Castlereagh Street, Sydney, and Lord Castlereagh – The Minister Who Sent Us Macquarie, His Duel with Canning and His Death in 1822 – and the Street Named After Him

Ask most Sydneysiders who Castlereagh Street is named after and you'll get a shrug. Some say it sounds like a castle, and a few say "Castle-ray". It's one of the main streets of the CBD, running from the Domain end of the city down to Haymarket. It has David Jones and the luxury shops, the old Fire Station and the Masonic Centre. Yet the man it honours is almost forgotten here. Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, never came to Australia. Still, for a few years he ran the colony from London, and he's the man who sent us Lachlan Macquarie. His own story ended badly, in a duel and then a suicide that shocked Britain. Here's the story of the man and the street.

Castlereagh Street today, looking along the CBD, 2023. Image: -wuppertaler, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).

Who Was Lord Castlereagh?

Robert Stewart was born in 1769 into an Ulster family of landowners and politicians. "Viscount Castlereagh" was a courtesy title he used for most of his career, taken from his father's peerage. Late in life, in 1821, he became the 2nd Marquess of Londonderry, but history still remembers him as Castlereagh. He made his name in Ireland as Chief Secretary, pushing through the Act of Union of 1800, which joined Ireland to Great Britain. The Irish never forgave him for it.

Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence, about 1817. Image: Thomas Lawrence, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

The 1878 Compendium of Irish Biography, on Library Ireland, says his English career "practically commenced" in 1805, when he was made Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. He held that job twice, from 1805 to early 1806 and again from 1807 to 1809. In those days New South Wales was run from that office. Every despatch from Sydney, every complaint about rum and every request for convicts, cattle or a new governor ended up on his desk.

The Rum Rebellion Lands on His Desk

On 26 January 1808 the New South Wales Corps marched on Government House and arrested Governor William Bligh. It's the Rum Rebellion, and the news took months to reach London. The introduction to Macquarie's papers in the Historical Records of Australia says word of "the usurpation of the government in New South Wales and the arrest of Governor Bligh" arrived in September 1808. With the Peninsular War under way, "the report at first caused scanty comment". Within weeks, though, Castlereagh decided to replace Bligh and to send a regiment to relieve the Corps.

His first choice for governor wasn't Macquarie at all. In December 1808 he offered the job to Brigadier-General Miles Nightingall, and Lieutenant-Colonel Lachlan Macquarie's 73rd Regiment was chosen to go with him. Then Nightingall fell ill. By mid-April 1809 it was clear he couldn't go, and by the end of the month Castlereagh had given the job to Macquarie. Macquarie's commission and instructions were dated 8 and 9 May 1809, the day after his regiment had already embarked at Yarmouth. As the Historical Records put it, Macquarie's appointment was "entirely due to the accidents of life". So the governor who gave Sydney its streets, its Hyde Park and its Macquarie towns got the job because another man got sick. Castlereagh signed off on it.

Macquarie Names the Street, 1810

Macquarie arrived at the start of 1810 and wasted no time. On 6 October 1810 the Sydney Gazette printed his Government and General Order giving "regular and permanent NAMES to all the STREETS and WAYS leading through the Town". Posts and finger-boards with the names painted on them were to go up at the corners, and the streets were "henceforth to be known and called only by the new Names". George Street got its name in that order, and so did Charlotte Square, Macquarie Place and Hyde Park. The plan of new street names published with it gave Sydney most of the names we still use.

The City of Sydney's history of Sydney's streets says the central names "reflected Macquarie's loyalty to empire". George III's sons appear as York, Cumberland, Sussex, Clarence, Cambridge and Kent, alongside "the names of various British officials such as Bathurst, Liverpool, Castlereagh, Pitt". The City of Sydney Archives' own catalogue notes say "Castlereagh St was named by Governor Macquarie in 1810 for Viscount Castlereagh". Wikipedia adds that the street had earlier been called Chapel Row and Camden Street. It also says the name once took in what is now Loftus Street, called Castlereagh Street North until 1881, and what is now Chalmers Street, until 1905. I haven't found those older names in a primary source, so take them as Wikipedia's account. By the time the order was printed, Castlereagh was no longer in the job. He had resigned the year before, after a scandal.

The Duel on Putney Heath

In April 1809, while Castlereagh was sending Macquarie off to Sydney, the Foreign Secretary, George Canning, was quietly working to have him sacked. The UK National Archives' catalogue of the Portland papers sets it out. Canning told the Prime Minister, the Duke of Portland, that the war was being badly run and that Lord Wellesley should take over the War Department, or he would resign. The cabinet kept it from Castlereagh for months. Then the Walcheren expedition, Castlereagh's big landing in the Netherlands, failed disastrously. In September he found out what had been going on behind his back. He resigned and challenged Canning to a duel.

History Today tells the story well. Canning had never fired a pistol in his life. He wrote his will and a farewell letter to his wife. His second was so nervous loading the pistol that Castlereagh's second, Lord Yarmouth, did it for him. They met at 6 am on Putney Heath. The first shots missed. Canning's second shot hit a button on Castlereagh's coat, and Castlereagh's second shot hit Canning in the thigh. Castlereagh then helped him limp away. The sources differ on the date by a day. History Today says 21 September 1809, and the National Archives catalogue says 22 September. Both men left the government, and Portland's ministry fell apart.

A nineteenth-century print of the Castlereagh–Canning duel on Putney Heath, 1809. Image: unknown artist, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

Most Hated Man in England

Castlereagh came back as Foreign Secretary in 1812 and held the job until 1822. He helped hold together the alliance that beat Napoleon and was one of the main players at the Congress of Vienna. Many historians now rate him one of Britain's great foreign secretaries. At home, though, he was the face of a government that put down reform. After the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, the poet Shelley wrote in The Mask of Anarchy: "I met Murder on the way – He had a mask like Castlereagh". He was the government's leader in the Commons, so he defended its harshest measures there, and the radicals loathed him.

The strain told. The Library Ireland biography says that after the hard 1822 session "he was observed to be suffering from great nervous excitement". He went to his country house at North Cray in Kent. On the morning of 12 August 1822 he cut his throat with a penknife and died almost at once. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. Some in the crowd cheered as his coffin went in, and Byron wrote a savage mock epitaph. At the time, Macquarie had been back in Britain less than a year.

Castlereagh's statue in Westminster Abbey, where he was buried in 1822. Image: 14GTR, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Castlereagh All Over New South Wales

Macquarie clearly thought well of the man who'd given him the job, because the name turns up all over the colony. On 6 December 1810, after a dinner at the Hawkesbury, Macquarie named his five new "Macquarie towns". His journal, held by the State Library of NSW, records: "the Township for the Evan or Nepean District I have named Castlereagh in honor of Lord Viscount Castlereagh". The others were Windsor, Richmond, Pitt Town and Wilberforce, and he drank "a Bumper to the success of each". Castlereagh never grew into a real town, but the name survives in the suburb of Castlereagh near Penrith and in the Castlereagh Nature Reserve.

The big one is the Castlereagh River in the north-west. In July 1818 John Oxley's second expedition came across it. The memorial near Coonamble says it was "discovered" on 11 July 1818 by Surveyor George Evans, Oxley's second-in-command. Oxley's journal for 18 July records that Evans returned and that the river "was now honoured with the name of Lord Castlereagh". The river rises in the Warrumbungles and runs about 540 kilometres through Coonabarabran, Mendooran, Gilgandra, Gulargambone and Coonamble to the Macquarie River. Of course it had names long before 1818. The surveyor Thomas Mitchell recorded in 1846 that the local people called it the Barr, and it's also known as Wallambangle. The Castlereagh Highway, from Lithgow through Mudgee and Gilgandra to the Queensland border, carries the name too.

The Castlereagh River at Coonabarabran, near its source in the Warrumbungles. Image: Sardaka, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).

The Castlereagh River at Coonamble, near where Oxley's party waited for the floodwaters to fall in 1818. Image: Mattinbgn, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).

The Street Grows Up

For its first few decades Castlereagh Street was a back street, with cottages, stables, yards and small workshops behind the grander George and Pitt Streets. The Victorian boom changed it. By the 1880s and 90s it had theatres, hotels, chapels and offices, and it became one of the city's big entertainment streets.

Castlereagh Street from near King Street, 1892–93, photographed by Fred Hardie. Image: State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions).

The grandest building on the street was the Hotel Australia, which ran right through to Martin Place. For most of the 20th century it was the place to stay in Sydney. I've written it up in my post on the Australia Hotel.

The Hotel Australia in Castlereagh Street, about 1892, by Fred Hardie. Image: National Library of Australia, via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions).

Martin Place and Castlereagh Street around 1935, with the Hotel Australia on the left, by Hall & Co. Image: State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions).

Further up was the Tivoli, home of vaudeville and variety for generations of Sydney theatregoers. The Central Methodist Mission had its Lyceum hall at No. 139.

The Tivoli Theatre in Castlereagh Street, early 1900s, by Hall & Co. Image: Hall & Co., via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

The Central Methodist Mission at 139 Castlereagh Street, 1938, photographed by Sam Hood. Image: Sam Hood, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

Not all of the street was grand. When bubonic plague broke out in 1900, the government sent in cleansing gangs, and the photographs they took show the yards and sheds behind the shopfronts. A public school stood on Castlereagh Street too, photographed in 1872.

The public school in Castlereagh Street, 1872. Image: Charles Percy Pickering, NSW Government Printer, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

A shed behind No. 310 Castlereagh Street, photographed during the plague cleansing operations of 1900. Image: State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions).

Landmarks Along the Way

Walk the street today and there's history all the way along. Here are the ones I've written about before.

• At the King Street corner stands Culwulla Chambers at No. 67. It was one of Sydney's early tall office buildings, and its height helped bring in the city's height limit.
• The Great Synagogue faces Elizabeth Street but backs onto Castlereagh Street. See my post on the Great Synagogue.
• Down at No. 211–217 is the City of Sydney Fire Station, headquarters of the fire brigade since 1888. My earlier post on it is here.
• On the corner of Goulburn Street is the Sydney Masonic Centre, a Freemasons' site since 1884. For more on the Masons, see my post on Freemasons in Australia.
• Castlereagh Street also had its share of odd tenants, like Scientology House.

The Castlereagh Street side of the Great Synagogue, 2023. Image: Shkuru Afshar, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The Fire Station in Castlereagh Street around 1900, from the Tyrrell collection. Image: Powerhouse Museum, Tyrrell Collection, via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions).

Firemen at a blaze in Castlereagh Street, 1934, photographed by Sam Hood. Image: Sam Hood, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

The Castlereagh Street face of the Sydney Masonic Centre, 2022. Image: Shkuru Afshar, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

War, Books and Shopping

The street saw plenty of marches too. In September 1940 the 2/19th Battalion of the 8th Division marched down Castlereagh Street past the Hunter Street corner, on the way to a war that would end for many of them in Malaya and the prison camps. After the war, readers crowded into Angus & Robertson's bookshop there.

The 2/19th Battalion marching down Castlereagh Street near Hunter Street, September 1940. Image: Australian War Memorial, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

Inside Angus & Robertson's bookshop in Castlereagh Street, 1946. Image: State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions).

From the 1930s the old buildings started coming down. Harold Cazneaux photographed old buildings "giving way in Castlereagh St for the new". The Hotel Australia, the Tivoli and most of the Victorian street are gone now. In their place are towers, the MLC Centre and, at the northern end, a row of luxury boutiques that has made Castlereagh Street the city's high-fashion strip. David Jones's Market Street store fronts onto it as well.

"Sydney growing up": old buildings giving way in Castlereagh Street, photographed by Harold Cazneaux. Image: State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions).

David Jones on Castlereagh Street, 2016. Image: Kgbo, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

So Next Time You're Walking Down Castlereagh Street…

Spare a thought for the man on the sign. He was an Irish aristocrat who never saw Sydney. He sent us Macquarie because the first choice got sick, fought a duel with a cabinet colleague the same year, helped settle Europe after Napoleon, and took his own life at 53. His name ended up on a street, a township and a river 17,000 kilometres from where he lived and died. Not a bad legacy for someone most of us can't pronounce. For the record, it's "CASS-ul-ray".

References

• Historical Records of Australia, Series I, introduction to the Macquarie volumes (via Project Gutenberg Australia and the Internet Archive).
• Lachlan Macquarie, Government and General Order, Sydney Gazette, 6 October 1810 (Macquarie University LEMA archive).
• Lachlan Macquarie, journal of his first tour of inspection, 1810, State Library of NSW.
• City of Sydney, "History of Sydney streets"; City of Sydney Archives item A-00036232 (1902).
• The National Archives (UK), Portland papers catalogue, "Quarrel between George Canning and Robert, Viscount Castlereagh".
• History Today, "The Castlereagh–Canning Duel".
• A Compendium of Irish Biography (1878), "Robert Stewart, Lord Castlereagh", via Library Ireland.
• John Oxley, Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales (1820), extract in Ernest Scott (ed.), Australian Discovery.
• Monument Australia, "European Discovery of Castlereagh River", Coonamble.

The Rum Corps – The New South Wales Corps, Rum, Land and Power in Early Sydney – 1789 to 1818

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this page names Aboriginal people who have died.

Ask most Sydneysiders about the Rum Corps and you'll get a picture of red-coated officers rolling barrels of grog up from the Rocks and running the place like a private club. There's truth in that, but it's only part of the story. The New South Wales Corps was a regiment of the British Army that garrisoned the colony for twenty years. Its officers got land, convicts and a stranglehold on trade. Then, on 26 January 1808, it marched on Government House and arrested the King's governor. Here's how that happened, and what became of the regiment afterwards.

Sydney Cove in 1794, in the middle of the officers' years, by the convict artist Thomas Watling. Thomas Watling, 1794, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Raised to Replace the Marines – 1789

The First Fleet came out in 1788 guarded by marines, and the marines never wanted to stay. In June 1789 a new regiment was formed in England as a permanent garrison to relieve them. That was the New South Wales Corps. It began with three companies of about 300 men, and even with drafts sent out over the years its full strength never went past 500 (Wikipedia, New South Wales Corps).

The officers signed up in that first rush. John Macarthur transferred in as a lieutenant by 5 June 1789. Joseph Foveaux bought a lieutenancy the same day. William Paterson was gazetted captain that month, probably through Sir Joseph Banks (ADB, Macarthur, Foveaux and Paterson). The commander was Major Francis Grose, a wounded veteran of the American war who had been sitting on half-pay. He was also made lieutenant-governor of the colony, and the ADB says it was the promise of full pay that got him to take a job at a penal settlement nobody much wanted (ADB, Grose).

A fourth company was raised in Sydney from marines who wanted to stay. It was put under Captain George Johnston, who had been Phillip's aide-de-camp. Phillip picked him as the "most deserving" marine officer for the job (Wikipedia; ADB, Johnston).

Francis Grose, the Corps' first commander, who ran the colony from December 1792 to December 1794. Unidentified engraver, c. 1790s, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Second and Third Fleets

The Corps came out in pieces. The first men arrived as guards on the Second Fleet in 1790 (Wikipedia; Dictionary of Sydney). That was the fleet where a quarter of the 1,006 convicts died on the voyage and about 40 per cent were dead within six months of landing (Wikipedia, Second Fleet). Macarthur, his wife Elizabeth and their baby Edward sailed on the Neptune. After Macarthur fought a duel with the ship's master, they moved to the Scarborough, and they reached Port Jackson on 28 June 1790 (ADB, Macarthur).

Paterson came out with the Third Fleet and arrived in October 1791. He was sent straight to command the detachment on Norfolk Island (ADB, Paterson). Grose himself didn't get to Port Jackson until February 1792, aboard the Pitt (ADB, Grose).

William Paterson, botanist, soldier and twice the man in charge of New South Wales. Attributed to William Owen, c. 1800, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Grose, Paterson and the Officers' Years – 1792 to 1795

Phillip sailed home sick in December 1792, and Grose was left running the colony for two years. Historians call this stretch, which lasted until Governor Hunter arrived in September 1795, the interregnum (ADB, Hunter).

Grose moved quickly. He replaced the civil magistrates with military officers and gave the senior officer at Parramatta control of the convicts there. He made Lieutenant John Macarthur inspector of public works (ADB, Grose). Macarthur was already the regimental paymaster on more than double his lieutenant's pay, so between the two jobs he had a hand on most of the colony's resources (ADB, Macarthur). The ADB says some historians believe Macarthur became "the real ruler of New South Wales". It adds that the evidence isn't good enough to say when Grose was acting on his own and when he was taking advice (ADB, Grose).

Grose looked after his own men. He increased the soldiers' weekly ration so they got more than the convicts, and he improved their housing (ADB, Grose). Wikipedia puts it the other way round: after the poor harvest of 1793 he cut the convicts' rations but not the soldiers', ending Phillip's rule of equal rations for all (Wikipedia, New South Wales Corps).

Grose went home in December 1794, worn down by his old wounds. Paterson, back from Norfolk Island and now second-in-command, ran things for the nine months until Hunter turned up. In that time he granted 4,965 acres. The ADB says he "made no attempt" to check the officers' trading and farming, or the habit his soldiers had of taking the law into their own hands (ADB, Paterson).

Land Grants and Convict Labour

This is where the officers' fortunes started. Grose gave serving soldiers who asked for land grants of about 25 acres each, without any specific instructions to do so. Following Home Office instructions, he gave the officers farms, and against orders he let each officer have ten convicts fed and clothed at government expense (ADB, Grose).

Macarthur did best of all. Elizabeth Farm at Parramatta began in 1793 on a 100-acre grant of "some of the best ground that has been discovered". He had unlimited convict labour, and he was the first in the colony to clear and cultivate 50 acres of virgin land. That earned him another 100 acres (ADB, Macarthur). The Dictionary of Sydney gives a different figure: it says Macarthur received 400 acres at Rose Hill in 1794 (Dictionary of Sydney, Economy). Johnston got 100 acres at Petersham in May 1793. He called it Annandale Farm. Annandale in Dumfriesshire was where he'd been born (ADB, Johnston).

John Macarthur, the lieutenant who became the Corps' paymaster and the colony's sharpest operator. Unknown artist, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Was it all bad? The ADB's entry on Grose is fairer to him than the old stories are. By December 1794 the threat of famine had passed, more land was being farmed and more stock grazed, and outside observers said the settlement looked more prosperous. The Hawkesbury was opened up for farming. The ADB also says the horror stories of murder, drunkenness and rapine came mostly from the chaplains Richard Johnson and Samuel Marsden and from Thomas Arndell, and were exaggerated. All the same, it says, that picture "though exaggerated, was not entirely untrue". Its verdict is that by letting the officers farm and trade, Grose gave them a hold over the colony, and that he "unwittingly" created problems "that none of his immediate successors was able to surmount" (ADB, Grose).

Elizabeth Macarthur, who came out with John on the Second Fleet and ran the farms while he was away. Unidentified painter, 19th century, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Elizabeth Farm, the Macarthurs' Parramatta house, as Joseph Lycett drew it around 1823. Joseph Lycett, c. 1823, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Elizabeth Farm on a postcard from the early 1900s. It began on Grose's 100-acre grant of 1793. William Henry Broadhurst, c. 1900–1927, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Other officers did well too. Wikipedia's list of Corps men who became big colonists includes William Cox, who built the road over the Blue Mountains, and John Piper, William Lawson, Archibald Bell, Anthony Fenn Kemp, Edward Abbott and Nicholas Bayly. It also includes the surgeon John Harris, who became a large property owner in Sydney and around Bathurst (Wikipedia, New South Wales Corps). Harris bought the land of James Ruse's Experiment Farm at Parramatta (Dictionary of Sydney, Economy). Foveaux was in charge of the Corps while Paterson was away from 1796 to 1799. By 1800 he had 2,020 acres and 1,027 sheep, which made him the biggest landholder and stockowner in the colony (ADB, Foveaux).

Experiment Farm Cottage at Harris Park, on the land of James Ruse's Experiment Farm, later bought by the Corps surgeon John Harris. Sardaka, 2013, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Trading Monopoly and Rum as Money

The colony had almost no coin. Notes and coins were scarce, so people bartered, and whoever had food, clothing and grog had the power. Convicts and the lower ranks were often paid in goods instead of money, and the most popular payment was rum (State Library of NSW). "Rum" didn't just mean rum, either. It was a catch-all for any spirit, and much of it came from Bengal (Wikipedia, New South Wales Corps).

Ships calling at Sydney Cove knew there was money to be made, and the officers made sure they got the cargoes. Grose put up with the officers tendering together for each new cargo. Macarthur, Grose, Paterson, Johnston, Rowley and Foveaux are all named as buying inbound cargoes, and sometimes they chartered whole ships (Dictionary of Sydney, Economy). The first known clash between Phillip and Grose was over exactly this. In October 1792 Grose approved the officers' charter of the Britannia, and Phillip didn't like it (ADB, Grose).

Did Grose make money from it himself? The ADB says no. It thinks he let the officers have spirits because grog was such a good incentive payment for convict workers (ADB, Grose). It was the colony's settlers who paid the price. By 1798 Hunter was reporting mark-ups of as much as 700 per cent between the landing price of goods and what the public paid (ADB, Hunter).

The ADB's Hunter entry also makes a point that's easy to forget. Officers trading on the side wasn't unusual in the King's army. Macarthur made less as paymaster than such officers often made in India. What was different in New South Wales was that the officers got something close to a monopoly (ADB, Hunter).

A holey dollar of 1813. Macquarie's answer to a colony that had been using rum and promissory notes as money. Administration of New South Wales, 1813, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

John Macarthur

You can't tell the Rum Corps story without Macarthur, though for most of the big fights he wasn't actually in the Corps. He was the son of a Plymouth mercer and draper, and his enemies called him "Jack Boddice" (ADB, Macarthur). Phillip reprimanded him early on. Grose made him paymaster and inspector of public works, and Macarthur was made captain in May 1795 (ADB, Macarthur).

He fell out with every governor who wouldn't do what he wanted. In September 1801 he fought a duel with his own commanding officer, Paterson, and wounded him in the shoulder. King sent him to England for court martial, and in his letter he said "there are no resources which art, cunning, impudence and a pair of basilisk eyes can afford that he does not put in practice" (ADB, Macarthur; ADB, Paterson).

It backfired on King. In London no one would try the case, and Macarthur took samples of his wool with him. English clothiers declared the wool equal to the best from Spain. Macarthur resigned from the army and came home with a grant of 5,000 acres of the colony's best pasture and some rare Spanish sheep from the royal flocks (ADB, Macarthur). He named the Cowpastures grant Camden Park after his patron, Lord Camden (Wikipedia, John Macarthur). So by the time of the 1808 coup he was a civilian merchant and grazier and no longer a Corps officer, a point the State Library of NSW makes too (State Library of NSW).

Camden Park house. Macarthur named his Cowpastures grant Camden Park after his patron, and he is buried there. Arktos, 2006, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

The Corps on the Frontier

The Corps also fought Aboriginal people. The Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars began in 1794, when the British started building farms along the river, and some of those farms were set up by soldiers. Wikipedia lists the New South Wales Corps as one of the British forces in that conflict. Between 1795 and 1802 the Bidjigal warrior Pemulwuy led raids around Parramatta (Wikipedia, Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars; Wikipedia, Pemulwuy). In 1797, at what became known as the Battle of Parramatta, settlers and soldiers fought Pemulwuy's men, and the wounded Pemulwuy was captured and held in the hospital at Parramatta. He later escaped (Wikipedia, Pemulwuy). In 1801 King issued an order letting settlers shoot Aboriginal people on sight around Parramatta, the Georges River and Prospect (Wikipedia, Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars). The Reverend Thomas Fyshe Palmer, a political exile in the colony, wrote of soldiers and settlers coming on Hawkesbury people "unarmed, and unexpected", and said that "the dead they hang on gibbets" (quoted in Wikipedia, Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars).

Clashes with Hunter

John Hunter reached Port Jackson on 7 September 1795 and took office four days later (ADB, Hunter). He was a naval captain nearing 60, and the officers around him were mostly young men. Macarthur was 28, and Hunter leaned on him heavily in his first months. Hunter's very first act as governor was to disobey his orders and keep Grose's system of ten farm convicts and three domestic convicts for each officer who held land (ADB, Hunter).

He soon regretted it. Macarthur resigned as inspector of public works in February 1796, and Hunter accepted "without reluctance". He wrote of Macarthur that "scarcely anything short of the full power of the Governor" would satisfy him (ADB, Macarthur). Macarthur went over Hunter's head and wrote straight to the Secretary of State and the army's commander-in-chief (ADB, Macarthur). Hunter tried using the Corps' own soldiers to guard imported rum, and he tried a public store to bring prices down. The officers beat him both times. On one occasion they even chartered a Danish ship to bring a big load of rum from India (Wikipedia, New South Wales Corps). The Duke of Portland recalled Hunter in a stern dispatch dated 5 November 1799 (ADB, Hunter).

Governor John Hunter, the naval man who tried and failed to break the officers' trade. William Mineard Bennett, c. 1812, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Paterson came back in November 1799 under orders to investigate the officers' trading in spirits and put a stop to it (ADB, Paterson). In 1800 Major Johnston was sent to England under arrest for trading in spirits. He was never brought to trial and he came back the next year (ADB, Johnston). Wikipedia explains why: the English courts decided the evidence and witnesses were all in Sydney, so any trial would have to be held there (Wikipedia, New South Wales Corps).

Clashes with King

Philip Gidley King took command on 28 September 1800 (ADB, King). He brought spirit imports down to about a third of their rate in Hunter's last months. In June 1802 he put a 5 per cent duty on imported spirits, which he had no legal authority to do. He also cut the number of officers' servants fed by the Crown from 356 to 94 (ADB, King). Wikipedia adds that ships had to lodge a bond, which they'd forfeit if they landed more than 500 gallons of rum, and that King opened a public brewery in 1804 (Wikipedia, New South Wales Corps).

Philip Gidley King, governor from 1800 to 1806, who fought the Corps with duties, bonds and orders. Unknown artist, c. 1798, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The officers fought back. Early in 1803 King refused to let a cargo of spirits be landed from the Atlas. Straight afterwards libellous "pipes", anonymous verses mocking the governor and his officials, began going around Sydney. Courts martial followed, and all they showed was how much the governor and the Corps hated each other. The ADB's verdict is blunt: "In the end he was defeated by the officers of the New South Wales Corps" (ADB, King).

King with his wife Anna Josepha and their children, painted by Robert Dighton in 1799 just before they sailed for Sydney. Robert Dighton, 1799, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Castle Hill – March 1804

The Corps' one real battle in New South Wales was against convicts. On the night of 4 March 1804, Irish convicts at the government farm at Castle Hill rose up. They were led by Philip Cunningham, a veteran of the 1798 Irish rebellion, and they planned to take Parramatta and then Sydney (Wikipedia, Castle Hill convict rebellion).

Major Johnston marched through the night and caught up with the rebels at what became known as Vinegar Hill, near today's Rouse Hill. While parleying under a flag of truce, he and Trooper Thomas Anlezark pulled pistols and took the two leaders, Cunningham and William Johnston. According to one account written down much later, the answer to the demand to surrender had been "Death or Liberty". Quartermaster Sergeant Thomas Laycock then led the troops in more than fifteen minutes of musket fire and a charge (Wikipedia, Castle Hill convict rebellion). Official records say 15 rebels were killed in the battle and nine were later executed, Cunningham among them (Wikipedia, Castle Hill convict rebellion). King had to step in to stop a military court hanging one rebel in every ten (Wikipedia, New South Wales Corps). He rewarded Johnston with 2,000 acres at Cabramatta (ADB, Johnston). How many soldiers Johnston had with him depends on which source you read, and that's covered further down.

Major George Johnston, painted by Robert Dighton in 1810. He led the Corps at Vinegar Hill in 1804 and arrested Bligh in 1808. Robert Dighton, 1810, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The 1804 convict rising at Castle Hill, drawn by an unknown artist at the time. The Corps put it down at Vinegar Hill. Unknown artist, 1804, National Library of Australia, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Old Government House in Parramatta Park. Parramatta was the town the Castle Hill rebels hoped to take. Michael Cleary, 2007, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Bligh Arrives – 1806

Banks found the next governor. William Bligh of the Bounty was offered the job in March 1805 at £2,000 a year, double King's salary. He brought special instructions to curb the spirits traffic (ADB, Bligh). He reached Sydney on 6 August 1806 (ADB, Bligh). The State Library says London hoped his reputation for tough leadership would get the rum trade under control (State Library of NSW).

Bligh got stuck in. On 3 January 1807 he ordered that all promissory notes be made payable in sterling. On 14 February 1807 he banned, with stiff penalties, the bartering of spirits for grain, labour, food or any other goods (ADB, Bligh). He lost his temper with Macarthur over sheep and cattle. He refused land grants and questioned town leases held by Macarthur, Johnston and others (ADB, Bligh). In eighteen months he made only three land grants (ADB, Bligh).

William Bligh, years before Sydney. He reached the colony on 6 August 1806. John Condé after John Russell, before 1792, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sydney Cove on 4 September 1808, eight months after the coup, painted by John Lewin. John Lewin, 1808, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Rebellion of 26 January 1808

It came to a head over one of Macarthur's ships. In June 1807 a convict stowed away and escaped on Macarthur's schooner Parramatta. When she came back in December, the bond her owners had lodged against helping prisoners escape was declared forfeit. Macarthur ignored an order to appear, was arrested and bailed, and was sent for trial at the Criminal Court on 25 January 1808 (Wikipedia, Rum Rebellion). That court was the judge-advocate, Richard Atkins, plus six Corps officers. Macarthur objected that Atkins was his debtor and his enemy, and the six officers backed him. Without the judge-advocate the court couldn't sit, so it broke up. Bligh accused the six officers of what amounted to mutiny and sent for Major Johnston. Johnston said he was too ill to come, having wrecked his gig on the way home from a dinner with the officers on the night of the 24th (Wikipedia, Rum Rebellion; ADB, Bligh; State Library of NSW). Duffy reckons that if Johnston had come when he was called on 25 January, the rebellion probably would never have happened (Wikipedia, Rum Rebellion).

Johnston came in from Annandale on 26 January. He later claimed he found Sydney in uproar, "with no man's life or property safe" from a tyrannical governor (ADB, Johnston). He went to the gaol and ordered Macarthur's release. Macarthur then drafted a petition asking Johnston to arrest Bligh and take charge (ADB, Macarthur; Wikipedia, Rum Rebellion). Then, in the evening, the Corps marched from the parade ground on High Street (now George Street) up Bridge Street to Government House, playing "The British Grenadiers", with hundreds of people following (State Library of NSW). Wikipedia says about 400 soldiers marched, at 6 pm, with the band playing and colours flying. Bligh's daughter Mary Putland tried to block them with her parasol (Wikipedia, Rum Rebellion).

Government House, Sydney, about 1809. This is where the Corps marched on the evening of 26 January 1808. John William Lewin, c. 1809, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The legend says he was hiding under a bed, and a State Library of NSW media release quoted by Wikipedia says a cartoon showing a soldier dragging him out from under one was drawn within hours of the coup (State Library of NSW; Wikipedia, Rum Rebellion). Bligh said he was behind the bed hiding papers. The writer Michael Duffy argues that if he was hiding, it was to get away and rally support, not out of cowardice (Wikipedia, Rum Rebellion).

The arrest of Governor Bligh, 1808. A soldier drags him from under a bed. It is thought to be Australia's earliest surviving political cartoon, and it was propaganda. Unknown artist, 1808, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Johnston made himself lieutenant-governor, and Macarthur was given the specially created post of colonial secretary. He "virtually administered" the colony until Joseph Foveaux arrived on 28 July 1808 and took over (ADB, Macarthur). Paterson was down at Port Dalrymple in Van Diemen's Land and in no hurry to come up. He finally left on 1 January 1809 and took office in Sydney nine days later. He refused to reinstate Bligh, and he handed out land so freely that 67,000 acres went in a year, more than King had granted in six years (ADB, Paterson). Bligh stayed under arrest in Sydney for more than a year. He got away on the Porpoise in March 1809, after breaking his promise to sail for England, and he spent months at the Derwent (ADB, Bligh).

The ADB doesn't let either side off. On Bligh: his temper and language were bad, he favoured his own farm, and he made enemies everywhere. "Nevertheless", it says, the men who claimed Bligh was a tyrant who was about to spark "insurrection and massacre" were "grossly" exaggerating, and liberty and property "were never in danger" (ADB, Bligh). Only nine people had signed the requisition asking Johnston to take over before he did it (ADB, Bligh).

Wynyard Park around 1920. The barracks stood around the old parade ground here. Photographic Collection from Australia, c. 1920, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Wynyard Park today, on the site of the Corps' parade ground. Wpcpey, 2017, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Recall – Macquarie and the 73rd

London's answer was to send a new governor and a new regiment together. Late in 1808 it decided to send the 73rd Regiment to replace Bligh and "the mutinous New South Wales Corps". The governor was first meant to be Major-General Miles Nightingall, but the job went to Lachlan Macquarie, the 73rd's lieutenant-colonel. He sailed from Portsmouth with the regiment on 22 May 1809 in the storeship Dromedary, escorted by HMS Hindostan, and entered Port Jackson on 28 December 1809 (ADB, Macquarie). He took office at the start of 1810 (State Library of NSW).

Macquarie put back the officials Johnston and Macarthur had sacked, and he cancelled every land and stock grant made since Bligh's arrest (Wikipedia, Rum Rebellion). On 12 May 1810 Paterson and the bulk of the old Corps sailed for England in the Dromedary, the same ship that had brought their replacements out. Bligh left the same day (ADB, Macquarie; ADB, Paterson). Paterson didn't get home. He died at sea off Cape Horn on 21 June 1810, a poor man. Unlike most of his fellow officers, he had never traded or got rich in the colony (ADB, Paterson).

Lachlan Macquarie, who arrived with the 73rd Regiment and sent the Corps home. Attributed to John Opie, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Not everyone left. Some officers and long-serving privates were moved into the 73rd to bring it up to strength. About 100 veterans and invalids stayed on for garrison duty (Wikipedia, New South Wales Corps), and the 73rd's own history records a draft of men from the Corps joining it in 1810 (Wikipedia, 73rd Regiment of Foot).

Rum didn't go away just because the Corps did. Macquarie had no money for a hospital, so he gave the merchants Alexander Riley and Garnham Blaxcell and the surgeon D'Arcy Wentworth a monopoly on importing 45,000 gallons of spirits in exchange for building it. The General Hospital on Macquarie Street opened in 1816 and has been called the Rum Hospital ever since (Sydney Living Museums). Its south wing is now the Mint, and its north wing is NSW Parliament House (Sydney Living Museums).

The south wing of the 'Rum Hospital' as the Royal Mint in 1870. Macquarie paid for the hospital with a rum monopoly. Attributed to Charles Pickering, 1870, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The same building, the Sydney Mint on Macquarie Street, in 2022. Kgbo, 2022, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Court Martial

Johnston was court-martialled at Chelsea in 1811, with Macarthur attending. Johnston was found guilty and cashiered, which the ADB calls a "mild penalty" (ADB, Johnston; ADB, Macarthur). The court added that "novel and extraordinary circumstances" partly excused what he did, which the ADB reads as the court thinking Bligh wasn't blameless either, or perhaps not wanting to punish Johnston for being Macarthur's tool (ADB, Bligh). The lawyers said the civilians couldn't be tried for treason in England, so Macarthur stayed in England until he was sure he wouldn't be arrested at home. He didn't return to New South Wales until 1817 (ADB, Macarthur; Wikipedia, John Macarthur).

Johnston came back in 1813 as an ordinary settler. In 1820 he wrote bitterly, "Every person that promised ... has risen upon my ruin. I alone am the sufferer". He died on 5 January 1823 and was buried in the family vault at Annandale (ADB, Johnston).

What's left of Annandale House on Johnston Street, Annandale, the Johnston family's estate. Clytemnestra, 2009, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A Second Life – the 102nd Regiment

The regiment didn't end in 1810. It was renamed the 102nd Regiment of Foot. When that happened is covered below, because the sources differ. When the men got home, most of the old hands went off to veteran or garrison battalions. The regiment was rebuilt at Horsham in October 1810 with new recruits, including 150 men "of free birth and good character" born in New South Wales (Wikipedia, New South Wales Corps).

It went to Guernsey in 1811 and Bermuda in 1812, just as the War of 1812 with the United States began. Under Lieutenant-Colonel Charles James Napier, later a famous general, it fought at Craney Island on 22 June 1813 and raided along Chesapeake Bay before going to Halifax, Nova Scotia (Wikipedia, New South Wales Corps). After the war detachments held Moose Island, now Eastport in Maine. In 1816 it was renumbered the 100th Regiment. It was the last British unit occupying American soil, and it was disbanded at Chatham on 24 March 1818 (Wikipedia, New South Wales Corps). So the Rum Corps ended up guarding a corner of Maine, which not many people know.

Charles James Napier, later a famous general, who commanded the 102nd Regiment in the War of 1812. Attributed to William Edward Kilburn, 1849, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Legacy – and Is "Rum Corps" Fair?

The nickname stuck early. The State Library of NSW says the Corps' part in the rum barter system earned it the name "Rum Corps" in the 1790s, and the Dictionary of Sydney lists "Rum Corps" as its colloquial name (State Library of NSW; Dictionary of Sydney). "Rum Rebellion" is a different story. The State Library says that term "was not used at the time" and that the coup had "much less to do with the rum trade and much more to do with a battle for power" between the military, the civil elite and the governor (State Library of NSW). Michael Duffy, quoted by Wikipedia, credits the phrase to the English Quaker William Howitt, who took Bligh's side in a popular history he published in 1855 (Wikipedia, Rum Rebellion). The British Modern Military History Society calls "Rum Rebellion" a misnomer and says "The Great Rebellion" is the more accurate name (BMMHS).

Some historians stick up for the officers a bit. They point out that the officers' farms fed the colony when government farming couldn't (ADB, Johnston; ADB, Grose). The ADB also notes that the convict records don't support the charges that crime and drunkenness rose under military rule in 1793–95 (ADB, Hunter). On the other side, the Dictionary of Sydney traces Macquarie's new economy back to "the greed and arrogance of the early officers of the Rum Corps" (Dictionary of Sydney, Economy).

Either way, you can still see their marks around Sydney. Elizabeth Farm still stands at Parramatta. Johnston's Annandale Farm started with Grose's grant of 1793. Wynyard Park was their parade ground. The Rum Hospital became Parliament House and the Mint. And on 26 January there's an older anniversary than most people realise: the day in 1808 when the soldiers marched up Bridge Street.

Timeline

• June 1789 – New South Wales Corps formed in England to relieve the marines. Macarthur and Foveaux join on 5 June.
• June 1790 – First Corps men arrive with the Second Fleet. The Macarthurs land on 28 June.
• October 1791 – Paterson arrives with the Third Fleet and goes to Norfolk Island.
• February 1792 – Major Francis Grose arrives in the Pitt.
• October 1792 – Grose approves the officers' charter of the Britannia.
• December 1792 – Phillip sails home. Grose takes charge and military officers replace the civil magistrates.
• 1793 – Elizabeth Farm and Annandale Farm granted. Macarthur made inspector of public works.
• December 1794 – Grose leaves. Paterson administers the colony.
• 7–11 September 1795 – Governor Hunter arrives and takes office.
• February 1796 – Macarthur resigns as inspector of public works.
• 1797 – Battle of Parramatta. Pemulwuy wounded and captured.
• 5 November 1799 – Portland recalls Hunter.
• 1800 – Johnston sent to England under arrest for trading in spirits. He's never tried.
• 28 September 1800 – Governor King takes command.
• 14 September 1801 – Macarthur wounds Paterson in a duel and is sent to England in November.
• June 1802 – King imposes a 5 per cent duty on imported spirits.
• Early 1803 – King refuses to let the Atlas land its spirits. The "pipes" begin.
• 4–5 March 1804 – Castle Hill rising, put down at Vinegar Hill.
• June/July 1805 – Macarthur returns with his sheep and his 5,000-acre grant.
• 6 August 1806 – Governor Bligh reaches Sydney.
• 14 February 1807 – Bligh bans bartering spirits for goods or labour.
• 25 January 1808 – Macarthur's trial collapses after he objects to Atkins and the six officers back him.
• 26 January 1808 – The Corps marches on Government House and arrests Bligh.
• 28 July 1808 – Foveaux takes command.
• 1808 or 1809 – Corps renamed the 102nd Regiment of Foot (sources differ).
• January 1809 – Paterson takes office in Sydney.
• 28 December 1809 – Macquarie and the 73rd Regiment enter Port Jackson.
• 12 May 1810 – The Corps sails for England in the Dromedary.
• 21 June 1810 – Paterson dies at sea off Cape Horn.
• 1811 – Johnston court-martialled and cashiered.
• 22 June 1813 – The 102nd fights at Craney Island in the War of 1812.
• 1816 – Renumbered the 100th Regiment.
• 24 March 1818 – Disbanded at Chatham.

Where the Sources Disagree

• Grose and the rations. The ADB says Grose increased the soldiers' ration so they got more than the convicts. Wikipedia says that after the 1793 harvest he cut the convicts' rations but not the soldiers'. Either way, the soldiers ended up better fed than the convicts.
• Macarthur's first grant. The ADB says Elizabeth Farm began on a 100-acre grant in 1793, with another 100 acres added later. The Dictionary of Sydney says he received 400 acres at Rose Hill in 1794.
• Johnston's force at Castle Hill. The ADB says Johnston had 26 soldiers after a forced march from Sydney. Wikipedia's Corps article says he led 29 soldiers from the barracks at Annandale to Parramatta. Its Castle Hill article gives 30 regulars and 67 militia at the battle, and says a contingent of 56 Corps men was sent to Parramatta overnight.
• The rebels killed. Official records give 15 rebels killed in the battle. Wikipedia notes that some accounts say about 30 rebels were killed or wounded in the fighting around the western gate.
• "Death or Liberty". The famous reply was recorded only once, and some time later, by a man named Suttor (Wikipedia, Castle Hill).
• Macarthur's return. The ADB entry on Macarthur says he landed on 8 June 1805. The ADB entry on King says he "returned in triumph" in July 1805.
• Mrs King's "Thanks" grant. The ADB's Bligh entry says Bligh gave Mrs King 790 acres. Its King entry says 690 acres.
• How many marched on Government House. Wikipedia says about 400 soldiers. The State Library of NSW doesn't give a number but says hundreds of spectators followed.
• Under the bed. The 1808 cartoon and the legend say Bligh hid under a bed. Wikipedia reports that he was found behind his bed and said he was hiding papers. The State Library calls the hiding story legend and the cartoon political propaganda.
• The requisition. The ADB says only nine people had signed the requisition before Johnston acted. Wikipedia, citing H. V. Evatt, says most signatures were probably added after Bligh was under arrest.
• When the Corps became the 102nd. Wikipedia's Corps article says 1808. The Dictionary of Sydney says 1809, after the Rum Rebellion.
• Who ran the colony under Grose. Some historians say Macarthur was "the real ruler". The ADB says the evidence isn't good enough to decide.

My Earlier Posts

• The Rum Rebellion – 26th January 1808 – Governor William Bligh Is Overthrown at Government House – Sydney
• Arrest of Governor Bligh – The Rum Rebellion – 26 January 1808
• Philip Gidley King – Third Governor of New South Wales
• The Castle Hill Rebellion – Battle of Vinegar Hill – 5 March 1804
• Pemulwuy – Bidjigal Resistance Leader of Botany Bay and Parramatta
• Elizabeth Farm – Alice Street – Parramatta (also on Historic Sydney Mansions)
• Wynyard – From Gadigal Country and the Military Barracks to Wynyard Station
• Annandale House – Sunday Times – 18 August 1907
• Ultimo House – Ultimo (the Corps surgeon John Harris's house)
• Belmont (Archibald Bell) – Richmond Hill – North Richmond
• Government House – Macquarie Street – Sydney
• House of Mary Putland / Frogmore / Werrington Park
• Sydney Hospital – The Rum Hospital
• Governors of New South Wales from 1788 to 2016
• Black Caesar – John Caesar, First Fleet Convict and Australia's First Bushranger – c.1763 to 1796

Sources

• Australian Dictionary of Biography: B. H. Fletcher, "Grose, Francis (1758–1814)"
• Australian Dictionary of Biography: David S. Macmillan, "Paterson, William (1755–1810)"
• Australian Dictionary of Biography: Margaret Steven, "Macarthur, John (1767–1834)"
• Australian Dictionary of Biography: A. T. Yarwood, "Johnston, George (1764–1823)"
• Australian Dictionary of Biography: J. J. Auchmuty, "Hunter, John (1737–1821)"
• Australian Dictionary of Biography: A. G. L. Shaw, "King, Philip Gidley (1758–1808)"
• Australian Dictionary of Biography: A. G. L. Shaw, "Bligh, William (1754–1817)"
• Australian Dictionary of Biography: B. H. Fletcher, "Foveaux, Joseph (1767–1846)"
• Australian Dictionary of Biography: N. D. McLachlan, "Macquarie, Lachlan (1762–1824)"
• State Library of NSW, "The 1808 'Rum' Rebellion"
• Dictionary of Sydney, "New South Wales Corps"
• Dictionary of Sydney, Garry Wotherspoon, "Economy"
• Sydney Living Museums, "What was the 'Rum' Hospital?"
• British Modern Military History Society, "The Rum Rebellion"
• Wikipedia, "New South Wales Corps"
• Wikipedia, "Rum Rebellion" (including Michael Duffy, "Proof of history's rum deal", Sydney Morning Herald, 28 January 2006, as quoted there)
• Wikipedia, "Castle Hill convict rebellion"
• Wikipedia, "Second Fleet (Australia)"
• Wikipedia, "John Macarthur"
• Wikipedia, "73rd (Perthshire) Regiment of Foot"
• Wikipedia, "Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars"
• Wikipedia, "Pemulwuy"
• All images via Wikimedia Commons. Credits and licences are under each picture.

Sir Henry Browne Hayes – The Convict Knight Who Built Vaucluse – And Why Vaucluse Is Called Vaucluse

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.

Sir Henry Browne Hayes in a portrait miniature dated to about 1824, back home in Cork after his Sydney years. Attributed to Adam Buck, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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.

Vernon Mount, the Hayes family house outside Cork where Mary Pike was taken in 1797, photographed in August 2016 after the fire that gutted it. Guliolopez, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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.

John Philpot Curran, the famous Irish barrister who led the prosecution against Hayes at the Cork assizes in 1801. Unknown artist, National Portrait Gallery London, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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".

Sydney about 1802, the year Hayes stepped ashore. Engraving after Charles-Alexandre Lesueur of the French Baudin expedition, published by François Péron in 1807. After Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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.

Governor Philip Gidley King, who called Hayes "a restless, troublesome character". Oil portrait, about 1798. Unknown artist, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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.

Maurice Margarot, one of Hayes's friends among the colony's troublemakers. Unknown artist, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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".

Rose Bay and Vaucluse from the air, undated. In 1803 this was bush country well away from town, which is just where Governor King wanted Hayes. NSW State Archives and Records, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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.

Vaucluse House today. Hayes's little stone cottage is still in there, swallowed up inside the Wentworths' Gothic additions. Cismok, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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.

Governor William Bligh. Hayes took his side after the Rum Rebellion and paid for it with a trip to the Newcastle coal mines. John Condé after John Russell, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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.

Governor Lachlan Macquarie, under whom Hayes's pardon finally took effect. Painted by Arthur Levett Jackson in 1874. Arthur Levett Jackson, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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.

Joseph Holt of the 1798 United Irish rebellion, who sailed home with Hayes on the Isabella and was wrecked with him in the Falklands. Unknown artist, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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.

The spring itself, the Fontaine de Vaucluse, where the River Sorgue comes out from under a limestone cliff. JYB Devot, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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.

The poet Petrarch, who made Vaucluse famous in the 1300s. Italian portrait, first half of the 16th century. Italian 16th century, National Gallery of Art, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

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.

Fontaine-de-Vaucluse in Provence, seen from the castle. This is the Vaucluse our Vaucluse is named after. Mathieu Brossais, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Petrarch museum and library at Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, on the spot where his house stood. Alessandro Colombo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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.

Vaucluse House photographed by Sam Hood for Cinesound in November 1932. Sam Hood, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Vaucluse House in the 1930s, by then a public museum. Royal Australian Historical Society, Osborne Collection, no known restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Vaucluse House in 2009. Bgabel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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).