The fall of Archibald Clunes Innes

In 1840, Port Macquarie’s Archibald Clunes Innes was at the height of his wealth and power with stores, pastoral runs and real estate holdings on the coast and across the New England. Now he faced economic storms of cyclonic proportions.   

Opposition to transportation had been rising, driven in part by the growing number of free workers especially in Sydney who saw the convicts as an economic threat, in part by those who believed that continued transportation was incompatible with the development of a free colony.

Aberglasslyn House outside Maitland is an example of the rise and falls associated with the crash of the early 1840s. This monumental Georgian pile designed by architect John Verge for George Hobler, remained unfinished following Hoblers insolvency in the crash.

In face of protests, transportation to NSW was suspended in 1840. Innes had built his wealth in part on access to convict labour to service his growing empire. Now he and other squatters faced labour shortages together with rising wage costs, leading to a search for new workers.

 Later in the decade, this would bring the first Chinese and German workers to New England, but the initial effects were severe. However, these were the least of Innes’s problems.

Over the 1820s and 1830s NSW experienced a sustained economic boom.

High wool prices fueled pastoral expansion which in turn inflated stock prices. The previously small European population grew from 7,040 in 1807 to 28,024 in 1820, to over 44,000 in 1830, passing 127,000 in 1847, inflating real estate prices. Land sales inflated Government revenues that were used in part to fund immigration.

 Growth required capital drawn heavily from English investors and the London capital market, fueling the growing boom. Fortunes were being made from speculation in stock and real estate, fortunes invested in further speculation and in the construction of the first grand homes including Lake Innes House. Now all this came to a shuddering halt.  

 In 1837, a speculation fueled US boom part fueled by English capital crashed. This led to a financial crisis in England in 1839, drying up the capital that had been fueling the NSW boom.

Wool prices dropped sharply as did live stock prices, a fall accentuated by the ending of the rapid pastoral expansion that had driven up prices as stock was purchased to stock the new runs. Government revenues from land sales fell sharply, creating a Government financial crisis.

The end result was a rolling series of bankruptcies among those who most exposed to the boom including that of merchant, pastoralist and steamship owner Joseph Grose in 1844. Grose’s spread of interests made him a considerable figure in the early colonial history of Northern NSW’

 Innes could not escape the turmoil. Initially he seems to have refinanced his operations using family money. But then, in 1843, the collapse of a large Sydney based pastoral house led to the collapse of a major local bank that would finally force Innes into bankruptcy. An era had ended.

The Nineteen Counties

On this day in 1829 Governor Darling proclaimed the 19 counties of NSW, redefining the area the Europeans could settle. Hat tip to State Records NSW.

This map shows the boundaries. The squatters quickly spread beyond these limits.

The counties themselves vanished from memory, but their imprint remains.     

History revisited – Lang vs Clark Irving: the battle for Northern self-government begins

Following the separation of Victoria in 1851, our sometimes irascible clergyman John Dunmore Lang turned his attention to the matter of Moreton Bay. In 1854 he was re-elected to the NSW Legislative Council, this time by the Moreton Bay District, to press the case for separation.

Lang’s vision did not yet include self-government for what we now call Northern NSW or New England. He wanted the bigger Northern NSW that stretched to Torres Strait to be broken into three colonies; separation for Morton Bay was a first step. He also wanted the boundary of Moreton Bay to be south of the present line.

As it became clear that this was not possible, Lang turned his attention to a new project, the creation of a new colony in Northern NSW. The battle that now raged was fought out in the Northern Rivers. There Lang was pitted against Clark Irving, merchant, ship owner, pastoralist and politician.

Irving had been elected in 1856 to represent the Clarence and Darling Downs in the first Legislative Assembly formed after the grant of responsible government to NSW. In 1857 he lost his seat in the face of local dislike of leadership from Sydney, as well as justified doubts about Irving’s support for the Moreton Bay separatist cause.

Now overtly anti separatist, Irving used his not inconsiderable political skills and financial resources to fight back, gaining re-election in 1859, the year of Queensland separation, as member for Clarence.

Irving controlled the local newspaper. Lang and his supporters therefore decided to establish a rival paper. In 1859 financial backing was found to bring William Vincent to Grafton to establish the Clarence & Richmond Examiner, now the Grafton Daily Examiner. This marks the start of the Vincent newspaper family that was to play such an important role in the history of the New England press and in the promotion of Northern causes.

Irving won. The agitation died down, resurfacing at Glen Innes in 1875 and then again in a stronger way in 1887-1888. This agitation is important because it saw the emergence of concepts and arguments that are still important today.

From the start of the 1880s, all the capital cities began gaining population at the expense of the rest of their colonies. The problem was most pronounced in Victoria, leading to the formation of decentralisation leagues to campaign for balanced development.

The decentralisation movement spread. In Newcastle, some speakers at an 1888 protest meeting, called over the railway plans of the Sydney government, advocated separation. The move was rejected, but the newly formed North and North-western Decentralisation League subsequently proposed that the Colony should be divided into ten provincial districts (regional councils), each entitled to a share of the national revenue.

The Newcastle discussion over separation reflected the resurgence of separatist support further north. Beginning in 1887, a campaign for separation spread along a line from Grafton through Glen Innes to Inverell. For the first time there was a clear expression of Northern identity, a creation of the period since Queensland separation.

Agitation died. However, a base had been laid for the bigger campaigns of the twentieth century.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 30 July 2014, the second in a series telling the story of the Northern or New England self-government moment. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014.

If you want to follow the story of the Northern or New England self-government movement, this is the entry post for the whole series.

History revisited – Pioneer of region’s secession and independence movement

The entry on John Dunmore Lang in the Australian Dictionary of Biography describes him variously as Presbyterian clergyman, politician, educationist, immigration organiser, historian, anthropologist, journalist, goal-bird and, in his wife’s words engraved on his statue in Sydney, “Patriot and Statesman.”

Lang was born in Scotland in 1799, the son of small landowner William Lang and his wife Mary Dunmore. Lang’s mother seems to have had a considerable influence on him. In the words of one of Lang’s biographers, she had formidable powers of moral indignation and such capacity for vituperation that in comparison her son’s most savage strictures seemed but a mild remonstrance!

After qualifying for the ministry, Lang arrived in Sydney in May 1823 as the first Presbyterian minister. There he threw himself into the turbulent religious, political and educational life of the still young colony.

In early 1840, Lang sailed for the US: In travels through eleven states he was deeply impressed by the great merit of republican government based on the independent sovereignty of each state and a large measure of local autonomy. He returned with a new vision for Australia expressed in two books, The Coming Event; or, the United Provinces of Australia (Sydney, 1850) and Freedom and Independence for the Golden Lands of Australia (London, 1852).

This was a time of considerable constitutional change. As part of that change, the original colony of NSW was progressively subdivided with the creation of Van Dieman’s Land (1825), Western Australia (1832), South Australia (1836) and New Zealand (1841).

In June 1843, Lang was elected to represent the Port Phillip District in the NSW Legislative Council in Sydney. There were deep concerns at Port Phillip about remote government from Sydney, about the misuse of revenue raised in Port Phillip on expenditure outside Port Phillip. Further, the District had only six representatives in the Council, too few to make a real impact.

Driven by his vision of a federated Australia with multiple states, Lang threw himself into the self-government cause. This was achieved in 1851 with the creation of Victoria following the passage of the Australian Colonies Act. Lang now turned his attention to Moreton Bay.

The suggestion that a new colony might be formed north of the Manning River if parent colony NSW became too large and unwieldy had first been made by the British Secretary of State in Governor Gipps’ time (1838-1846). A clause in the Constitution Act therefore enabled her Majesty on the petition of inhabitant householders north of the 30th parallel of south latitude to detach such territories from New South Wales and to erect them into a separate colony or colonies. This boundary included the Clarence River, but subdivided the Northern Tablelands, leaving Armidale in NSW.

The stage was now set for a battle that would help set the direction and form the character of the twentieth century campaign for self-government for New England.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 16 July 2014, the second in a series telling the story of the Northern or New England self-government moment. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014.

If you want to follow the story of the Northern or New England self-government movement, this is the entry post for the whole series.

History revisited – new state movement 163 years young and still kicking

In January 1851 a meeting in Brisbane supported by squatters from the Northern Tablelands, the Clarence and Darling Downs formed the Northern Districts Separation Association. Their aim was the creation of a new colony by the subdivision of NSW.

One hundred and sixty three years later, agitation for self government for the North continues. Last Monday, the ABC’s Kelly Fuller featured the New England New State Movement. As I write, the New England New State Facebook group page has 306 members. The Movement is presently much diminished from its peak to be sure, but at one hundred and sixty three years it is the oldest surviving political movement in Australia.
History is written by the winners, controlled by the gatekeepers who determine what will be researched and published, what is newsworthy. Since the 1967 plebiscite defeat, the fight for New England self-government has diminished to just a footnote in the history books. As it has done so, the recognition of the North, the broader New England, has diminished too.

Today, we count less than Tasmania or the ACT or the Northern Territory; less than Western Sydney, the Sunshine Coast, the Pilbara or the Kimberley. You see, we don’t exist. We are just not there.
Over the next six or so columns, I plan to tell you a little about the history of the continuing fight for New England self-government from the 1850s to the present time.

It’s not a story that you will find in the conventional history books. To those writers, our story is neither important nor relevant. However, it is to us. More, it’s important in a general sense as an integral thread in Australian history.

Over its history, the Northern later New England New State Movement forced the creation of one Federal and two state royal commissions into constitutional issues. It played a major role in the establishment of the most significant Commonwealth Parliamentary inquiry into the constitution. It led to pamphlets, book, articles, summer schools and conferences on constitutional issues.

The Movement had to do this because constitutional rigidities were, and remain, the biggest problem New England faced in gaining self government. In doing so, the Movement articulated all the main issues that have to be addressed by Mr Abbott’s White Paper on reform of the Federation.

Along the way, the Movement delivered quite tangible benefits to the North, going some way towards overcoming the parochial local and regional divides that have always bedevilled attempts at cooperative action.

Next week, I will begin the story by looking at the colonial origins of the Movement and especially that stormy petrel, the Presbyterian clergyman John Dunmore Lang who made such a mark on Australian history.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 9 July 2014, the first in a series telling the story of the Northern or New England self-government moment. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014.
Other posts in this series are:

• History revisited – Pioneer of region’s secession and independence movement

• History revisited – Lang vs Clark Irving: the battle for Northern self-government begins 

• History revisited – January 1920. Tamworth Observer’s Victor Thompson re-launches fight for New England new state 

• History revisited – Thompson’s separatist fire burns well 

•  History revisited – Queensland joins fight for self government 

• History revisited – Progressives force George Fuller to strike New England self government deal 

• History revisited – the Cohen Commission: outmanoeuvred, the New England new state movement goes down   

• History revisited – the Cohen Commission’s silver lining 

• History revisited – threads in New England’s history 

• History revisited – Armidale’s many connections

• History revisited – North’s fight rages on 

•  History revisited – battling for self-government in the North 

• History revisited – great depression brings divides on left and right

• History revisited – as society fragments, movements begin to form 

•  History revisited - Page loses key lieutenant 

• History revisited - other regions join the fight for separation 

• History revisited - NSW to be torn apart by five state solution 

• History revisited - Lyons splits the ALP: deal seems to place New England self-government within reach 

• History revisited - the Premier greenlight's self-government referendum; the movement squibs

History revisited – Tingha’s tin a golden find

Credit for the first discovery of tin on the Northern Tablelands belongs to Pennyweight Joe, Joseph Wills to give him his real name. The name Pennyweight Joe was the affectionate nickname given to him by his fellow workers and employers.

In her book Tin at Tingha, Helen Brown records that Pennyweight Joe was seen by those around him as a simple, likeable though quite eccentric shepherd who was perpetually short of money. He was, in fact, a little more than that.

Joseph Wills seems to have had a sound knowledge of geology, a love of rocks; this allowed him to identify metals and precious stones. He also had overseas connections to whom he sent samples and from whom he received information on prices. His role as shepherd gave him ample time and opportunity to prospect.

Around 1865, Wills sent a consignment of geological specimens to his brother-in-law Frederick Clar De V’ries in London. This included a sample of tin, along with agate, sapphires, rubies and amethysts, all of which De V’ries exhibited at a miner’s exhibition in Paris.

Wills did nothing about his find. Then in 1870, probably broke, he sold a bag of tin to a commercial traveler at an Inverell hotel. The traveler took the tin to C S McGlew in Sydney who had been searching for tin across a wide area of NSW.

McGlew had samples of the smelted to test its value, then hastened north to meet Wills who showed him where the tin had come from at Elmore. In June 1871, McGlew and his associated started test mining at Elmore for rich rewards.

Around the same time, Wills found another deposit that he showed to his employer, Duncan Anderson. Anderson, in conjunction with Sydney merchant and early mining magnate Sir Saul Samuel, floated a company to exploit the discovery. Now there were two companies exploiting Wills’ discoveries.

Wills was the first to discover tin, but before anyone knew of the discovery, Messrs Millis and Fearby also discovered tin about sixteen kilometres south of Elmore on the banks of Cope’s Creek. They kept their discovery secret while they formed a new company, the Britannia Tin Mining Company. This also began mining in 1871.

Mills and Firby were far sighted men. As part of their plans, they applied for the conditional purchase of 240 acres (97.13 hectares) of land at the junction of Cope’s Creek and Darby’s Branch Creek. In 1870 in anticipation of the rush that would begin when news of their discovery became public, they had 100 acres (40.47 hectares) of their new selection surveyed into town streets and house allotments.

The two men called their new private town Tingha. Ten years later, it would have a population of over 2,000.

And Joseph Wills? His tombstone records “He paved the way for others’ gains, And dies neglected for his pains.”

It wasn’t quite as bad as that. The two Elmore mining companies each gave him a life time annuity, but he died in 1873 before he could enjoy the real benefits.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 28 May 2014. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014. The photo shows tin sluicing about the turn of the twentieth century.

History revisited – Hunter Valley historical tour 2: Dalwood

Continuing the story of my Hunter Valley history tour, Judith Wright’s Generations of Men (1959) chronicles the early story of her family. I wanted to visit some of the places described in the book and especially Dalwood House.

We set out on Easter Monday, detouring first to visit the Hunter Valley Gardens established by Bill and Imelda Roche. I had wanted to visit for a while, but had never found the time.

I enjoyed the gardens, but was struck again by the sheer scale of the tourist development. When I first visited Pokolbin, there were scattered vineyards but not much else. Now, fueled by proximity to Sydney, there are vineyards and resorts everywhere. All this began with George and Margaret Wyndham, Judith Wright’s great great grandfather.

George Wyndham was born at Dinton, Wiltshire in England in 1801. Educated at Harrow and Cambridge, Wyndham met Margaret, his wife to be, in Italy in 1825. They married in Brussels in 1827.

The couple decided to emigrate to NSW, sailing for Sydney on the George Horne in August 1827 along with several servants, cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, hounds, goods and chattels. The couple reached Sydney on Christmas Eve 1827. The following year, they settled near Branxton in the Hunter Valley, naming the property Dalwood after one of the Wyndham family farms at Dinton.

From Dalwood, George’s interests spread to include Collyblu on the Liverpool Plains, Bukkulla and Nullamanna near Inverell and Keelgyrah on the Richmond River, a total of some 200,000 acres or 80,937 hectares.

Importantly from the viewpoint of this story, George was interested in wine making. He quickly established a vineyard and began making wines. Both red and white varieties of grape were grown, principally hermitage, cabernet and shiraz. He also planted grapes on Bukkulla; thus establishing a Tablelands’ wine industry. Both Dalwood and Bukkulla wines won medals at European wine shows. 

Sometime in 1828 or 1829, George began construction of a new house for his family, Dalwood House. It was this house that I wanted to visit, a house brought vividly alive by Judith in her book.

The house was a partial ruin when I last visited it forty years ago. It still is, although restoration efforts have stabilized the main structure. It’s not a grand house by later standards, but with some imagination you can get a feel for the life that surrounded it.

We wandered around in the sun while I took pictures, talking with my companion about its special features. Later over a very nice lunch on the terrace at Wyndham Estate wines, I thought what a wonderful tapestry our history makes.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 7 May 2014. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for2014.

New England Lives – Robert Dawson (1782-1866), company manager, pastoralist and writer

Robert Dawson was the first Chief Agent of Australia’s first really large public company, the Australian Agricultural Company[i]. If he had not clashed with a Macarthur family determined to feather its own interests, he would not have been first suspended in April 1828, dismissed in January 1829. Had that not happened, he might not have written the two books he did, some of the first writing connected with New England.

Born in 1782 at Great Bentley, Essex, Dawson was educated at Dr Lindsay's Grove Hall School near Bow, returning to Essex to farm the family estate. In 1811 he married Anne Taylor. Ten years later, an agricultural depression forced him to Berkshire where he managed Becket, Viscount Barrington's estate. That move would affect the later naming of New England features including Barrington, the Barrington River and Barrington Tops.

In December 1824 an old school friend, John Macarthur junior, persuaded him to accept the post of chief agent in New South Wales for the newly formed Australian Agricultural Co. His key role was to establish and manage a new pastoral business based on a land grant of 1,000,000 acres (404,609 ha). In carrying out this role, he would be subject to a committee resident in NSW. This committee was entrusted by the directors in England with 'extensive discretionary powers,. Dawson was advised to accept their advice at all times.

On the surface, this made sense. The directors in England could hardly directly govern such a distant operation. They needed an on-ground supervising body made up of local experts. However, the committee was dominated by members of the Macarthur family, and this would case trouble.

Dawson had to organise many things. After buying stock in France, Saxony and Spain and recruiting workers, The Australian Agricultural Co party sailed for Sydney in the ships York and Brothers. On the trip, Dawson was assisted by his nephew John Dawson, then nineteen. In November 1825, the small convoy reached Sydney. On board were a party of 15 men, 14 women, 40 children, more than 600 sheep, 12 cattle and 7 horses.

Meantime, the local committee had been considered the three alternatives for the land grant suggested by Surveyor-General John Oxley. They concluded that the area between Port Stephens and the Manning River was most suitable for the company's activities, although this was not Oxley’s preferred site. After inspecting the area in January 1826, Dawson accepted this advice. He recommended that the whole establishment should be moved there as soon as possible. Later, Dawson would be criticised for not checking the other sites. Objectively, it is hard to see what else he could have done.

Dawson moved rapidly. By June 1826 headquarters had been established at Carrington on Port Stephens; by 1827 much land had been cleared and spacious stores and workshops erected. Dawson had already recognised that the humid coastal country was not suitable for sheep and had begun to move stock inland. His efforts attracted praise, including from James Macarthur who in May 1827 spoke highly of Dawson’s management and the progress being made.

Trouble now broke out. Dawson, concerned at the way the Company was being forced to buy old and diseased sheep from the local committee’s flocks, refused to buy more. 'I was no longer disposed”, he wrote to James Macarthur in June 1827, to make the Company Grant a burial ground for all the old sheep in the colony'.

James Macarthur moved against him. On 27 December 1827 he paid another to Carrington. This time, his report castigated Dawson for mismanagement and extravagance. He was accused of bad management and insubordination, of taking up land on the north bank of the Manning River and running his own flocks on it, of using the company's resources in exploring and settling it. John Macarthur stated: 'The concern cannot prosper because the Company's servants are only solicitous for their own interests', In April 1828 Dawson was suspended by the local committee and, on James Macarthur's report to the court of directors in London, was dismissed in January 1829.

Dawson fought back. Now in London, he published his Statement of the Services of Mr Dawson, as Chief Agent of the Australian Agricultural Company[ii]. Apart from providing details of the early days of a significant part of New England’s history, it is the first written record of corporate infighting in Australian history.

The following year, Dawson published a second book, The Present State of Australia; a Description of the Country, its Advantages and Prospects with Reference to Emigration: and a Particular Account of its Aboriginal Inhabitants[iii]. It was this book that really left his longer term mark. Nor only was it in part the story of the establishment of the Australian Agricultural Company, but it also became a fundamental source book on New England’s Aboriginal peoples. Dawson liked them, respected them and employed them.

Dawson’s efforts to achieve justice slowly had an effect. In 1836, after repeated representations to the Colonial Office, he was given land in New South Wales in recompense for the grant he had sought unsuccessfully from Sir Ralph Darling in 1828 even though such grants were now forbidden by law. He returned to New South Wales with his second wife in 1839 to superintend his estate, Goorangoola, on the upper Hunter: he also acquired a 100-acre (40 ha) grant at Little Redhead, near Newcastle. Soon after his return he was again appointed magistrate for the area. One of his last recorded actions in New South Wales was to advise on the Botany Bay water supply scheme for Sydney.

Dawson returned to England in 1862, dying in 1866 and was buried at Greenwich. He was survived by two sons and one daughter of his first marriage and by one son of his second. The elder son of his first marriage, Robert Barrington, became well known as a civil servant and pastoralist. In the end, even the directors of the company had some awareness of the wrong done. 'The misconduct of Mr. Dawson is far exceeded in culpability by that of the Committee whose orders he was to obey', the directors recorded.

---

[i] Material in this piece is drawn especially from E. Flowers, 'Dawson, Robert (1782–1866)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dawson-robert-1969/text2379, published in hardcopy 1966, accessed online 17 February 2014.

[ii] Statement of the Services of Mr Dawson, as Chief Agent of the Australian Agricultural Company. (London, 1829), accessed on-line. http://digital.slv.vic.gov.au/view/action/singleViewer.do?dvs=1392619628144~191&locale=en_US&metadata_object_ratio=10&show_metadata=true&preferred_usage_type=VIEW_MAIN&frameId=1&usePid1=true&usePid2=true 17 February 2014

[iii] The Present State of Australia; a Description of the Country, its Advantages and Prospects with Reference to Emigration: and a Particular Account of its Aboriginal Inhabitants, (London, 1830). Accessed online - . http://books.google.com.au/books?id=6swNAAAAQAAJ – 17 February 2014

History revisited - revolution born out of England's loss of war

Chatting to a friend the other day, I was asked why the British Empire became such a successful power. Books have been written on this subject, often focused on the Navy or economic developments. Samuel Pepys, I said. My answer surprised.

Today, Pepys is best known for his famous diaries, his love of fashion and his varied love life. However, he was far more than that.

The Second Dutch War (1665-1667), one of four fought between the English and Dutch for control of the  trade routes, was a disaster for the English side. Inefficiency and endemic corruption had sapped the strength of the navy. A humiliated England found itself humbled by a rival with a quarter of the population.

The painting by Pieter Cornelisz van Soest shows the Dutch Attack on the Medway, June 1667. The captured ship Royal Charles is right of center

Bitter recriminations followed. This provided Pepys with the opportunity to reshape the English Navy as a professional naval and industrial force. The Navy with its dock and shipyards became the world’s largest industrial complex. Pepys’ reforms also helped create a competent and professional civil service.

The power of Empire rested on the shoulders of its public servants. They recorded the letters and processed the payment orders flowing in from around the world. A naval captain in a strange place thousands of miles from London could issue an order for supplies because he and the supplier knew that the order would be honoured.

This may sound remote from modern Armidale, It’s not as remote as might seem, for the city’s existence and shape have been influenced by the things that I am talking about. Fairly obviously, the city would not exist at all without the decision to send the First Fleet. However, it’s more than that.

Published in 1975, Australian Space, Australian Time explored the impact on the Australian landscape of Government decisions in London and the colonies over the first hundred or so years of European settlement.

In London, the key early figure was the Third Secretary of State dealing with war and the colonies, a Cabinet member. He operated in the political environment, while day to day business rested with his Under Secretary, the top civil servant. In Sydney, power rested with the Governor, supported by the Chief Secretary as his top civil servant. In both cases, power slowly shifted to the officials.

The varying lay-out of our cities and towns, the names on our maps, all represent the interaction between London and Sydney.

There were always tensions between the needs and desires of metropolitan Government and local conditions. From 1825 these became more acute as Westminster sought to impose metropolitan theories of land settlement on NSW. The conflict that resulted would lead to self-government for NSW. But that’s another story.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 11 September 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - likeable man drove development

The one portrait I have seen of Archibald Clunes Innes presents him in army dress uniform as a young captain in the English 3^rd or Buffs Regiment. His formal jacket encloses his neck, creating an elongated effect; his head with its black hair and brown eyes seems to sit a little uncomfortably on the jacket’s buttoned top, somehow separated from his body.

By all accounts, Innes was a likeable man. He was certainly an interesting one who left an imprint on the North that survives to this day. Glen Innes carries his name,

In 1822, Innes arrived in Sydney in 1822 as captain of the guard in the convict ship Eliza. He was twenty two. In December 1826, Innes was appointed commandant of the penal settlement at Port Macquarie.

Growing up in New England, I had no idea that the then sleepy sea side town had been such a big place and so early in the colonial history of New South Wales.

To put this in context, in 1788 the total European population of New South Wales was 1,030. At the time that Innes took control of the Port Macquarie penal settlement, the convict population was around 1,600. In just five years, a totally new colony had been built from scratch.

The story of early Port Macquarie is an interesting one that I might tell later. For the moment, my focus is on Archibald Innes.

Innes only stayed at Port Macquarie for six months before returning to Sydney. There he worked as a military officer before resigning his commission and becoming superintendent of police and magistrate at Parramatta. In 1829 he married Margaret, the daughter of colonial secretary Alexander McLeay, in one of the most lavish social weddings the colony had yet seen. We remember McLeay today in terms of a river (the Macleay), a Sydney Street (Macleay Street) and Elizabeth Bay House, the magnificent home built by Andrew McLeay.

With the opening of Port Macquarie to civilian settlement, Innes returned in 1830 as police magistrate with a 2,568 acre (1,039 hectare) land grant and a contract to supply the convict population with food. From this point, he built a business and pastoral empire that included Waterloo, Innes Creek, Kentucky, Beardy Plains and Furracabad on the Tableands. The last became the site for the new township of Glen Innes.

Innes owned stores and hotels and organised the building of the first road between Port Macquarie and the Tablelands as a way of getting supplies up and bringing wool back for shipment from Port Macquarie.. Using convict labour, he built a major house at Port Macquarie and transformed the surrounding land into the fabled Lake Innes, for many years the greatest pastoral property north of Sydney. There he entertained lavishly.

Reading the diaries and descriptions of life at Lake Innes, this is a very Jane Austin world: visits by dignitaries, military officers or young men from the New England, dances and decorous rides, collecting flowers and the beauty of nature. We know that it won’t last, that the crash of the 1840s is coming, but we can still share some of the joys.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 4 September 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - lonely end for pioneer who named Armidale

Sunday 21 December 1851. They had been riding from Euston to Melbourne so that he could take ship for Sydney on leave. He slipped away from his two travelling companions. They found his body the next day, kneeling at the foot of a big gum tree.

Reporting his death, the Sydney Morning Herald said he was on his way to Melbourne for the benefit of his health. He was forty eight years of age, twenty five of which were spent in the services of the Colonial Government. He had been suffering, the paper said, from exhaustion, the effects of the climate and the arduous duties of a too extensive district.

There was a little more too it than that. He was a sensitive man, conscious of his small stature and  deformity, of his failure to find love and the full success he craved. An aspiring poet whose poems were often published in the Sydney papers, he had described his feelings some years earlier in a short epigram entitle On a heart Locket. “tis glittering – aye as gold without”, he had written, “But hollow all within.’

Most recently, the man had been under stress and unhappy, drinking far too much. This had led to moves to have him suspended from duty in the August, but he had been persuaded to take leave instead.

Today, children play in the park named after him in the city that he named. They play hide and seek or other games, running past the memorial stone, while their parents unpack picnics or prepare BBQ’s. It’s a long way from that distant Victorian gum tree against which his life ended.

When we think of George James Macdonald, many call him McDonald, we think of the Park and his place in the naming of Armidale. We do not think of him a person.

He was a neat man whose sensibilities demanded order and a degree of comfort. In March 1843, a party travelled up from the Macleay River to attend the Armidale races. Writing later, one of the party (Mrs Annie Baxter) expressed surprise at the Commissioner’s hut. While small and badly finished, it was well and tastefully furnished. The Commissioner, Mrs Baxter suggested, was clearly a man of taste.

By then, Macdonald was a disappointed man.

In 1841, Sophia Docker had agreed to marry him. The wedding was arranged, the dresses made, while Macdonald had given orders for a new cottage to be built for his bride. Then the lady changed her mind, deciding to marry Captain Edward Darvall. “Our Commissioner was reported to be going to be married” wrote John Everett to his brother in England, “but the Lady has unfortunately changed her mind, I suppose frightened at the hump on his back.”

Macdonald and Darvall fought a duel, each firing two shots without injury. The Darvalls went to India to join his regiment, while Macdonald attempted to console himself, finally unsuccessfully, with poetry and his official duties.

 Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 29 May 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013

History revisited - Armidale's landscape reveals its history

I thoroughly enjoyed presenting last week to the Armidale North Rotary Club.

My thanks to Mick Duncan for arranging the talk and to the Club for allowing non-Rotarians who had heard about the talk to attend. I really appreciated that.

I was asked why there were in fact so few Armidale blue brick homes. This is the quintessential Armidale building material, yet most of the older houses are weatherboard.

The present built landscape of Armidale reflects every stage in the city’s history.

If you look at an Armidale street map, you will see a central core of rectangular blocks separated by streets running north-south and east west. This is the old measured Armidale.

The 556 people who lived in Armidale in 1851 straggled. Alcohol flowed, horse races were held in the dusty main street, stringybark huts dotted the landscape. It was a rough and ready male dominated place.

Order was imposed on Armidale over the second half of the nineteenth century. In social terms, the male oriented frontier society was replaced by families who (and especially the women) demanded an ordered society. In spatial terms, the previous straggle was replaced by the neat grids we know today.

The physical landscape of Armidale is all about money.

Armidale’s population grew from 556 in 1851 to 4,249 at the 1901 census. This growth created wealth.

The Armidale mercantile and professional families often built in brick because they could afford too. The growing number of ordinary workers, the railway families and trades people, built smaller cottages in cheaper weatherboard. These cottages were built on the then outskirts of the city and especially in West Armidale towards the Railway Station.

The twentieth century political landscape of Armidale reflected these patterns. Armidale Town Hall voted Country Party, whereas West Armidale was Labor Party territory.

By the 1950s, the city’s growth had over-spilled the old boundaries. Newer houses were built in brick. Urban in-fill had started. Flats had begun to appear.

In all this, one of the most remarkable changes has been in colour. Armidale’s colours have changed.

Today, everybody remarks about the heritage colours, about the city’s greenery. I love them. They are simply wonderful. Few realise how recent they are.

Flying into Armidale in the 1950s or 1960s, three colours dominated; white, red and green. White because the predominantly weatherboard houses were generally painted white. Red and green because they were the standard galvanized iron roof colours.

Armidale always had parks and trees. But many of the trees we so love date from the Armidale Beautification Committee campaigns that began in the 1950s.

And the heritage colours? They are due to new paint types that simply weren’t available before.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 14 November 2012. The photo is by Gordon Smith. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the Express columns are not on line. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012 (Belshaw's World), 2012 (History Revisited).