Sir Henry Browne Hayes was a knight, a former sheriff of Cork and a convicted kidnapper, and he's the man who built the very first house at Vaucluse. In 1797 he carried off a Quaker heiress named Mary Pike and forced her through a sham wedding. He was sentenced to death, had it commuted to transportation for life, and turned up in Sydney in July 1802 with plenty of money in his pocket. Over the next ten years he fell out with a ship's surgeon and with Governor King, held what's regarded as the first Masonic meeting in Australia, and got himself sent to Van Diemen's Land and then the Newcastle coal mines. In between he set himself up on a pretty patch of harbourside land near South Head, which he called Vaucluse. Legend says he ringed it with Irish turf to keep the snakes out. He was pardoned, sailed home in 1812, was shipwrecked in the Falklands on the way, and died in Cork in 1832. The house he started later became William Charles Wentworth's Vaucluse House, and the name he gave it, borrowed from a valley in the south of France, now belongs to the whole suburb.
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A Cork Man of Means
Hayes was born in 1762 (the old Dictionary of Australian Biography hedges with "1761 or early in 1762"). He was the son of Attiwell Hayes of Cork. The Australian Dictionary of Biography calls Attiwell "a reputable and opulent citizen", and Wikipedia says he was a wealthy brewer and miller who died in 1799.
Young Henry did well for himself in Cork. He became a captain in the South Cork militia and was made a freeman of the city in November 1782. In 1790 he was one of the city's sheriffs, and he was knighted that same year. The ADB thinks the knighthood was probably a reward for looking after the visiting Lord Lieutenant while he was sheriff. The same entry adds, a bit drily, that he had "an inclination to irregular behaviour".
In 1783 he married Elizabeth Smyth. Wikipedia says they had one son and three daughters, and the ADB just says "several children". Elizabeth died in 1794, which left Hayes a widower in his early thirties.
Vernon Mount
The family seat was Vernon Mount, a Georgian villa on the hill above Douglas outside Cork. It was built in the 1780s or early 1790s for Attiwell Hayes, with designs attributed to the architect Abraham Hargrave, and it was named after George Washington's Mount Vernon. Attiwell didn't move in after his wife died. He leased it to Henry instead, who is said to have spent a fortune on the interiors, murals included. The Irish Georgian Society calls the house "a building of national importance". Sadly it was gutted by fire in July 2016 and is now a shell.
The Abduction of Mary Pike, 1797
Mary Pike was born in Cork in 1776. She was the only surviving daughter of Samuel Pike, whose family ran a bank in the city. When her father died in 1796 she inherited a fortune. The ADB puts it at £20,000, and Wikipedia's Hayes article gives a range of anywhere from £20,000 to £80,000. She was living at Woodhill with the family of Cooper Penrose, her aunt's brother.
On the night of 22 July 1797, Hayes set his trap. According to the Mary Pike entry, which follows the Dictionary of Irish Biography, she was lured out with a forged letter, supposedly from her mother's doctor, saying her mother was gravely ill. Her carriage was stopped on the road from Woodhill and she was taken to Vernon Mount. There Hayes and his sister tried to force her into a marriage. The old Dictionary of Australian Biography says a man dressed up as a priest went through the form of a wedding ceremony while Mary protested. She never accepted it as a marriage. Her uncle Richard tracked her down to Vernon Mount and got her out.
Hayes was outlawed and the government put up a £1,000 reward for him. He didn't go far, though. The ADB says he hid for a while and then lived quite openly for two years. Then comes the famous bit of cheek. According to the Dictionary of Australian Biography, he walked into the shop of an old family follower and suggested the man might as well collect the reward himself. Mary Pike's Wikipedia entry gives a slightly different version: Hayes wrote to Mary offering to give himself up for trial if the reward was withdrawn.
The Trial
The trial opened at the Cork spring assizes in April 1801. Mary Pike's entry gives the date as 13 April. It was, as one writer put it, "one of the sensations of the day", and Hayes turned up with a crowd of influential friends. Prosecuting was John Philpot Curran, the most famous courtroom voice in Ireland. Hayes was found guilty and the jury recommended mercy. He was sentenced to death, and the sentence was commuted to transportation for life to New South Wales.
Mary Pike never really got over it. The Dictionary of Irish Biography, as quoted on Wikipedia, says she appears to have "developed a pathological fear of the male sex" and lived in a Quaker retreat. Other reports say she was admitted to an asylum. She died in 1832, the same year as Hayes, leaving a fortune of £55,000.
The Voyage of the Atlas, 1801–1802
Hayes was shipped out on the convict transport Atlas under Captain Richard Brooks. The ship sailed from Ireland on 29 November 1801 and called at Rio de Janeiro and the Cape on the way. The ADB says flatly that it was "the worst in the history of transportation". Of the 151 men and 63 women on board, 28 men and 2 women died on the voyage, and more died just after landing. Governor King blamed Brooks, saying the deaths came from his negligence and from overcrowding, because the captain had packed the ship with his own private cargo.
Hayes didn't suffer like the men below decks. He paid the captain a hefty sum for a privileged passage and ate at his table. That didn't stop him making enemies, though. He fell out badly with the ship's surgeon, Thomas Jamison, and when the Atlas reached Sydney in July 1802 Hayes was given six months' imprisonment "for his threatening and improper conduct".
A Thorn in Governor King's Side
The ADB sums up Hayes's time in New South Wales as "noteworthy largely for his war against authority". He made friends with the colony's awkward customers. Among them were Maurice Margarot and John Grant. All three kept up their defiance of Governor Philip Gidley King. Grant ended up exiled to Norfolk Island, and Margarot and Hayes were packed off to Van Diemen's Land. King called Hayes "a restless, troublesome character", and he was keen to keep him well out of town.
Did Hayes have a hand in the Castle Hill rising of March 1804? The ADB says there's "no positive evidence" he took an active part, but he was certainly a suspect, and "it would have been out of character if he had not encouraged it behind the scenes". That's a hunch, not a finding, so take it as one.
The First Masonic Meeting, 14 May 1803
Hayes was a keen Freemason, and in 1803 he set about founding a lodge in Sydney. The old Dictionary of Australian Biography says King had already refused permission for the meeting, so Hayes held it anyway. It's doubtful he really had a warrant to set up a lodge, though he claimed he did. The meeting went ahead on 14 May 1803. The Sydney Gazette of 22 May 1803 is among the ADB's sources for it, and the ADB says the date "is regarded as the foundation day of Freemasonry in Australia". It also got Hayes into hot water with the Governor all over again.
Building Vaucluse
In 1803 Hayes bought land on the south side of the harbour, out past Rose Bay towards South Head. In those days it was isolated bush country. The New South Wales State Heritage Register listing, as summarised on Wikipedia, says he bought the grant made to Thomas Laycock in 1793 and the grant next to it. Laycock's grant was 80 acres (32 hectares). Wikipedia's Vaucluse suburb page names the second one as Robert Cardell's grant of 1795, which was 25 acres (10 hectares). The same listing puts his holding at about 105 acres (42 hectares). So yes, the Laycock grant was the heart of it, together with Cardell's next door.
One observer described the place as "a mere waste of land until Sir Henry Hayes built a dwelling house upon it and cultivated a garden". He put up a small stone cottage, two huts and some outbuildings, cleared about 50 acres (20 hectares) for farming and planted several thousand fruit trees. None of the trees survive. The newspapers called it a small but very charming farm. When he wasn't away on his enforced "travels", the ADB says, he lived there "in remarkable style and freedom for a convict".
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The Irish Turf and the Snakes
This is the story everyone remembers. Vaucluse was snake country, so the tale goes, and Hayes, being an Irishman, knew that St Patrick had driven the snakes out of Ireland. So he had Irish turf (or soil, depending on who's telling it) shipped out and laid in a ring or trench around his house to keep the reptiles off.
How true is it? It's best treated as a legend with a grain of truth in it. The old Dictionary of Australian Biography of 1949 is careful to say only that "there is some warrant for the story". The ADB of 1966 tells it straight: he "surrounded it with a moat of turf which he had imported from Ireland", and it adds with a wink that "curiously, the turf appeared to have had the desired effect". Neither says how much turf, how it got here or who dug it in. The fancier versions, with Irish convict women singing and calling on St Patrick as they worked, turn up in later popular retellings. I couldn't find them in any of the reference works.
Bligh, the Rum Rebellion and the Coal Mines
Hayes came back from Van Diemen's Land and spent most of his time at Vaucluse. Then came 26 January 1808, when the New South Wales Corps arrested Governor William Bligh. Hayes, never one to keep his head down, said he was on Bligh's side. For that, Major George Johnston sent him to the coal mines at Newcastle.
He was let out after eight months but was back there by May 1809. This time the commandant, Lieutenant William Lawson, charged him with trying to bring the rebel government into ridicule. Given what most of Sydney thought of the rebel government, that can't have been hard.
Pardon, Shipwreck and Home to Cork
The sources tell the pardon two ways. The ADB says Bligh made out a pardon in 1809 and that Governor Lachlan Macquarie honoured it. The older Dictionary of Australian Biography says Bligh would have pardoned him if he could have got hold of the Great Seal, and that Hayes was pardoned under Macquarie in 1812. Either way, Hayes sailed for home in December 1812.
The trip home had one last adventure in it. He sailed on the Isabella, and also aboard was Joseph Holt, the United Irishman of the 1798 rebellion. The ship was wrecked in the Falkland Islands. They survived, and Holt's memoirs give an account of the wreck.
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Hayes then lived quietly in Ireland for nearly twenty years. He died at the end of April or the start of May 1832, aged about 70, and was buried in the family crypt of Christ Church on South Main Street in Cork. His portrait miniature at the top of this page dates from his later years there. In 2017 a play called Sir Henry was staged about his life.
Why Is Vaucluse Called Vaucluse?
Short answer: Hayes named it, and he borrowed the name from France.
There's a famous spring in Provence called the Fontaine de Vaucluse. It sits at the foot of a limestone cliff about 230 metres high, it's the source of the River Sorgue, and it's the biggest spring in France. The village beside it, Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, isn't far from L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue and Avignon. The village was once just called Vaucluse, and it later gave its name to the whole French department of Vaucluse. The word comes from the Latin vallis clausa, meaning "closed valley". That's a fair description of a valley shut in by cliffs.
What made the place famous across Europe was the Italian poet Petrarch. In the 1300s he made Vaucluse his favourite home and wrote about it in his poems. He said the spring, "famous for itself long ago, became even more famous by my long stay and my songs". He left in 1353. A Petrarch museum now stands on the site of his house, and in the 1700s a column went up in his honour. By Hayes's time Vaucluse was a byword for a romantic hideaway in a wild, rocky valley.
So when Hayes found his own secluded spot of rocks, gullies and bush tucked in behind South Head, he called it Vaucluse. Most sources go further and say he did it because he admired Petrarch. Wikipedia's Vaucluse suburb page calls him "an avid admirer" of the poet who named the house after Petrarch's poem about the spring. The Vaucluse House article is more careful: he named it "probably" after Petrarch's Fontaine-de-Vaucluse. Another passage there just says he named it after the village in the south of France. So the French Vaucluse is certain. The Petrarch-loving knight is the usual explanation, but I couldn't find Hayes himself saying so in any source I could read.
The name stuck to the house, then to the estate, and eventually to the whole suburb. Wikipedia's suburb page says plainly that the area "derived its name" from the original Vaucluse House.
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What Happened to the Estate After Hayes
Once Hayes left in 1812, the place drifted for a while. The heritage listing says Vaucluse was leased until 1814 and then sat mostly empty, apart from a year's rental to Captain John Piper in 1814. Ownership seems to have been muddled for a few years and the estate "passed through several hands". Piper then acquired it in 1822.
In 1827 William Charles Wentworth bought it from Piper. The heritage listing gives the date as 7 August 1827 in one place, while Wikipedia's history section says 27 August 1827. Wentworth built it up with further grants and purchases to 515 acres (208 hectares), stretching from the Macquarie Lighthouse on South Head to the eastern heights of Rose Bay. Over the next decades he and his wife Sarah turned the farm cottage into the Gothic mansion we know now.
Hayes's little house didn't vanish, though. According to the heritage listing, parts of his Vaucluse Cottage are still there inside Wentworth's house: the vestibule, the little tea room, the east end of the dining room and the stone walls inside the drawing room. There's also a good chance the Wentworths' kitchen garden was first laid out by Hayes. The State Government bought Vaucluse House in 1910 and opened it to the public, and today Museums of History NSW looks after it.
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Timeline
- 1762 – Henry Browne Hayes born in Cork, son of Attiwell Hayes.
- November 1782 – Admitted a freeman of the city of Cork.
- 1783 – Marries Elizabeth Smyth.
- 1790 – One of the sheriffs of Cork, and knighted.
- 1793 – Thomas Laycock granted 80 acres on the south side of the harbour, the future Vaucluse.
- 1794 – Death of his wife Elizabeth.
- 1795 – Robert Cardell granted 25 acres next door.
- 22 July 1797 – Abducts Mary Pike and takes her to Vernon Mount. She is rescued and he is outlawed.
- April 1801 – Tried at the Cork assizes, prosecuted by John Philpot Curran, and found guilty. His death sentence is commuted to transportation for life.
- 29 November 1801 – The Atlas sails from Ireland.
- 6 or 7 July 1802 – Arrives in Sydney and is given six months' imprisonment over his clash with surgeon Thomas Jamison.
- 1803 – Buys the Laycock grant and the land next to it, builds his cottage and names it Vaucluse.
- 14 May 1803 – Holds the Masonic meeting regarded as the foundation of Freemasonry in Australia.
- March 1804 – Castle Hill rising. Hayes is suspected, but no evidence ties him to it.
- King's time – Sent to Van Diemen's Land for defying Governor King.
- 1808 – Sides with the deposed Governor Bligh and is sent to the Newcastle coal mines. Released after eight months.
- May 1809 – Back at Newcastle and charged by Lieutenant William Lawson.
- 1809 or 1812 – Pardoned (sources differ, see below).
- December 1812 – Sails for home on the Isabella with Joseph Holt and is shipwrecked in the Falklands.
- 1814 – Captain John Piper rents Vaucluse for a year.
- 1822 – Piper acquires the estate.
- August 1827 – William Charles Wentworth buys Vaucluse from Piper.
- April or May 1832 – Hayes dies in Cork and is buried in Christ Church. Mary Pike dies the same year.
- 1910 – The NSW Government buys Vaucluse House.
- 2016 – Vernon Mount in Cork is gutted by fire.
Where the Sources Disagree
- Arrival date. The ADB and the Dictionary of Australian Biography say Hayes arrived on 6 July 1802. Wikipedia's article on the Atlas says the ship arrived at Port Jackson on 7 July 1802.
- Mary Pike's fortune. The ADB says £20,000, the Dictionary of Australian Biography says "over £20,000", and Wikipedia's Hayes article says anywhere from £20,000 to £80,000.
- His children. Wikipedia says one son and three daughters. The ADB says "several children".
- How he was caught. The Dictionary of Australian Biography says he walked into a family follower's shop and invited the man to claim the reward. Mary Pike's Wikipedia entry says he wrote to her offering to surrender if the reward was withdrawn.
- The pardon. The ADB says Bligh made out a pardon in 1809 and Macquarie honoured it. The Dictionary of Australian Biography says Bligh couldn't issue it without the Great Seal, and that Hayes was pardoned under Macquarie in 1812.
- Where he was exiled. The ADB says Van Diemen's Land under King, then Newcastle under the rebel government. Norfolk Island is sometimes mentioned in connection with him, but in the ADB it was his friend John Grant who was sent there, not Hayes.
- Who had Vaucluse after him, and when Wentworth bought it. The ADB says it "passed to John Piper after Hayes's departure" and went to Wentworth "in 1829". The heritage listing says Piper rented it in 1814 and acquired it in 1822, and dates Wentworth's purchase to August 1827, either the 7th or the 27th depending on which part of the article you read.
- Why "Vaucluse". Every source agrees the name comes from Vaucluse in France. The Petrarch connection is given as fact on Wikipedia's Vaucluse suburb page, but the Vaucluse House article only says "probably".
- The snake-proof turf. The 1949 Dictionary of Australian Biography says there is only "some warrant" for the story, while the 1966 ADB tells it as fact. It's best read as a legend with something behind it.
My Earlier Posts
- Vaucluse House
- Vaucluse from North Head
- The Wentworth Family of Vaucluse – Vaucluse House, the Wentworth Mausoleum and a Full Family Tree
- Philip Gidley King – Third Governor of New South Wales
- The Castle Hill Rebellion – Battle of Vinegar Hill – 5 March 1804
- Arrest of Governor Bligh – The Rum Rebellion – 26 January 1808
- The Rum Rebellion – 26th January 1808 – Governor William Bligh Is Overthrown
- Strickland House (Carrara) – Vaucluse
- St Michael's Church – Vaucluse
Sources
- N. S. Lynravn, "Hayes, Sir Henry Browne (1762–1832)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 1, 1966 – adb.anu.edu.au
- Percival Serle, "Hayes, Sir Henry Browne", Dictionary of Australian Biography, 1949 – Project Gutenberg Australia
- "Henry Browne Hayes", Wikipedia – en.wikipedia.org
- "Mary Pike", Wikipedia (drawing on T. O'Riordan, Dictionary of Irish Biography) – en.wikipedia.org
- "Vernon Mount", Wikipedia – en.wikipedia.org
- "Atlas (1801 South Shields ship)", Wikipedia – en.wikipedia.org
- "Vaucluse House", Wikipedia (based on the NSW State Heritage Register listing 00955) – en.wikipedia.org
- "Vaucluse, New South Wales", Wikipedia – en.wikipedia.org
- "Fontaine-de-Vaucluse", Wikipedia – en.wikipedia.org
- Further reading cited by the ADB: C. H. Bertie, "The Story of Vaucluse House and Sir Henry Browne Hayes", JRAHS, vol. 3, 1917; P. H. Morton, "The Vaucluse Estate from 1793 to 1829", JRAHS, vol. 15, 1930; Sydney Gazette, 22 May 1803; Rolf Grunseit, Australia's Rebel Convict (2011).
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