‘There’s no name of a father?’ Julie Bishop uncovers surprising family history

Julie Bishop is known across the country for her politics, having become Australia’s first-ever female foreign minister in 2013 – not to mention her incredible fashion sense – but the former politician is now giving the public an unprecedented glimpse into her family history as she appears in the most recent episode of SBS program Who Do You Think You Are?.

The episode, which airs on Tuesday at 7.30pm, begins at a country property in the Adelaide Hills, where Julie’s family have lived for five generations. “I’ve always been curious about my ancestors, but I know nothing about my mother’s side,” the 63-year-old says at the start of the program.

“I guess if I knew a lot more about my history, I would understand a lot more about who I am, the person I am today.”

The show follows Julie as she travels to Wiltshire, England, where she learns about her four-times great grandmother Dinah Dalimore who lived in what was known as a ‘bastardy-prone subsociety’, which means that women were expected to have one or two illegitimate births before marriage, so potential husbands could be sure they’d be able to give them healthy children.

Despite being expected to have “one or two” illegitimate births, a local historian tells Julie, Dinah went on to have four illegitimate children, which saw her arrested and thrown in the local bridewell – described as a prison for morale crimes – in 1803 with her youngest child. She died of dropsy at the age of 48, having never married.

But it was Dinah’s granddaughter – and Julie’s two-times great grandmother – Jemima Sims who made the move to South Australia, with her husband Thomas and baby son James, taking advantage of an offer of assisted passage to the then-British colony for agricultural labourers. Having established a life for themselves in SA and bought more than 200 acres of land, the couple welcomed six more children, including John Sims, Julie’s great grandfather. John then married Charlotte and the couple welcomed 12 children, one of whom was Julie’s maternal grandmother Myrtle.

“It’s quite an extraordinary feeling to have followed the life of people that I didn’t even know about before, who are my great great grandparents,” Julie says as the show draws to a close. “It’s a very special feeling.”

She adds: “My family history is one of risk taking, not always conforming, being absolutely determined to do better, and that’s what I always did, particularly in politics.”

The episode also follows Julie to Kent where she discovers more about her paternal ancestry, having found out that one of her descendants was described as “well-travelled” – something she considers herself to be thanks to her years in the foreign office. And it’s in Kent that Julie discovers a link between her great-great grandfather John Brock Fry and iconic author Charles Dickens.

You can watch the full episode of Who Do You Think You Are? on SBS tonight at 7.30pm.