no-good-damper

Updated: May 12, 2025

His Honour the Superintendent might have assumed the classical motto, "Custos sum pauperis horti." Davy put the money in his pocket, went to the Queen's Head, and, as it was already dark, he hired a man for ten shillings to show him the road through the wet wilderness of Caulfield and round No-good-damper Swamp.

George Dunderdale - The Book of the Bush: Containing Many Truthful Sketches Of The Early Colonial: Life Of Squatters, Whalers, Convicts, Diggers, And Others: Who Left Their Native Land And Never Returned

The only house between Dandenong and Melbourne was once called the South Yarra Pound, kept by Mrs. Atkinson. It was near Caulfield, on the Melbourne side of "No-good-damper swamp." Some blackfellows had been poisoned there by a settler who wanted to get rid of them. He gave them a damper with arsenic in it, and when dying they said, "No good, damper."

George Dunderdale - The Book of the Bush: Containing Many Truthful Sketches Of The Early Colonial: Life Of Squatters, Whalers, Convicts, Diggers, And Others: Who Left Their Native Land And Never Returned