The Second Son

The Second Son is a biographical account of the life of Baron Leopold von der Borch, an aristocrat who, in 1868 at the age of twenty-two, left Germany for Australia aboard the George Shotten. It was an arduous four-months at sea, a journey that would never see him return to the family and home he loved.

Leopold's story is about a young man learning to stand on his own two feet: a young man who became a policeman, detective, and interpreter, solving murder cases. He could not have imagined himself living in Palmerston (now Darwin) at a period in history only four years into white settlement, nor the isolation, the heat, the crocodiles lurking in the same rivers where he and his fellow officers would cool off from the heat or drink from to keep themselves hydrated, nor the quicksand that swallowed up one of their horses.

In South Australia, where he eventually settled, he became the first official police photographer of Australia, reuniting missing persons as well as helping to catch escaped prisoners. During that time, he married Sarah Moon May and they had twelve children. In that era, post-natal depression was treated very differently to now, so when Sarah fell ill, Leopold had to make one of the biggest decisions of his life.

The Second Son is based on 500 pages of letters that Leopold and his brother sent to each other between 1868 and 1920.