Dr Samantha Battams

Musical Pilgrimage

South Australia’s History Festival gets a fitting soundtrack in episode 432, and it arrives in three distinct voices: a geneticist-historian overturning stones in founding-era South Australia, Mr South Australia himself bringing context and colour to every corner of the conversation, and an original paddle steamer shanty that had Keith Conlon attempting to haul imaginary ropes.

Dr Samantha Battams is back for her fourth visit to the Adelaide Show, this time with a book that drops her own family tree right into the founding moments of this state.

There is no SA Drink of the Week in this episode. The interview was recorded at the State Library with a room booking that had a firm end time, so Steve, Keith, and Samantha made the most of every minute with stories instead.

The Musical Pilgrimage this episode is Steve Davis and the Virtualosos performing Away Away: The Canally Crew Song, an original river shanty written in tribute to the paddle steamer PS Canally, which is being restored at Morgan and set to relaunch in late May 2026, and the song features in Keith and Steve’s show, History Hit Parade show at the Mercury Cinema.

You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We’re here to serve!

The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for Best Interview Podcast in Australia at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for Best News and Current Affairs Podcast in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards.

And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It’s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we’ll add you to the list: podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au

If you enjoy the show, please leave us a 5-star review in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store – The Adelaide Show Shop. We’d greatly appreciate it.

And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here’s our index of all episode in one concise
page.

Running Sheet: All Singing All Reading South Australian History Festival

00:00:00 Intro

Introduction

00:00:00 SA Drink Of The Week

There is no SA Drink Of The Week this week.

00:02:09 Dr Samantha Battams on Paving the Way

May is South Australian History Festival month, and if you want to know why that matters, consider this: the western suburb we now call Grange was once known as Reedbeds, where Captain Charles Sturt made his first home while the colony was being developed. One of our guest’s ancestors was the gardener there. Dr Samantha Battams has written a book that puts her own family tree right in the founding moments of this state, and she’s launching it at the History Festival on 15th May. Samantha, has previously been on The Adelaide Show in 249 – Captain Harry Butler and his Red Devil, 279 – The Secret Art Of Poisoning, and 344 – True Crime SA style.

The western suburb we now know as Grange was once called Reedbeds. Captain Charles Sturt made his home there in the colony’s earliest days, and one of Dr Samantha Battams’ ancestors was his gardener. That’s the kind of connection Paving the Way is full of.

Battams’ three-times great-grandfather, Johann Gramp, arrived at Kangaroo Island in 1837 as an eighteen-year-old orphan aboard a vessel that wrecked shortly after. He had lost both parents by age seven, worked for a baker in Bavaria, and made his way to Hamburg where the South Australia Company was recruiting German labourers. He would go on to establish what Keith Conlon describes as the first commercial vineyard near Jacobs Creek.

Keith also notes that he gets there by a roundabout route, and Samantha fills in the Bavarian versus Prussian distinctions that get flattened when viewed from Australian distance. The animosity ran deep enough that during the First World War, Bavarians were reportedly directing Allied forces toward Prussian positions. The Prussian Lutheran refugees who arrived sponsored by George Fife Angus get their own thread. Their pastor Kavel had travelled to London and secured passage for a group who had been holding secret chapel meetings in barns rather than accept the king’s new prayer book.

One Schulz ancestor was accused by the pastor of leaving for earthly reasons rather than faith. Steve’s response: “I think had it been the time of the prosperity gospel, he would’ve been welcomed with open arms.

“From Germany to Ireland, and the Fahy family from County Clare. Edmund Fahy arrived with two younger sisters, one of them just ten years old, and the family was almost immediately separated. Edmund headed to the Kapunda mines while the girls went south with an aunt. Samantha spent years untangling the network of Irish immigrants who came out together, sponsored one another, and intermarried across the colony.

One thread leads to Dave Graney. “I’ve always loved Dave Graney,” Battams says. “I didn’t know I was related to him.”

The Rumbleow family at Encounter Bay ran the first tourist operations in the area. Caroline Rumbleow, who married a man named John Cakebread (“What a name,” says Steve), was said to be the inspiration for a character in the novel Paving the Way by Simpson Newland, which also gives Battams’ book its title.

Family accounts suggest Newland followed Caroline to the Ballarat goldfields and asked her to leave her husband. It did not eventuate.

Samantha undertook a cultural consultation before writing sections involving Aboriginal people. Old newspaper language was either replaced with more appropriate terminology in square brackets or, in one case involving a funeral pyre, stripped of its sensationalist framing while the story itself was kept. She also describes firsthand colonial accounts of a corroboree of 500 people on the banks of the Torrens near what is now the Paradise Bridge.

The interview closes on a revelation hidden since 1890. Battams had her DNA tested to find her adopted father’s biological family, and dismissed a recurring surname, Hazelhurst, as irrelevant to her mother’s side. A later ancestry update showed 25 per cent of her DNA tracing to northwest England and Wales. Following the Hazelhurst name led to Christchurch, New Zealand, and to the conclusion that her great-grandmother Edith Thompson was already pregnant when she married, with a father other than the man recorded.

The cover of Paving the Way is a photograph of Edith and Battams’ grandfather. “The true story had been kept from 1890 to 2025,” Battams says.

Paving the Way is being launched at the 2026 History Festival on 15 May. Dr Lanie Anderson, a previous Adelaide Show guest (107 – Lainie Anderson: View from the hills), will launch the book.

00:27:59 Musical Pilgrimage

In the Musical Pilgrimage, we feature Steve Davis & The Virtualosos‘ “river shanty” song, Away Away (The Canally Crew Song).

Steve Davis wrote this original river shanty after time spent aboard the PS Marion, sister vessel to the PS Canally, a paddle steamer launched in 1907 that is now being restored at Morgan ahead of a relaunch in late May 2026.

Keith Conlon puts the song in context: Morgan once had queues of paddle steamers and six freight trains a day departing with river cargo. He also produces a story about a paddle steamer loaded with materials to build a pub at Bourke that ran aground in a drought and only floated free two years later, by which point the pub had been built by other means.

Away Away is one of ten original songs Steve has written about South Australia for History Hit Parade, the show he and Keith Conlon are performing at Mercury Cinema during the 2026 South Australian History Festival. Keith is confident audiences will want to sing along. A stage jig from Keith is, in his own assessment, highly in doubt. Booking details are in this link: History Hit Parade tickets and information. It’s on Monday, May 11, 11am, and Sunday, May 17, at 4pm and it will simply be an enjoyable show of historical anecdotes, fun, and music.

South Australia&rsquo;s History Festival gets a fitting soundtrack in episode 432, and it arrives in three distinct voices: a geneticist-historian overturning stones in founding-era South Australia, Mr South Australia himself bringing context and colour to every corner of the conversation, and an original paddle steamer shanty that had Keith Conlon attempting to haul imaginary ropes.
Dr Samantha Battams is back for her fourth visit to the Adelaide Show, this time with a book that drops her own family tree right into the founding moments of this state.
There is no SA Drink of the Week in this episode. The interview was recorded at the State Library with a room booking that had a firm end time, so Steve, Keith, and Samantha made the most of every minute with stories instead.
The Musical Pilgrimage this episode is Steve Davis and the Virtualosos performing&nbsp;Away Away: The Canally Crew Song, an original river shanty written in tribute to the paddle steamer PS Canally, which is being restored at Morgan and set to relaunch in late May 2026, and the song features in Keith and Steve&rsquo;s show,&nbsp;<a href="https://events.humanitix.com/history-hit-parade">History Hit Parade show at the Mercury Cinema</a>.
You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We&rsquo;re here to serve!
The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for&nbsp;Best Interview Podcast in Australia&nbsp;at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for&nbsp;Best News and Current Affairs Podcast&nbsp;in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards.
And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It&rsquo;s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we&rsquo;ll add you to the list:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au">podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au</a>
If you enjoy the show, please&nbsp;<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/another-boring-thursday-night/id696302138">leave us a 5-star review&nbsp;</a>in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store &ndash;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.redbubble.com/people/theadelaideshow/shop?asc=u">The Adelaide Show Shop</a>. We&rsquo;d greatly appreciate it.
And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here&rsquo;s&nbsp;<a href="https://theadelaideshow.com.au/complete-list-adelaide-show-episodes/">our index of all episode in one concise page.</a>
Running Sheet: All Singing All Reading South Australian History Festival
00:00:00&nbsp;Intro
Introduction
00:00:00&nbsp;SA Drink Of The Week
There is no SA Drink Of The Week this week.
00:02:09&nbsp;Dr Samantha Battams on&nbsp;Paving the Way
May is South Australian History Festival month, and if you want to know why that matters, consider this: the western suburb we now call Grange was once known as Reedbeds, where Captain Charles Sturt made his first home while the colony was being developed. One of our guest&rsquo;s ancestors was the gardener there.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.samanthabattams.com/">Dr Samantha Battams</a>&nbsp;has written a book that puts her own family tree right in the founding moments of this state, and she&rsquo;s launching it at the History Festival on 15th May. Samantha, has previously been on The Adelaide Show in&nbsp;<a href="https://theadelaideshow.com.au/podcast-episodes/249-captain-harry-butler-and-his-red-devil/">249 &ndash; Captain Harry Butler and his Red Devil</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://theadelaideshow.com.au/podcast-episodes/279-the-secret-art-of-poisoning/">279 &ndash; The Secret Art Of Poisoning</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://theadelaideshow.com.au/podcast-episodes/344-true-crime-sa-style/">344 &ndash; True Crime SA style</a>.
The western suburb we now know as Grange was once called Reedbeds. Captain Charles Sturt made his home there in the colony&rsquo;s earliest days, and one of Dr Samantha Battams&rsquo; ancestors was his gardener. That&rsquo;s the kind of connection&nbsp;Paving the Way&nbsp;is full of.
Battams&rsquo; three-times great-grandfather, Johann Gramp, arrived at Kangaroo Island in 1837 as an eighteen-year-old orphan aboard a vessel that wrecked shortly after. He had lost both parents by age seven, worked for a baker in Bavaria, and made his way to Hamburg where the South Australia Company was recruiting German labourers. He would go on to establish what Keith Conlon describes as the first commercial vineyard near Jacobs Creek.
Keith also notes that he gets there by a roundabout route, and Samantha fills in the Bavarian versus Prussian distinctions that get flattened when viewed from Australian distance. The animosity ran deep enough that during the First World War, Bavarians were reportedly directing Allied forces toward Prussian positions. The Prussian Lutheran refugees who arrived sponsored by George Fife Angus get their own thread. Their pastor Kavel had travelled to London and secured passage for a group who had been holding secret chapel meetings in barns rather than accept the king&rsquo;s new prayer book.
One Schulz ancestor was accused by the pastor of leaving for earthly reasons rather than faith. Steve&rsquo;s response: &ldquo;I think had it been the time of the prosperity gospel, he would&rsquo;ve been welcomed with open arms.
&ldquo;From Germany to Ireland, and the Fahy family from County Clare. Edmund Fahy arrived with two younger sisters, one of them just ten years old, and the family was almost immediately separated. Edmund headed to the Kapunda mines while the girls went south with an aunt. Samantha spent years untangling the network of Irish immigrants who came out together, sponsored one another, and intermarried across the colony.
One thread leads to Dave Graney. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always loved Dave Graney,&rdquo; Battams says. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know I was related to him.&rdquo;
The Rumbleow family at Encounter Bay ran the first tourist operations in the area. Caroline Rumbleow, who married a man named John Cakebread (&ldquo;What a name,&rdquo; says Steve), was said to be the inspiration for a character in the novel&nbsp;Paving the Way&nbsp;by Simpson Newland, which also gives Battams&rsquo; book its title.
Family accounts suggest Newland followed Caroline to the Ballarat goldfields and asked her to leave her husband. It did not eventuate.
Samantha undertook a cultural consultation before writing sections involving Aboriginal people. Old newspaper language was either replaced with more appropriate terminology in square brackets or, in one case involving a funeral pyre, stripped of its sensationalist framing while the story itself was kept. She also describes firsthand colonial accounts of a corroboree of 500 people on the banks of the Torrens near what is now the Paradise Bridge.
The interview closes on a revelation hidden since 1890. Battams had her DNA tested to find her adopted father&rsquo;s biological family, and dismissed a recurring surname, Hazelhurst, as irrelevant to her mother&rsquo;s side. A later ancestry update showed 25 per cent of her DNA tracing to northwest England and Wales. Following the Hazelhurst name led to Christchurch, New Zealand, and to the conclusion that her great-grandmother Edith Thompson was already pregnant when she married, with a father other than the man recorded.
The cover of&nbsp;Paving the Way&nbsp;is a photograph of Edith and Battams&rsquo; grandfather. &ldquo;The true story had been kept from 1890 to 2025,&rdquo; Battams says.
<a href="https://festival.history.sa.gov.au/events/author-talk-dr-samantha-battams-paving-the-way/">Paving the Way&nbsp;is being launched at the 2026 History Festival on 15 May</a>. Dr Lanie Anderson, a previous Adelaide Show guest (<a href="https://theadelaideshow.com.au/podcast-episodes/107-lainie-anderson-view-hills/">107 &ndash; Lainie Anderson: View from the hills</a>), will launch the book.
00:27:59&nbsp;Musical Pilgrimage
In the Musical Pilgrimage, we feature&nbsp;Steve Davis &amp; The Virtualosos&lsquo; &ldquo;river shanty&rdquo; song,&nbsp;<a href="https://stevedavis.com.au/blog/away-away-the-canally-crew-song/">Away Away (The Canally Crew Song)</a>.
Steve Davis wrote this original river shanty after time spent aboard the&nbsp;<a href="https://exploremidmurray.com.au/experience/heritage-riverboats/ps-marion/">PS Marion</a>, sister vessel to the&nbsp;<a href="https://exploremidmurray.com.au/experience/heritage-riverboats/ps-canally/">PS Canally</a>, a paddle steamer launched in 1907 that is now being restored at Morgan ahead of a relaunch in late May 2026.
Keith Conlon puts the song in context: Morgan once had queues of paddle steamers and six freight trains a day departing with river cargo. He also produces a story about a paddle steamer loaded with materials to build a pub at Bourke that ran aground in a drought and only floated free two years later, by which point the pub had been built by other means.
Away Away&nbsp;is one of ten original songs Steve has written about South Australia for&nbsp;<a href="https://events.humanitix.com/history-hit-parade">History Hit Parade</a>, the show he and Keith Conlon are performing at&nbsp;<a href="https://themercury.org.au/">Mercury Cinema</a>&nbsp;during the 2026&nbsp;<a href="https://festival.history.sa.gov.au/">South Australian History Festival</a>. Keith is confident audiences will want to sing along. A stage jig from Keith is, in his own assessment, highly in doubt. Booking details are in this link:&nbsp;<a href="https://events.humanitix.com/history-hit-parade">History Hit Parade tickets and information</a>.&nbsp;It&rsquo;s on Monday, May 11, 11am, and Sunday, May 17, at 4pm and it will simply be an enjoyable show of historical anecdotes, fun, and music.

A weekly podcast recorded in Adelaide that puts South Australian passion on centre stage with a featured guest who joins us each week as a co-presenter to share how they're pursuing their passions. We venture across topics as diverse as history, wine, food, art, music, relationships, critical thinking, health, news, interviews, chat and quizzes. 

Every single interview, every single show, unlocks insights into what drives people to be doing what they're doing and what keeps them striving. 

The Adelaide Show is produced by Steve Davis and Nigel Dobson-Keeffe.

Please subscribe to our In Crowd list; you get an email each Friday (when we have published a new episode) with an overview of that week's show. Plus, consider joining our Inner Circle; a small group of passionate South Aussies who allow us to pick their brains and gain interviewee suggestions.

This podcast began life as Another Boring Thursday Night In Adelaide from episodes 1-79.

A podcast recorded in Adelaide that puts South Australian passion on centre stage with a featured guest who joins us each week as a co-presenter to share how they're pursuing their passions. We venture across topics as diverse as history, wine, ...

The Adelaide Show

A podcast recorded in Adelaide that puts South Australian passion on centre stage with a featured guest who joins us to share how they're pursuing their passions. We venture across topics as diverse as history, wine, food, art, music, relationships, critical thinking, health, and general news. Every single interview, every single show, unlocks insights into what drives people to be doing what they're doing and what keeps them striving. The Adelaide Show is produced by Steve Davis, and ends with an original song by a South Australian artist. Please subscribe to our In Crowd list; you get an email each Friday with an overview of that week's show. This podcast began life as Another Boring Thursday Night In Adelaide from episodes 1-79.

A podcast recorded in Adelaide that puts South Australian passion on centre stage with a featured guest who joins us to share how they're pursuing their passions. We venture across topics as diverse as history, wine, food, art, music, relationships, critical thinking, health, and general news. Every single interview, every single show, unlocks insights into what drives people to be doing what they're doing and what keeps them striving. The Adelaide Show is produced by Steve Davis, and ends with an original song by a South Australian artist. Please subscribe to our In Crowd list; you get an email each Friday with an overview of that week's show. This podcast began life as Another Boring Thursday Night In Adelaide from episodes 1-79.

Dr Samantha Battams joins Steve Davis and Keith Conlon for a deep dive into her new book Paving the Way, tracing the founding families of South Australia from German vineyards to Irish immigration and one very surprising DNA revelation, before Keith and Steve preview their upcoming History Festival show, History Hit Parade, with a rousing original river shanty.