Bryan Fuller, 72, has written a history of the Fuller family in Australia.

Mr Fuller, who relocated from Coolah to Jamberoo about six months ago self-published Against All The Odds. 

The 300-plus-page book took nearly a decade to complete. 

William and Ann Fuller left Ireland with their seven children in August 1839. 

Ann and the children arrived in Sydney in December. William succumbed to Typhoid fever near the West Australian coast. 

Ann gave birth to a son who also died on the voyage and two-year-old Charlotte died in quarantine in Sydney. 

Ann and the children eventually settled in Wollongong where she ran a shop. 

Her youngest son, George Laurence Fuller, produced 14 offspring and acquired land at Kiama.

One of the children, Sir George Warburton Fuller (1861-1940, born and raised in Kiama) became a member of the first Federal Parliament in 1901 and was Premier of NSW in 1921 and 1922-25.

His first, Nationalist government lasted only seven hours and 40 minutes - the shortest in NSW history - and led to the formation of the Country Party of NSW.

The author is a great-great-grandson of William and Ann. 

“I was motivated to start all this because I was under the impression that no one else had done any research of much consequence on the Fuller family,” Bryan said. 

“I soon discovered that this was quite incorrect.

“Some people, but especially three members of the family had done an immense amount of research on the subject.

“(However) the descendants of George Laurence Fuller’s siblings who arrived on the North Briton with their mother Ann, being Elizabeth (Cadden), Thomas, William, Sarah (Warburton) and Annie (Waldron) have for the most part just not received the attention they deserve.”

George Laurence Fuller married Sarah, a member of Gerringong’s Miller family, and bought a shop in Manning Street. 

“George (Fuller) made a great success of that, and he made enough to buy some country around Shellharbour,” Bryan said.

“He called the block he had there ‘Dunmore’, after the town they came from in County Galway. 

“He built a house there, which is still standing, called Dunmore House.” 

A key figure within the family’s history is Lieutenant-Colonel Colin Fuller, another child of George Laurence Fuller.

“He was a soldier of note in World War I, and I believe he was actually the last Australian officer to leave Gallipoli when they pulled out of there,” Bryan said. 

Bryan’s father Sir John Fuller was a leader of the governing NSW coalition from 1965 to 1976 and a minister for eight years.

Bryan and wife Margot travelled extensively during their attempts to discover the family’s history, including visiting New Zealand, Hawaii, Western Australia, Queensland and Melbourne. 

Bryan said at times writing the book had been a difficult experience (“there were a few times I would have happily thrown it in the bin”), but was ultimately a rewarding one. 

“I think the members of that family were always taught that they have to put back into the community,” Bryan said.

“Sir George’s father, for instance, donated an organ to the Presbyterian Church here in Kiama which is still in use, and put a lot of money into the hospital here.

“He was always on the lookout for things to do around the place to help develop the district. And his children were brought up to be the same really.”

To purchase a copy of the hardcover book, phone 4236 1123 or 0425 887 674.