Moredun Station - the rambling ties of kinship

Artist's perspective: Moredun Station c1848, Edward Thomson was the first artist in the early colonial period to extensively paint scenes of the New England Tablelands.

The tales of old New England entwine and ramble.

In October 1853 William Gardner, the New England’s Tableland’s first chronicler, took up the position of tutor on Andrew Wauchope’s Moredun run near Ben Lomond. 

Born in Edinburgh, Andrew Wauchope had arrived in Port Macquarie from Scotland in 1838.  

This entry point was probably no accident, for Port Macquarie was the headquarters of Archibald Clunes Innes after whom Glen Innes is named.

Innes, a fellow Scot, had come to NSW with his regiment in 1822. From November 1826 to April 1827 he had been commandant of the Port Macquarie penal colony, returning to Port in 1830 to settle following the opening of the area to European settlement.

Innes was in the process of building a pastoral, shipping and mercantile empire that, at its peak would make him one of the wealthiest men in NSW. This empire included extensive New England pastoral interests, beginning with Waterloo Station in 1836.

There were clear information flows among the Scots. Another Scot who arrived a little later in 1840 was Innes’ cousin William Tydd Taylor who would buy the Terrible Vale run.

Working men arrived too, many of whom would settle on Moredun or immediately surrounding runs. With time, their and their children’s marriages would create an entwined pattern of kinship that extends to this day.

On 22 April 1844, Andrew Wauchope married Anne Boyd The Scottish born Anne was the sister of Archibald Boyd who had the adjoining Boyd's Plains (later Stonehenge) run among his interests.

Boyd, the cousin of entrepreneur Benjamin Boyd of Boydtown fame, would lose money in his cousin’s financial crash. He ended his life in England writing flamboyant historical romances to generate cash, reportedly dying in a garret.

Wauchope, a canny manager with an ability to pick good usually Scottish staff, was a wealthy man by the time William Gardner became tutor on Moredun in 1853

In 1854, the Wauchopes decided to return to Scotland leaving the property in the hands of managers, first J T Sperling and then John Mitchell. Mitchell had begun as a worker on Moredun and would prove to be a highly competent long running manager.

Back in Scotland, Andrew and Anne had enough wealth to rent and staff some big Scottish Houses including Airth Castle in Stirlingshire. At the census of 1881 he still gave his occupation as Australian squatter!

Moredun was finally sold in 1890 following Andrew’s death, with John Mitchell acquiring his own place.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 17 March 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's bleak conclusion

Impressive landscape: Edward Baker Boulton's 'Australian Pastoral View'. His paintings represent a significant contribution to Australian and New England art. This is seventh and final in a series on the lives of English children's writer Arthur Ransome and his Australian connections.  

We come now to the final stage in the life of painter and pastoralist Edward Baker Boulton.

Our story began with the colourful life of English children’s writer Arthur Ransome, Boulton’s grandson. We then followed the story of Boulton’s life from England to Australia and the development of his painting and pastoral interests including the acquisition of Bergen op Zoom station outside Walcha.

We mixed with the small intellectual elite centered on Sydney’s Darling Point, accompanied Boulton though his two marriages, the births of his large brood and his multiple trips between England and Australia.

Cyril and Edith Ransome. Edith was Edward Boultons artistic confident.

From November 1875 to 1883 Boulton was based at Bergen op Zoom, focused on his painting and property management. In December 1882, daughter Edith married Cyril Ransome in England.

Edith, a talented painter, had been Boulton’s artistic confidant. He wrote to her to express his love.

Isolation and homesickness were becoming too much for Boulton. There were also financial problems.

Writing to Edith in November 1882, Boulton said that “the truth is that this property is too small for the family.” He went on: “so when I do come home, I fancy that I shall have to go out again with the family or alone… for the property must be increased.”

Things picked up, and in 1883 Boulton sailed for England leaving Nithsdale in charge of Bergen op Zoom.

In 1884 Boulton travelled widely, staying with his friend George Macleay who had taken a summer villa at Lake Maggiore in Italy. Macleay, a wealthy pastoralist and son of Alexander McLeay after whom the river is named, was a fellow member of the Darling Point set.

Boulton came back to Australia in 1887, but almost immediately returned to England to be with his English family.

In February 1890, Boulton returned to Australia with second wife Rachel for the wedding of Ransome’s daughter Mary to Stewart Donald Ryrie, the son of a prominent Monaro pastoral family. The couple were married on Bergen op Zoom on 27 May 1890.

Rachel had been reluctant to move to Australia and was not impressed by her experiences, so the couple returned to England. 

On 3 August 1893, Bergen op Zoom was marked by tragedy when Nithsdale shot himself. He had been lonely and it had all become too much.

Boulton returned to Bergen op Zoom, dying there on 11 October 1895, He is buried beside Nithsdale in the Walcha cemetery.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 11 March 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 

A complicated family

Nature study: Mount Victoria, c 1890, Art Gallery of NSW, was one of many paintings that Edward Baker Boulton produced in the last years of his life. This is the sixth in a series on the lives of English children's writer Arthur Ransome and his Australian connections.  

At the end of 1873, Edward Baker Boulton (EBB) sailed for Australia, arriving in Sydney on 16 March 1874. He was accompanied by his 19 year old second son, Nithsdale, leaving behind second wife Rachel with sixteen children, six by his first wife Mary, ten by Rachel. 

EBB’s return to Australia seems to have been forced by economic factors. The partnership with David Bell that included management of Bergen op Zoom outside Walcha was coming to an end. EBB needed to put aside his English life and focus on the Australian assets that were the source of family income.

The family position can best be described as complicated.

Rachel did not want to uproot her settled English life and come to Australia. There were apparent tensions between Rachel and Mary’s children. In the end, all of Mary’s children (the “Australian” family) would come to Australia.

EBB himself had to support two households from Bergen op Zoom, while managing a sense of isolation from his English family and the cultural life of England and Europe.

In April 1875, EBB was forced to return to England to resolve family matters leaving young Nithsdale behind in charge of the property. He returned in November 1875 accompanied by another son, the seventeen year old George William who would later become the family stalwart managing Bergen op Zoom.

The station had now become Australian headquarters for the Boulton family While the number of Boultons living there varied, the 1876/77 electoral rolls show EBB, his brothers Thomas and George plus sons Oswald and Nithsdale all in residence.

No longer an absentee landowner, Boulton focused far more on the practical business of wool production and running a successful grazing property. However, he did not give up his love of art, nor of his desire to achieve recognition as an artist. Indeed he seems to have redoubled his efforts.

Over the 1870s he exhibited with the NSW Academy of Art. In 1879, he showed four pictures at the Sydney International Exhibition, a further work at the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1880. He was also trying to sell his art.

EBB was conscious of the conflict between his rather purist view of the role of the artist and his desire to achieve commercial success as an artist.

Writing in 1883 to daughter Edith, Arthur Ransome’s mother and Boulton’s confidant on artistic matters, he said “I am painting for money too but I trust that won’t cause me to fall off that has been the bane of many who have left nature behind & taken to ‘making pictures’”. 

To EBB’s mind, there was nothing “more pernicious, aesthetically or morally”. 

We now come to the last stages in Boulton’s life as pastoralist and painter, something that I will explore in my final column in this series.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 4 March 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