Iron Pot Lighthouse, 
South Arm Tasmania
November 25th 1875
My dear Mother,

I received your letter safe by last mail and three newspapers, altho’ there was no letter the previous mail. I am glad to hear you are all well and before this you will have heard that Chris is all right again. I also received a long letter from Frank and am sure she must have had a pleasant time of it as far as I could gather from her letter which I found rather hard to decipher. I am sure she ought to call Edward a right good fellow for his kindness. There was Man-of-War passed here to and from town and I see that among the list of her ‘The Dido’ officers, senior Lieutenants ‘Bery? Knox’. I always thought that Very Rev Mr Knox son was in the army but perhaps it may be a relative. I hope you get the photographs sent last mail.. I sent one to Walter also. The children have had a spell of the whooping cough but are now well. All those ailments are lighter here than at home. We have had a very melancholy accident at or rather returning from a regatta in town lately. A party of eight four young women and four young men left the opposite shore from the town at about 7 p.m. it being squally at the time, and when a good distance from the shore the main sheet fouled and the boat capsized and only two men and a women were saved. All respectably connected and none of the bodies have been found. Yet they had no business to have the sail up at the time. I am sorry that you did not get the shells but I shall send the next by different hand. I think that I mentioned in my last that Mr Babington had lost his eldest son. He had only been married in N. Zealand a short time and it has been very heavy to him. I do not hear of any likelihood of our being shifted at present, but it is all in good hands and I am better situated than I deserve or had any idea of some time back. Mr B. kindly enquires after you in his last letter and was very kind and thoughtful when Chris was in town. I enclose a lock of George’s hair which he wishes to send to Grandma. Our summer is about commencing although it has been very blustery weather lately. I should very much like to have a pamphlet which I see advertised in the W.N. "Rise and Progress of Orangism" if it were not expensive.. Well I must conclude with Love to Joe, Miss L., Brothers and sisters and I remain, Dear Mother, your affect son,

J.C. Parkinson.