John Wild settles at Richmond
St Matthew’s Anglican Church (shown in this photo) has quite rightly been called one of the most beautiful buildings in Australia. Designed by Francis Greenway (described in an earlier article), under instruction from Governor Macquarie, the building is a landmark. The graveyard also makes for fascinating viewing, with graves of several people who came out with the First Fleet.
The relevance of the Church to the story of John was that in 1810 he was in the nearby Richmond area, having received a land grant, where he was rewarded for his good record by being appointed a Constable, in particular giving evidence to a Coroner’s inquiry about a murder at Richmond.
John Wild welcomes Governor Macquarie
Several months earlier John was one of the “settlers” (the term used in the petition) who had signed a petition welcoming Governor Macquarie to the Richmond area. Macquarie was on an important five week trip (accompanied by his wife Elizabeth) taking in most of the colony. On this trip he selected five areas of land on the fertile Hawkesbury River which later became known as “The Macquarie Towns” (Castlereagh, Pitt Town, Richmond, Wilberforce and Windsor). Windsor is probably the most famous of the Macquarie Towns, followed closely by Richmond.
In a farsighted operation by Governor Macquarie, lands in these “towns” were officially surveyed to include a town square, roads and house blocks to encourage settlers like shoemakers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, bakers and other service providers. Blocks were also designated to be used for public purposes such as schools, churches, burial grounds and court houses to service the surrounding rural areas.
Returning to John, soon afterwards he sold his house in Phillip Street, Sydney, opposite the later site of Parliament House for 30 pounds, confirming that he intended to embark on a rural lifestyle.
In 1814 he was in the Liverpool area, and in 1816 he was granted an area of 110 acres on the Campbelltown-Appin Road which he called “Ëgypt Farm”. He bought cattle for the farm, which explains why he had been granted such a large area. A horse also escaped. I will refer to this land further in a later article.
John died two years later in his fifties (a fair age for those times) and his wife Elizabeth died in 1838.
The last of John Wild
This completes my account of the various adventures of John Wild. We now turn to John Frost, who was transported to the colony in 1813. But how had the colony changed since John Wild arrived fifteen years earlier?
Changes in the colony
To understand the situation faced by John Frost when he arrived in Sydney I feel that it is necessary to see the environment in place at that time.
When our previous heroes, James Moore and John Wild, had arrived in the colony in the late 1790s it was purely a penal colony dominated by the punishment of convicts. Chain gangs worked in the streets and floggings were carried out in the town squares. However in the early 1800s a shift in emphasis was evolving, thanks (as already described) mainly to Governor Macquarie.
This was despite the scheming and conniving of the senior Army officers and influential landholders and clergymen who made the lives of Governors King, Hunter and Bligh a trial, culminating in their ill-fated deposing and jailing of Bligh. Governor William Bligh, formerly a naval Captain with an outstanding record, was deposed by the New South Wales Corps under the command of Major George Johnston, working closely with John Macarthur, on 26 January 1808. It is almost beyond belief that this was carried out, in wartime the perpetrators would have been hanged for treason.
Governor Macquarie
The main perpetrators (mainly John Macarthur) were recalled to England, giving the new Governor, Lachlan Macquarie, a better chance of carrying out his plans, starting in 1809.
Governor Macquarie initiated an adventurous building programme, encouraged exploration, and set land apart for the “Macquarie Towns” on the fertile Hawkesbury River.
The first crossing of the Blue Mountains in 1813 led in due course to expansion of farming lands to the western plains.
Indicative of the degree of assimilation of the convict class, by 1820 (when a Census was held) almost three-quarters of the total adult population were convicts or ex-convicts, and at least four out of five of the colony’s young were the children of convicts.
Another telling statistic was that by 1820 although the convict class held only about a third of the total land granted they were producing nearly three-quarters of the colony’s grain, half its cattle and a third of its sheep.
John Frost
With this new environment in mind we now turn to John Frost.
Born in about 1791 John Frost was convicted in the County of Devon, England for breaking into a house and stealing a knife and a collection of coins, receiving a life sentence. At first glance the collection of coins was quite bizarre (a one pound note, two dollars and three half crowns), but readers might remember that this was the exact time that “Big Bill” Jerrems issued tokens in Gainsborough, England, to help make up for the lack of official coins.
John was transported to Sydney town in the sailing ship “Fortune”, arriving in 1813. Perhaps the convicts who sailed on the ship would have found the name of the ship somewhat ironic because for most of them the chances of them subsequently finding their fortune in Sydney would have been remote.
When convicts reached Sydney they were questioned before they left their ship regarding their previous experience and sorted into categories.
In the case of John, he had been a labourer in a rural area in the County of Devon, so he would have had farming experience, standing him in good stead in a colony so reliant on farming. In the 1814 Muster (a simple form of census) he was shown to be working as a labourer for Elizabeth Macarthur, no doubt a plum position for a newly arrived convict, as you will see.
