted me to ask whether I had any information on Samuel in his role as a Fire Superintendent. I didn’t. I began to wonder what else I didn’t know about Samuel. Perhaps he was just as versatile and adventurous as his family of origin. I set out to discover what I could about this ‘Old Colonist’.
I was able to piece together a surprising amount about Samuel’s personality, his actions, and his motivation.
In the first part of the book, I have simply told Samuel’s story. I have also added appendixes which includes family trees and details about those contemporaries, friends and family who intersected Samuel’s life.
When discussing the history of Adelaide, those people who arrived in the first 10 years of settlement, 1836–46, are known as ‘Pioneers’ and those who arrived in the next decade, 1846–56, are known as ‘Old Colonists’. Samuel Carvosso was an Old Colonist.

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