Purchase of Bergen op Zoom, return to England, Mary's death

Intelligentsia: Blanche Mitchell, daughter of explorer Sir Thomas Mitchell. Her letters and diaries provide a picture of the life of the small Darling Point intellectual elite including the Boultons. This is the fifth in a series on the lives of English children's writer Arthur Ransome and his Australian connections.  

On 25 August 1852, Edward Baker Boulton (EBB) and wife Mary sailed for Australia accompanied by the two children born while the family had been living in England, Emily (1851) and Edward Oswald (1852). 

EBB was now a member of the Darling Point intellectual elite whose members included Charles Nicholson and Robert Lowe, later Viscount Sherbrooke.

The family settled back happily into Darling Point life with its mixture of literary and artistic endeavour, intellectual discussion, balls, picnics and other social outings. Five additional children were born during this Sydney period.

We know as much as we do of this period because of the letters of Blanche Mitchell, the daughter of surveyor and explorer Sir Thomas Mitchell. Mitchell’s death in 1855 had left his family in some financial difficulty. Blanche seems to have been accepted as part of the Boulton family group and described their activities in her letters. 

The Boulton brothers seem to have purchased Bergen op Zoom station outside Walcha soon after Edward’s return, for in August 1853 EBB mortgaged Bergen op Zoom plus other assets to raise the then large sum of £5,900.

In 1855, EBB entered into a partnership with David Bell that would last until 1876. Bell, who seems to have lived on and controlled the actual management of Bergen op Zoom, would become a very successful pastoralist, buying Muluerindie station in 1873 then Rimbanda station in 1875.

Despite his growing success and the attractions of Sydney life, EBB missed England and Europe. On 18 May 1859, the family sailed for England on the SS Camperdown.

While advertised as a fine ship, it was a bad trip especially for Mary who was pregnant again. In December 1859 Mary died at her parent’s place in Ireland, probably from complications associated with the birth of her new daughter, also named Mary.

Following Mary’s death, EBB moved his large brood back to his English home area, installing them in Tilley House near Wem. There on 6 June 1861 he married Rachel Gwynn. Over the next ten years they would have another ten children, making for a very large brood indeed!

Edith, their first child, has already appeared in our story. An accomplished artist, she was to be the mother of writer Arthur Ransome and EBB’s confidant when it came to the painting they both loved.

During this English period, EBB pursued his artistic endeavours both painting and exhibiting. The family itself lived in some style. The 1871 census shows that they had seven servants including a governess and two nurses. I think the last three were badly needed!

I suspect that EBB might have stayed in England. However, events now intervened that required his return to Australia and to Walcha.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 19 February 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020 

Building dynasties in New England

Crystal Palace exhibition, 1851. Attended by Edward Baker Boulton and his wife, this was the first of the great expos that were such a feature of the second half of the 19th century.This is the fourth in a series on the lives of English children's writer Arthur Ransome and his Australian connections.  

Over the years that I have been sharing our past with you, themes recur. One is the way in which some of our big pastoral families identify with Australia and their immediate areas, while others are torn between their new home and the UK and Europe they left behind.

The Wrights and Northern Whites fall in the first group, Edward Ogilvie (Yulgilbar Station) in the second.

Ogilvie wanted to build a dynasty, but he was also in love with European life and especially Italian life and art. His conflicting ambitions would lead to dynastic failure.

Edward Baker Boulton (EBB) belongs to the second group. While he would die on the New England and be buried in Walcha cemetery, his heart lay elsewhere. As grandson Arthur Ransome summarized, he was always more interested in his art than his sheep.

Following his marriage to Mary Atkinson on 3 April 1850, EBB decided to take his wife to visit the Great Exhibition (the Crystal Palace Exhibition) of 1851.

Driven in part by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband, this was the first of the great international expos that were such a feature of the second half of the nineteenth century.

Few places were immune from their allure. In an earlier series, I mentioned that Armidale soap maker George Mallaby exhibited his wares at the 1900 Paris expo.

EBB and Mary had travelled to England with Mary’s parents. Initially they lived in a house that Mary’s parents had purchased, before moving to a leased place of their own.

We do not know much about this period beyond the facts that two children were born (Emily 1851, Edward Oswald 1852), while EBB continued to sketch and paint.

The Boultons were still in England when on 17 June 1851 an advertisement appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald that would change the family’s direction,   

In 1834, John McLean had taken up a run near Walcha that he called Bergen-op-Zoom, a reported tribute his relatives Allan and Francis McLean who had assisted the Dutch in the defence of that town against the French.

McLean had died, and now the 44,800 acre run was advertised for sale as part of his deceased estate.

The Boultons’ focus had been the central west. Now they were to acquire Bergen-op Zoom, in so doing bringing them within New England's history.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 12 February 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020 

Artist and pastoralist

Edward Baker Boulton, Sydney: town and harbour 1879, the Royal Collection. Boulton was a prolific painter throughout his life, including a number of New England scenes. This is the fourth in a series on the lives of English children's writer Arthur Ransome and his Australian connections.  

On 27 September 1835, Arthur Ransome’s grandfather Edward Baker Boulton (EBB) left Liverpool Docks for NSW on the Ellen. He had just turned 23.

We do not know what family discussions were held prior to his departure. We do know that he arrived in Australia with some financial resources and would later be joined by his brothers in various pastoral activities.

EBB’s love of art was already well entrenched. He took his sketch book with him on the Ellen and sketched throughout the voyage, leading to a book of pencil sketches published in 1837.

The colony of NSW was 48 years old in 1836 with a European population of 78,929. About 35% were convicts, many more the children of convicts.

There was a small upper class groups of officials, landowners and merchants who had accumulated significant wealth and were now investing some of it in new mansions including Lindsay (1834-36), Elizabeth Bay House (1835-39) and Carthonia (1841).

On 1 October 1836, Governor Bourke granted grazing rights to pastoralists beyond the “Limits of Location” in return for a £10 annual license fee to come into effect from New Year’s Day 1837. This triggered a land rush.

EBB began investing in real estate and grazing rights in Sydney and the Central West on his on his own and in conjunction with his brothers. By September 1842 he was sufficiently established to sell a large portfolio of land titles to a group including his friend Oswald Bloxome for the substantial sum of £1,700.

Bloxome (1802-1888) was ten years older than EBB. Both were interested in painting, with Bloxome becoming patron of English marine painter Sir Oswald Brierly while Brierley was in Sydney.

Both were interested in pastoral expansion. Bloxome took up a large block on the New England which he named Rangers Valley after his family home in England, The Rangers. The Boulton brothers were still focused on the Central West, where by 1848 they held 228,400 acres in the Wellington Valley.

From the beginning, EBB had set about establishing himself within Sydney’s small local elite. He joined the exclusive Australian Club in September 1838 and by1842 he had also become secretary of the Union Assurance Company.

He also continued painting and exhibiting. Much later, his grandson Arthur Ransome would remark that his grandfather was always more interesting in painting than in his sheep!

On 3 April 1850, EBB married Mary Atkinson, daughter of Anglo-Irish entrepreneur James Atkinson and wife Mary. Now established, he decided to take his new wife to England to see the Great Exhibition as their honeymoon.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 5 February 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020 

Celebrated author Arthur Ransome's Australian connection

Swallows and Amazons has number of references to Australia. This is the third in a series on the lives of English children's writer Arthur Ransome and his Australian connections.  

The late 1920s found English writer Arthur Ransome and wife Evgenia settled in the English Lake district where they would spend the rest of their lives. The Manchester Guardian offered Ransome a full time position as foreign correspondent, but he declined this in favour of a new writing project.

The result was Swallows and Amazons, published at the end of 1930, the book was the first in a series that established Ransome as one of the best and most popular English children's writers.

Swallows and Amazons follows the outdoor adventures of two families of children as they sail and play on one of the local lakes. The Walker children (John, Susan, Titty and Roger) sailing a borrowed dingy, Swallow, meet up with the Blackett children (Nancy and Peggy) in their dingy Amazon.

The book is a lovely picture of outdoor life and of adventures centred on Nancy and Peggy's uncle Jim Turner (Captain Flint) and assorted baddies.

Swallows and Amazons has a number of references to Australia.

The Walker children's mother Mary Walker was Australian. At one point in the book, Titty Walker muses: "I wonder whether the real Queen Elizabeth knew much about ships". Mother responds that, "Queen Elizabeth was not brought up close to Sydney Harbour."

Arthur Ransome had never visited Australia. Why, then, the references to Australia?

The answer lies in Arthur's mother, Edith, the daughter of Australian grazier Edward Baker Boulton and his second wife Rachel Gwynn.

Arthur was only 11 when his grandfather died in 1895, but retained clear recollections of him. He would have learned more from his mother, for she was close to her father. They shared an interest in art and frequently discussed their painting in the regular letters that passed between them.

This brings us to the Australian leg of our story described by John Edwards in his 2004 book, Edward Baker Boulton: Australia's Forgotten Artist.

Lavishly illustrated with Boulton's own paintings, the book traces Boulton's life from his birth in England in 1812 to his death at Walcha in 1895.

Edward Baker Boulton was born in Shropshire, England, on 29 August 1812, the sixth child of Thomas and Elizabeth Boulton nee Baker. Despite economic ups and downs, the Boultons were a prosperous middle class family with some capital.

As described in previous series, NSW boomed during the 1830s. Wool prices were high as were stock prices, fueled by demand for sheep and cattle to stock the new land claimed within the ever expanding frontier. Speculation in land and stock was rife, with fortunes being made and sometimes lost.

In 1835, Edward Boulton decided to join this rush.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 29 January 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020