Sue Gordon

SAMHSEC explores the history of Fish River Valley

Introduction

Samhsec explores the history of fish river valley. SAMHSEC explores the rich history of Fish River Valley, focusing on the 1820 Bailie settler party and Cuylerville's St Mary's Anglican Church national monument.

Abstract

The local branch of the SA Military History Society (SAMHSEC) chose a beautiful summer day for their outing on Sunday, 17 November 2024. The rendezvous was Cuylerville’s St Mary’s Anglican Church, a national monument, where local resident Adele Cutten shared its interesting history. That story begins with Bailie’s settler party, led by Lieut John Bailie RN, the largest 1820 party (263 persons) and the first to leave the Tent Town at Algoa Bay in 1820. Bailie’s group comprised a high proportion of skilled tradesmen and professionals.

Review

The submitted abstract, accompanied by the title "SAMHSEC explores the history of Fish River Valley," presents an unusual submission for a scholarly journal. The title suggests a comprehensive historical exploration, yet the abstract outlines a report of an *event*: an outing by the SA Military History Society (SAMHSEC) to St Mary’s Anglican Church in Cuylerville. Most notably, the described event is scheduled for November 17, 2024, indicating either a future event announcement or a significant temporal discrepancy for a retrospective journal article. This immediate observation raises fundamental questions about the nature and purpose of this submission within a peer-reviewed academic context. As an abstract for a journal article, the current text falls significantly short of expectations. It functions purely as a descriptive announcement of an historical society's field trip, highlighting the location, a speaker, and general historical context related to Bailie's 1820 settler party. While the focus on a national monument and early settler history is intrinsically valuable for local history, the abstract lacks any indication of research methodology, original analysis, new historical interpretation, or a central thesis. There are no research questions posed, no sources cited, and no conclusions drawn – elements that are fundamental to scholarly communication. Furthermore, the abstract doesn't elaborate on how this specific outing or its content connects to the broader theme of "military history" implied by the originating society, SAMHSEC, which would be crucial for a relevant journal. Consequently, in its current form, this submission is not suitable for publication as a scholarly article in a peer-reviewed journal. It reads as an effective and informative piece for a society newsletter, an event program, or a local history bulletin. To transform this into a publishable journal article, the authors would need to significantly reframe the content. This would involve developing clear research questions, presenting original historical findings or re-interpretations, detailing the sources and methodology used, and articulating a scholarly argument or contribution to the existing body of knowledge. Without such substantial revisions to move beyond a mere event report, this abstract does not meet the criteria for academic publication.

Full Text

Comments

You need to be logged in to post a comment.