Museum Noise

This short slideshow’ll give you some idea of the museum and the way its been set up, telling stories about itself and the thousands of hapless occupants that drifted through it, under duress, need or business…

A map drawn in 1844 shows a large ‘out-building’, almost certainly a barn or stables, positioned south of the ‘Residence’ on Elizabeth Farm. A driveway stretching from Parramatta Road, turning right at the building to avoid the ‘pleasure grounds’, runs east for a while before reverting north again, past the kitchen garden and orchards, across Clay Cliff Creek, heading off towards Parramatta. Just out of the picture the road continues past the gate lodge, old Military Barracks, the Queens Wharf and Windmill.

State Library of New South Wales

Between these two buildings – the homestead and stables – was a work yard and service area containing among other buildings, a well, a pump and a privy, or toilet block. These 3 structures appear on maps drawn by government field surveyors between 1893 and 1913.

Long since demolished, overlaid by roadway and housing, these features provide important clues to plumbing and sanitation technology operating in the early decades of colonial development.

In order to plot their location and to ensure any archaeological remains are undisturbed, curators at Elizabeth Farm commissioned new plans to be drawn combining historical and contemporary surveys.

Once their location was determined, the ‘footprints’ were marked out in white paint and carefully photographed.

WC

Here is the privy, referred to as ‘WC’ or water closet, or otherwise the toilet block, located slightly south west (to the left) of the servants wing.

WELL

Here is the Well, located a metre, or so, south east of the small entrance gate.

PUMP

And here is the Pump, located a few metres to the south of the well, which continues to reveal itself as a recurrent indentation in the ashpalt surface of Alice Street.

Options are currently being investigated to interpret (and possibly even periodically reveal) these important archaeological features.

An intimate glimpse into the dappled world of the Swann sisters at Elizabeth Farm, a few years before they sold up and left. The film was funded by Ampol, commissioned by the National Trust and directed by John Kingsford Smith. There are copyright restrictions on the commercial use or distribution of this production.

An intimate glimpse into the dappled world of the Swann sisters at Elizabeth Farm, a few years before they sold up and left. The film was funded by Ampol, commissioned by the National Trust and directed by John Kingsford Smith. There are copyright restrictions on the commercial use or distribution of this production.

Who’d have thought that so much mystery and misunderstanding would surround one of Australia’s most admired pioneering figures? Though often regarded as one of a pair, the portrait of an unknown female subject was painted by an unknown artist – possibly in England – in the 19th century, several years apart from its companion piece – the large oil of John Macarthur. At the time of being painted, John and Elizabeth Macarthur were either living in Australia or long dead. The people in each portrait are aged between 30 – 40 years old. If these were the Macarthurs, the paintings would place them in the years 1810-1820. Its unlikely the Macarthurs ever saw these paintings or even knew of their existence. Both portraits are unsigned, undated and untitled and match neither in size, skill or style. As we’ll learn, the portrait of John might well look like him. Any resemblance to Elizabeth, however, is uncertain.

Undated, untitled portrait in oil, by unknown artist, assumed to be Elizabeth Macarthur, held in the Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales

 

PART ONE

Its almost a truism though, or at least more common than not, that the more iconic someone’s story becomes, the more celebrated or treasured, the more likely that story is to become skewed and prone to invention. In becoming public property, they become tainted with all the expectations and ideals that public aspires to. And the more likely that story takes on the quality of fable. In my opinion, this, unfortunately, is what’s become of Elizabeth Macarthur. The impressions we have of her, like the portrait often used to qualify and lend visual weight to assumptions about her character – her courage and capability, her practical nature, her tactfulness and even her beauty – are highly unreliable – given all the evidence we have. She has become fabled and, along the way, her story has been co-opted by all manner of storytellers – historians, genealogists, curators, journalists, teachers, cultural planners, feminists, artists – to underline a myth, an important myth nonetheless. Its a well known, well worn ‘new world’ progress myth…that one person can make a difference…that courage, loyalty and grit will conquer ruthlessness, greed and, in the case of early colonial New South Wales, that taste and sophistication will rise above and dominate a barbaric, uncivilised world. That is what Elizabeth Macarthur has come to represent and this, in my opinion, is why Australians have become so protective of her. Her story reminds us that one person, one not so very special woman, can make a difference, despite all the odds.

PART TWO

Firstly a little background detail. When the young Elizabeth Veale, from Devon, married the young soldier John Macarthur, from Plymouth, in Bridgerule, Devon, in 1788, he was on unauthorised leave from his army regiment in Gibraltar, on stern orders to return. For the previous 5 years, he’d remained in the district, no doubt demoralised, on half-pay, where his regiment had been recalled and finally disbanded. He was around 16 when he enlisted in 1783, although wars in America had just ended and conflicts with France and Spain were temporarily in limbo, leaving him probably frustrated and feeling left behind. The more lucrative postings to India typically went to officers with better connections and families. A military career, his only way up the English social ladder, was rapidly turning sour. There’s a possibility he’d been living above his means and may have fallen into debt… but that another tale.

So back to the alter…John aged 21, had met Elizabeth also 21, through his work as a teacher at a local Grammar school. Despite his predicament with the army, he was perhaps most anxious about becoming a father, as Elizabeth was at least 4 months pregnant, and neither knew what the next few months, or years, would hold. Relocating to Gibraltar appeared out of the question although the income was needed. It was at this stage he was possibly planning on leaving the army entirely to recoup the 400 pounds borrowed to purchase his original commission. On the horizon, was a dark cloud, with John’s reputation, and therefore the prospects of his young wife and child, in desperate straits.

In the months following their wedding the Macarthurs must have spent sleepless nights weighing up options, their lives in the hands of fate. John needed to either take up duties in Gibraltar or face court marshal. In late 1788, a series of complicated and taxing negotiations with the War Office eventually offered a way out – resulting in Macarthur taking up a new posting, as a trade off, with a regiment being hastily assembled for the prison settlement, here in Sydney. New South Wales, according to early reports, was an untapped Garden of Eden.

The first few months of 1789 were frantic with correspondence and travel between London and Devon. Elizabeth suffered a difficult coach ride, in her final days of pregnancy, giving birth to a son five months into their marriage, at a travellers’ pub in Bath. Its perhaps worth noting… there were no family or friends present at the birth of their first son Edward. As historian Alan Atkinson has suggested, their lives must have felt stripped bare at this point – outsiders with uncertain futures. Six months later (11 months into their marriage) the Macarthurs were on board the squalid Neptune, awaiting orders to pull out from Gravesend, along with a fleet of transports, the new colonial regiment and around 1000 prisoners locked below decks. And Elizabeth was again pregnant.

The 6 month voyage to Sydney left 278 prisoners dead, a quarter of those who boarded. On landing at Sydney Cove in 1790, the Macarthurs found a ramshackle settlement on the brink of collapse. Stores were almost totally gone. Governor Phillip’s vision of an orderly and planned agricultural settlement had crumbled due to an absence of farmers, appropriate crops, fertilisers and farming tools. The Marines were close to mutiny – they were reduced to sharing the same rations as convicts …and so was the Governor.

It was 1793 before a house was built; at Parramatta, west of Sydney Cove. Their first and only family home. And it had taken 5 long years before John was in a position to fully employ his skills in commerce, diplomacy, brinkmanship and wit. In coming decades the Macarthur’s trading and farming interests, along with John’s political affairs, came to dominate colonial society. From nine births, seven children grew to adulthood. The family’s landholdings, both in Parramatta and later in the fertile Camden district, expanded through grant and purchase. Speculative ventures with trading goods, agriculture and eventually the production and export of fine wool reaped huge returns for the Macarthurs in the early decades of the 19th century. While John made two visits to England to strengthen family business and patronage, Elizabeth remained in Australia for the rest of her life. Their family home, Elizabeth Farm, survives today as Australia’s oldest European dwelling.

PART THREE

So lets get back to the paintings. Here’s the short version – The pair were purchased by the benefactor Sir William Dixson for the State Library’s Dixson Galleries, passing into public ownership in 1935. Prior to their appearance on the London art market around 1930, the pair belonged to Sir James Lewis Knight-Bruce, a keen portrait collector and Lord Chief Justice of Appeal from 1851. His great grandson, a Mr Thomas Cathcart believed the paintings had hung continuously in his family’s (somewhat vast) collection until the time of sale. Any history other than this was unavailable. A slim provenance indeed.

Yet, as we’ll learn, doubts surrounding their authenticity appear to have dogged the paintings from the start. And this is where the story gets interesting – though somewhat more complicated.  Shipped initially to Sydney in the early 1930s where they appeared to raise suspicion amongst collectors, the pair were sent south to the Victorian bookseller and dealer AH Spencer, with the hope they might find more interest in Melbourne. According to handwritten comments in the margin of a letter to the Library in 1935 regarding the paintings’ possible purchase, State Librarian William H. Ifould concedes … I thought there was a catch somewhere. They must have been knocking about for a very long time. Wymark (the Sydney dealer) would try to sell them to Mr Dixson and Mr Macarthur Onslow. G.R. Robertson evidently made up his mind they would not pass muster with us and would let Spencer see what he could do with them in Melbourne. WHI 7/3/35.

George Roberston had recently published Sibella Macarthur Onslow’s edited transcripts of Macarthur family papers, which included, notably, a photographic plate of a cameo miniature of John Macarthur, which almost certainly was copied to make the large oil, then up for sale. Both he and Denzil would have been well aware of this source. Both would have held and admired the miniature on many occasions yet strangely neither appeared to be interested. Even more curious still, later on when the paintings were eventually acquired for the Mitchell Library, there is no mention in meetings of any discussion whatsoever regarding provenance or authenticity. And according to library records, a search through correspondence from Spencer, Robertson, Wymark and Dixson in the Angus and Robertson papers has yet to locate any reference to the portraits.

Even more interesting, back in the late 1880s, another portrait copied from this cameo had been made by a colourful and influential Italian painter Girolamo Nerli, for the Macarthur Onslow family at Camden, which was also reproduced in the 1890s by the Library in an early compilation of historical records of New South Wales. Pieces of this particular puzzle have only recently fallen into place with the help of research conducted by Annette Macarthur Onslow. Apart from this, the interesting question remains…why is no portrait of Elizabeth mentioned or why was one never commissioned…?

PART FOUR

So what happened in Melbourne…? To gain interest the paintings needed names. And Spencer needed a story – a convincing connection between the paintings and known people. Now you’d expect in this situation to bring out the big guns …the biggest guns you could get away with – in this case the obvious association between the miniature (owned and cherished by the Macarthur descendents at Camden) and the likeness of John. For this in reality was (and remains) the only link. Why Spencer made no use of the miniature is unknown. Perhaps he was unaware – perhaps no one told him. Remarkably, given the apparent difficulties he faced in gaining interest, Spencer chose not to exploit strengths, but to build from weaknesses. We need only to look at his Provenance notes to realise how tenuous his story was…

Provenance material associated with portrait, believed to be Elizabeth Macarthur, held in the Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales

 

So just to recap… His ‘vital’, or otherwise only, ‘key to identification’ consisted in a ‘casual reference’ made by Mr Cathcart, linking the portraits, by ‘family tradition’, to the name of Veale. Perhaps a ‘young bride’s family’ suggested Spencer, ‘would possess portraits of their exiled relatives who were away in the wilds of Botany Bay.’ And then with more certainty; ‘These portraits are the ones cherished by the family of the most famous woman pioneer settler in the commencement days of Australian history.’ It appears, remarkably, the provenance created by Spencer was not only tenuous, but flawed.

PART FIVE

So what do we know of this family? Who were these Veales, assumed to be pining for their famous kin across the seas? Unfortunately, it appears there were none. Elizabeth’s father died when she was 6 years old. Her mother remarried in 1778, becoming Mrs Leach, when Elizabeth was 12. Her only sibling, a sister, died at the age of 2. The last we hear of Elizabeth Veale was on her wedding day in 1788. Apart from John Veale, probably her uncle, who ran her father’s farm for a few years after his death in 1772 (when Elizabeth was 6), there is no record of contact between the Australian Macarthurs and English Veales. And while one of Elizabeth’s first letters to her mother after leaving England mentions a grandfather, he is almost certainly her mother’s father and, hence, not a Veale. Even if they existed, any portraits in their possession could not have been painted from life. Spencer’s ‘vital key’ – his painting’s only connection to the Macarthurs – is seriously flawed, with no basis in fact. And remember…no mention of the miniature.

PART SIX

As we can see, Spencer’s provenance, or his claim of authenticity, hung precariously on a tenuous, single thread. Whatever the motivation, his paper-thin provenance was not short on passion. To sweeten the sale, the paintings were discounted to 160 pounds, where others, he believed, ‘might easily think them worth 500 pounds’.  So, as I mentioned earlier, having been offered for sale to George Roberston and Sir Denzil Macarthur Onslow and no doubt other Sydney collectors and institutions, all without success before being sent to Melbourne, the paintings were acquired by Dixson in 1935 and presented for donation to the State Library Committee on 8 March 1935. And as I also mentioned, it appears no explanation was given concerning doubts raised at the time of purchase. To let you in on a not so well kept secret, Dixson’s eye for detail has long been questioned by subsequent curators.

PART SEVEN

So lets cut forward to the 1970s, when interest in colonial history was again on the boil. Archaeological work was taking place at Elizabeth Farm and Denzil Macarthur Onslow was heavily involved in the repair and restoration of his ancestral farmhouse. Downstairs in the State Library, conservators were preparing the portrait of Elizabeth for her first public showing. Having been laid low since acquisition some 4 decades earlier, other twists were soon to appear. During cleaning, it was discovered that an earlier version of the female subject had been over-painted, altering its appearance and age. An original lace bodice had been infilled, making it solid black, her narrow sleeves were given more volume, while her fuller face had been thinned down, presumedly to reflect a more mature character. This patchy over-painting had been performed in a stiff, inelegant manner, probably several decades after the initial work.

Comparing the two portraits, conservators also noted stylistic similarities between the studio aging of ‘Elizabeth’ and the overall treatment of John. Perhaps the artist who modified and redressed ‘Elizabeth’, probably around 1820-30, also painted John from scratch? It might also be possible that several years after the portrait of ‘Elizabeth’ was painted (not from life, perhaps from a likeness), the work was sent to another artist – for changes or repairs – who also supplied a ‘companion piece’ of John, most likely from the old Macarthur watercolour. This fails to explain however, why the paintings differ in size.

PART EIGHT

Its also worth considering the semi-reversed state of ‘Elizabeth’. Whilst the clumsy over-painting of her clothing was undone, revealing the lacy bodice, her altered facial features were untouched – leaving her partly old/partly young. Her portrait might be described as a partially altered, artist’s impression of an unknown female subject. John’s portrait, by contrast, is less conjectural, having only ever been painted by a single hand.

Along with these technical anomalies lies a contradiction in imagery. The depiction of a prosperous, well bred 20-30 year old in stylish evening wear, heirloom rubies, pearls and gold, is inconsistent with the social and economic circumstances of Elizabeth Macarthur at the turn of the 18th century and for many years to come. Without inheritance, influence, self-confidence or support, Elizabeth moved amidst a harsh, violent, unpredictable and socially isolated world. Perhaps it was this obvious incongruity that persuaded Sydney patrons to pass on this particular offer.

PART NINE

So there you have it… The authenticity of Elizabeth’s portrait hangs by a thread. Unwittingly, Spencer’s intuition may have been spot on and only his argument was flawed. To be fair, there is actually, I think, a good likelihood that the pair are connected, somehow, and given the undeniable association between the miniature and John’s portrait, by default, its partner, or at least the painting historically linked to it, is likely to be a painting of Elizabeth, his wife.

So why, if its almost certain that neither painting ever hung in a Macarthur home, do the portraits play a central role in the current museum interpretation of Elizabeth Farm? Why not remove them until we have more evidence. Why, because history is a story unfolding and the role of a museum like Elizabeth Farm is to foster storytelling and involvement. What makes Elizabeth Farm unusual and why it works so well is that the story it tells doesn’t have to add up – as long as it continues to build connections and involve visitors in the conversation… then that’s more than enough.

I started this presentation with a few comments regarding the tendency of societies to embellish and sugar coat history to serve deeper cultural needs and in particular our treatment of Elizabeth Macarthur. Behind the myth and romance is, no doubt, an extraordinary person – but we need to get there first. We need to dig deeper. While pictures like this are taken at face value and used to support romantic allusions, we are not doing our job as historians. So, as I’ve said before, what secrets really do lie behind the reticent smile of this beguiling woman?

So what makes Elizabeth Farm different? It’s the way in which it sneaks up on its visitors – what might at first seem like a conventional house museum peddling the usual blend of comfortable half-truths and fey distractions, turns into a yarn that doesn’t add up, or is open ended, or has fascinating twists… not your usual house museum: part abstract installation, part period piece, part education tool, part historic shrine…

I use the term ‘post-modernism in drag’ to characterise the curatorial treatment of Elizabeth Farm because the guiding principle at the heart of the museum is a kind of wilfully deceptive, game being played – not only on visitors but also on its own history. I like the notion because it captures a variety of other attributes – dressy, theatrical and iconoclastic…

Room arrangements have been intentionally distorted, filled with errors and inaccuracies. Some objects are covered, others are left bare. Pictures that never hung in the house, some never even seen by the family are given pride of place. Modern replicas of historic pieces have been chosen over originals. Spaces like the Drawing Room, known to be busy family spaces, filled with books, ornaments, pictures, journals, are furnished in the most minimal way possible – walls have been left bare, decoration is limited to candlesticks a mirror and a handful of miniature paintings. The house is essentially empty – there is no evidence of occupants – yet the place feels welcoming and comfortable, perfectly at ease with its new role as cultural icon. To heap contradiction on contradiction, waxed floors, door knobs and cedar joinery are polished daily, open fires are lit, cabbage boils away on the kitchen range and fresh flowers, based on the colonial garden of Elizabeth Macarthur, displayed throughout the house in text-book Victorian arrangements. But as I said earlier, there is wilful deception at play – all is not how it seems.

And going a little further with the ‘dressing in drag’ metaphor, there’s a message in the madness… the ‘fluff’ hides a sting.

I’ll explore these ideas further after we take a quick tour of Elizabeth Farm.

[click here to view (or print off) the presentation slideshow on flickr]

Starts with an aerial shot taken a few months ago…you can see Parramatta CBD in the background, the river, the railway, the reserve…this is the boundary of the old Macarthur estate – soldiers barracks, queens wharf, mill, gate lodge, driveway, etc.

[next slide] Here you can see the 3 main buildings and the café under the trees…

[then run through slides...]

I’ll run through the main points quickly now… explaining how Elizabeth Farm is in various measures: deceptive, theatrical, illuminating, iconoclastic.

WHERE TO START…

Lets start in 1968, when Elizabeth Farm was on the eve of becoming a national treasure…ramshackle, overgrown and rustic, infested with termites, too much for the elderly sisters living there.

Something was happening in the late 1960s, at both a personal, social and government level…the archives office had just made available microfilmed records of the colony’s earliest years, including convict and immigration records. People were becoming fascinated in their own histories. Older clans like the Macarthurs were reaffirming their family’s importance to a distinctly Australian history.

With the house and a couple of acres soon to go on the market, a band of local supporters, councilors and members of the Macarthur family formed a preservation committee ‘The Elizabeth Farm Museum Trust’ to effectively buy the farm back.

After a few years of amateur and heavy-handed restoration work, involving the removal of any fabric considered ‘un-Macarthur’, the government stepped in to rest control away from the preservation committee, slapping the state’s first permanent conservation order on the property in 1977.

It would appear that this pioneering PCO gave formal recognition to the cultural significance of Australia’s earliest surviving European dwelling, but it also saved the house from certain destruction at the hands of well-meaning but untrained restorers.

Between 1978 and 1983, under the management of the Heritage Branch of the Public Works Department and the direction of the government architects office, Elizabeth Farm was carefully and meticulously peeled back and rebuilt. Damaged joinery and plaster was replaced with new materials. Where possible, sturdier woodwork was stripped, conserved and refinished though not always returned to the same place it was taken from. The house was de-electrified with a new circuits placed under the floorboards for museum purposes only. Paint finishes, based on archaeological scrapes and evidence, were reinstated. Sandstone and brickwork was repointed and made serviceable. The roof was re-sheeted with corrugated metal, painted red and then grey. Termite eaten shingled areas were ripped up and re-laid with new shingles, finished on their undersides in limewash paint, just like the originals. The massive beams in the main cottage, most dating to 1793, were injected with epoxy fillers to stiffen and secure the roofing structures, before new plaster ceilings were fitted, using cornice mouldings taken from surviving original sections. As most of the old cottage was built on highly unstable clay soils, underpinning was used to prop up walls.

When all this work was nearly complete, leaving the site looking brand new, lifeless and clinical, Elizabeth Farm was offered to the Historic Houses Trust to manage and operate as a house museum. This was in late 1982.

So the trust took responsibility for a newly refurbished, in may ways faked up, jewelbox, handed over on a platter. There was no collection – and much of its architectural fabric, or clues, had been heavily altered during the massive restoration program.

DECEPTION

What was the Trust to do with this curious object…?

Firstly a garden was needed – to give the the cottage context – this was an agricultural enterprise…an abstracted ‘cubist’ garden was created able to demonstrate or interpret 1000 acres of farm, orchard, kitchen garden, pleasure garden and driveway…in a single hectare, evoking or simulating a ‘big’ garden.

Using huge archive of Macarthur records and connections with Macarthur descendents, Elizabeth Farm was furnished with fakes.

And rather than fill it up with unrelated antiques it was decided to go with a more abstract approach, using highly accurate copies of furniture known to have lived at EF, well-researched reproduction fabrics and curatorially acceptable props – all to create an impression, aid storytelling, provide points of departure…

It was also decided to avoid pinning the house down to the a specific timeframe. Elizabeth Farm, like all houses evolved over time, was dragged through several phases of occupants, who left different layers of evidence… here was a house with many moments

RATIONALE: TREAT THE BUILDING AS A COMPOSITE OF CLUES
multiple points of departure, multiple voices, intersecting plots – the whole POMO catastrophe…make sure the audience are empowered, aware of the fiction, make sense of the illusion…

CONVERSATION

I also like to use the term ‘cleared space’ coined by Peter Emmett the first curator of Hyde Park Barracks and the famous museum post-modernist behind MOS.

This refers to the way in which museums can ‘open up’ possibilities for storytelling and interaction…for creating more elbow room, clearing space to let other stories and threads to creep in – and especially, locating the house, the family, their many stories within a wider colonial context, within a bigger conversation…

And this is an important point…The history of Elizabeth Farm is part of a much larger tale: a continuing conversation about people, places, ideas and journeys. The narrative arc of John and Elizabeth Macarthur sweeps across several hundred years of Highland warfare, merchant capital, the voyages of Captain Cook, wars of independence, the opium wars, parliamentary reform, industrialization of the English countryside and colonial self-government. As a family at Elizabeth Farm, the Macarthurs lived through a catastrophic period of environmental and cultural change, much of it influenced by decisions and actions initiated from the homestead at Parramatta. And within the home was the familiar experience of colonial life – long periods of separation, fractured lives, uncertainty and instability. Theirs is a tale of lives turned inside out and then out again, of managing close family connections across long distances, of dealing with newness, upheaval and attempting to put down roots in a strange location. And it is the articulation of these ideas and experiences, these conversations, that holds the most promise for maintaining the museum’s relevance in a world where such experiences are equally commonplace.

THEATRE

Most interesting of all, the principles of theatre set design were applied…using a small number of resonant objects, employed in abstract arrangements to evoke a range of meanings and impressions.

Theatre Designer Peter Hall, quoted in a recent article be Julie Clark, advises that …

stage design should not seek to be archaeologically oppressive. It should be visionary…a world of suggestion rather than actuality, creating an environment which allows meaning to be expressed in all of its contradictions. Brevity and simplicity will succeed where over-wrought and oppressive attention to detail will fail, so long as the audience is able to connect and makes sense of the illusion…

The conscious, unapologetic use of fakes throughout the house not only allows people to use the furniture but it also deflects attention away from the objects themselves and invites them to think about and move about the in more ‘connecting’ immersive, or stimulating ways…

For example, the dining room features 2 paintings by Conrad Martens, both made in the mid 19th century…an 1860s view of the homestead across paddocks from Parramatta River and an 1850s view of the eastern garden. (ie both painted after family left estate, sentimental, showy, etc)

In the same room are curtains out of place in a regency period dining room, being more suited to a cheerful drawing room or morning room…

This is no frozen interior, this is not a dolls house, we as curators are not searching for the ‘right feel’, but rather a house filled with criss-crossing conversations. A house filled with contradictions, with complications, with possibilities…

ILLUMINATION

You might be surprised to hear after all this mumbo-jumbo, that Elizabeth Farm is also a place of teaching or instruction – where specific things are taught and discovered.

How a colonial house felt, to some extent…
How it was lit, kept warm or cool…
Traditions of design, ornamentation, vernacular construction…
Arrangements of rooms – divisions between servants and family
toileting, sanitation, sickness, birth, death, etc
Eating, diet, cooking, food management…
smell, touch, taste
work, heat, cold…

all of these are things are able to be learnt about at Elizabeth Farm

program of talks, tours, workshops, seminars along with our famous education programs…

ICONOCLASM

I’ve talked briefly about opening up the frame of reference, tackling history from various angles, using fiction, theatre and art to prod the imagination and taking pride in being unconventional to some extent. Well in recent years we’ve become increasingly interested in myth-busting. And there’s no story more laden with myth and romance than the historical treatment of John and Elizabeth Macarthur.

Its generally accepted that John Macarthur was a creep, or a rotten scoundrel, or a bad husband and that Elizabeth Macarthur was a shining light of taste, breeding, agricultural know-how and the colony’s first lady. Who agrees? What do you know of the Macarthurs? What is the general perception?

These depictions are well established – though that doesn’t mean they’re not anachronistic and deceptive and a long way from what records reveal. And, really, the romantic old tales are just plain boring compared to the more likely ones.

You might be aware of the basic details, but who knew Elizabeth was pregnant at the alter in 1788, having known John less than a year…? They were both 22, in desperate straits…

[breif story of John and Elizabeth at the altar, pregnant, impoverished, anxious, in desperate straits, etc...]

Here’s a few we’ve been having fun with in recent years…

It appears that Elizabeth Macarthur never managed the estate

that the family’s wealth was more reliant on John’s work in London than Elizabeth’s efforts in the colony during his absences

that her letters to John may have been intentionally deceptive or that she withheld information

Johns youngest sons coordinated lunacy proceedings against him, ensuring control of his fortune passed on to them before he lost his faculties,

that he was forcibly restrained in his bedroom before being sent to Camden to minimise a growing image problem

that John actually never saw his house completed - never enjoyed the details added after he died – the cedar joinery or paint schemes

This is my favourite – one thats gained quite a bit attention this year, especially with the family…

the famous portraits of John and Elizabeth Macarthur were not only painted years after the couple had died, they didn’t arrive in Australia until 1935 and never hung in a Macarthur family home. Its also likely the so-called portrait of Elizabeth is of someone else – the image of a young prosperous lady, with heirloom jewellery doesn’t fit with the circumstances of Elizabeth who was well into her 50s before she experienced anything like financial security or comfort.

An ambient and dreamlike montage of photographs taken in the mid 1970s during investigations by Public Works Department staff and Heritage Branch specialists, leading up to the protection of Elizabeth Farm under the state government’s first Permanent Conservation Order, listed in 1977.

An ambient and dreamlike montage of photographs taken in the mid 1970s during investigations by Public Works Department staff and Heritage Branch specialists, leading up to the protection of Elizabeth Farm under the state government’s first Permanent Conservation Order, listed in 1977.

John Macarthur, son of a Plymouth draper, was, at the time of his wedding in 1788, on unauthorised leave from his regiment in Gibraltar, approaching mid twenties, his army future in doubt. Having borrowed money to enlist, John had no intention of fighting abroad. Wars with Spain and America were over by the time he’d drawn his first salary. The more lucrative postings to India were unavailable to those lacking influence or social connections. Seven uneventful years in the army had left him restless and dispirited. And unless he returned to Gibraltar immediately, he faced losing his commission.

Macarthur’s bride, Elizabeth Veale, a timid 23 year old villager from Bridgerule in Devon, was over 4 months pregnant. Elizabeth’s father had died when she was 7. Her mother remarried shortly afterwards and then once again in later life. Elizabeth was raised almost entirely on charity.

In the anxious months following the marriage, Macarthur settled on an alternate posting with the New South Wales Corps and the hope of saving his military career and reputation. The company’s mission was to protect the remote prison settlement, although its officers soon found opportunities in trading, farming and land ownership hard to resist.

The Macarthurs arrived in Sydney, two years after their wedding, in 1790. It was another three years before a house was built at Parramatta, 23 kilometres upstream from Port Jackson. By the late 1820s, this small, solid 3-roomed brick cottage was transformed into a smart country house, surrounded by ‘pleasure grounds’, orchards and almost 1000 acres of semi-cleared lands. From nine births, seven children survived infancy.

During these early years, the Macarthurs’ trading and farming interests, along with John’s political conflicts, ambitions and affairs, came to dominate colonial society. Elizabeth Macarthur, not always content, remained in Australia for the rest of her life, while John returned twice to England forging contacts and directing his sons’ education.

Towards the end of his life, John Macarthur’s work focused entirely on developing and promoting trade in colonial wool – the backbone of Australia’s economy for the next century. As a result, Elizabeth Farm is stamped on the national consciousness.

By the 1830s, having enlarged and refined his Regency Bungalow, Macarthur’s health was in serious decline, along with his grasp on politics, business and family affairs. His death in 1834 brought renovations to a halt, leaving the homestead unfinished. His handsome library, drawing and dining rooms, though newly formed and plastered, were still unpainted. Cedar joinery was yet to be fitted. A much needed wing of bedrooms was never built.

ESTATE

John Macarthur’s Elizabeth Farm estate once stretched from present day Good Street, to the start of Duck Creek; from the Parramatta River to Granville. His farmhouse sat on a small hillside, facing north across grassy fields and tidal flats flanking Parramatta River. From this position, his house was visible from the north, east and west for miles beyond. No doubt aided by army surveyors, the best in the business, this slightly elevated knoll gave Macarthur an unbroken line of sight all the way to Pennant Hills.

Increased to nearly 1000 acres by the 1820s, much of the estate remained uncleared and unsuitable for European farming, particularly the swampy mangroves along Duck Creek. The industrial plants and refineries, built from the early 1900s, were first to make use of land in the east. The western areas close to town, between the river and Parramatta Road, were cleared and fenced for grazing, orchards and feed crops although the Macarthurs quickly realized that tilling the soil was tough and unprofitable.

Elizabeth Farm was sold in 1881, over burdened with debt, its owners overseas. A few years later, sections of the estate were back on the market divided into housing blocks. Bounded by railway, town and river, interlaced with new roads and a racecourse opened in 1885, the subdivisions of Rosehill were soon a sea of building sites. The land around the house, auctioned in 1906, was slow to attract buyers with only 2 blocks sold by 1914. However, ten years later, most blocks were built on, with town water, gas and sewerage.

The ‘frontage’ of Elizabeth Farm was reversed with the creation of Alice Street in 1923.The survival of 1920s street trees reflect the area’s inter-war character while about half the houses built on these early subdivisions remain intact. After 1940, the concrete channelling of Clay Cliff Creek encouraged further concentration of housing, particularly to the north of Elizabeth Farm. Post-war migrants moved favoured heavier brick and tile constructions, while the 1970s saw large flats, often poorly designed and poorly built, begin to dominate the area.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CURTILAGE

The term ‘heritage curtilage’ is generally defined as: the area of land surrounding an item or area of heritage significance which is essential for retaining and interpreting its heritage significance. It can apply to land immediately surrounding an item or, more broadly, to a precinct which includes associated buildings, works, relics, trees or places and their setting. This might seem comprehensive but its also obscure and far too overwhelming, leading to a claim to include everything or nothing.

In a recent ‘Curtilage Study’ of Elizabeth Farm, consultant town planner Robyn Conroy reminds us that ‘the heritage significance of Elizabeth Farm does not stop at its boundary fences’. [Robyn Conroy Curtilage Study Elizabeth Farm for Historic Houses Trust, June 2006]

At Elizabeth Farm, the historic curtilage spreads outwards covering several hundred acres, owned both privately and publicly, under domestic, commercial, recreational and industrial use. The portion of land occupied by the homestead represents less than 1% of the former estate. The conservation of Elizabeth Farm might be said to include, or even depend upon, the protection of land owned and controlled by others.

So lets approach this from a different perspective … Conroy goes on: if the significance of Elizabeth Farm is dependent upon the maintenance of the existing, or surviving landscape (the oldest and perhaps most important colonial landscape in Australia) and where change can only be accepted as inevitable, then we need to combine consciousness raising and community awareness with planning controls and creative urban solutions.

PROPERTY

From June 1793, John Macarthur’s grant of 100 acres, Elizabeth Farm, was cleared for pasture and planting. A second grant in 1794, named after his first son Edward, doubled the estate in size. Within a few years, having purchased a number of neighbouring farms along the Parramatta River, Macarthur’s estate was cropped with corn, wheat, potatoes and vegetables. By 1798, three acres of fruit trees and vines surrounded the cottage along with European trees and a rambling ornamental garden. The Macarthurs stocked 130 goats and 100 hogs along with a horse, 2 mares, 2 cows and a wide variety of poultry.

Despite some land under cultivation, large areas of bush remained uncleared. The Darug landscape was thriving with wildlife, from river banks and wooded gullies to the open grassy ridges. People of the Burramuttagal, Wangal and Wategora groups continued to maintain long and complex connections with this place. Nonetheless, to supplement foods grown and grazed, the Macarthurs hunted native fauna – ducks, wallaby, fish and eels – aided by dogs, rifles and traps.

Periodically repaired and mended, though increasing ramshackle, Elizabeth Farm remained in Macarthur family ownership for another 5 decades. The homestead garden grew wild while paddocks, fields and fences were neglected. Tenants, forever complaining, occupied cottages on the estate. Finally, debts and complications in winding up the 40 year lease of a woollen mill forced the sale of Elizabeth Farm in 1881.

From 1904 to 1968, Elizabeth Farm, on less than 5 acres, was owned by the Swanns – a large family of Quakers, whose appreciation of the old farmhouse led to its preservation. The property was acquired by the State Government in 1979 and, after several years of restoration, was transferred to the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales in 1983. The current museum was launched in 1984.

PURCHASE NURSERY 1870s

From the earliest years of colonial settlement, land adjacent to the river upstream from the Queens wharf was set aside for small scale agriculture. From as early as 1790, Governor Phillip’s instructions were to set aside this area as ‘grounds for cultivation’ of maize or corn. Later maps describe lands east of Harris street as ‘Marines’ gardens’.

In the 1870s, an area bounded by George, Hassall, Harris and Purchase Street contained a vast commercial garden, The Somerset Nursery, selling exotic plants, trees and shrubs, organized into pots, beds and glass houses, with water tanks, winding avenues, trellised walkways and scenic vistas across the Harris estate and up to Elizabeth Farm.

The nursery business was run by Samuel Purchase and his family and continued to operate until 1902. Its believed the death of Purchase led to its closure, although actual details remain unclear.

Traces of the grand 19th century Somerset Nursery survive in the form of mature trees scattered across Robin Thomas Reserve. The recreational grounds in this area are currently managed by Parramatta City Council.

GARDEN GATE COTTAGE 1823

Looking closely at Joseph Lycett’s painting of 1823, a small rustic cottage can be seen huddled within scrub to the left of the homestead. This is probably the building mentioned in the Elizabeth Farm Day Book when payment of 1 pound is recorded in 1823, for ‘repairing the shingling on the back of the kitchen and at the cottage by the garden gate’. Probably a servant’s or gardener’s cottage, connected to the vast kitchen garden that stretched from Arthur Street across present day James Ruse Drive, a small yard, unusually positioned, tucked in behind Oak Street, appears in water board plans of the late 19th century.

In 1865 the Macarthur sons James and William considered if the small dwelling known as ‘White’s Cottage’, should be demolished or repaired. In the same year, a series of watercolour views of Elizabeth Farm, each viewed from the eastern verandah, show this building through trees to the north east. The series was painted by John Macarthur’s grand-daughter, shortly before her marriage, probably to record the old house and fond memories of her grandmother.

Ten years later, a coachman named Joseph Jenkins occupied this cottage under a lease from the Macarthur family. Jenkins worked as a coach driver for William Billyard, a tenant living in the main homestead in the 1870s.

This cottage (or possibly its replacement) appeared on water board maps dating from 1893 to 1915. Oral history recordings provided by the Jenkins daughters in the 1970s give details of their old house along with fascinating memories of the 19th century estate, including the old driveway running up to the farmhouse, this gatehouse, bridges and surrounding paddocks.

NEALES COTTAGE 1854

In 1831 George and Bridget Neale and their young daughter Elizabeth Mary, moved into a small timber cottage, built between Hambledon Cottage and the creek. Over the next 23 years twelve more children were born and raised there. George Neale, a wheelwright, worked for the Macarthurs for most of his adult life.

When Elizabeth Farm was finally vacated by the Macarthurs in 1854, the eldest son Edward and his agents the Allports distributed or sold off the family’s old furniture and fittings. Around this time, a foundation stone was laid for a new brick cottage for Neales family – along with a generous lift time lease, on minimal rent, in recognition of their long and loyal service to the estate.

Following Edward’s furniture clearances, a dining room table from Elizabeth Farm was purchased or given to the Neales. This campaign style mahogany table remained in Neale family ownership until recent years when its existence, along with a substantial amount of Neale Family documents and records, finally surfaced.

Several new photographs found amongst these records, confirm the location and form of the new cottage, built by Edward Macarthur in the mid 1850s.

These show a single fronted cottage facing east, enclosed by a semi-circular picket fence, with stables and outbuildings to the south. The well established garden and coach house of Hambledon is seen to the north across a three railed hardwood fence.

In 1882, the widower George Neale surrendered his lifetime leasehold and the cottage passed through various owners. The last glimpse of Neales’ Cottage appears in an aerial photo of the 1950s showing a small derelict feature at the rear of a mostly vacant site a few years before the construction of the Wyeth Pharmaceutical factory.

GATE LODGE COTTAGE 1860

The main entrance to Elizabeth Farm was at the southern end of George Street, sweeping past the Military Barracks. The present alignment of George Street, swerving off slightly to the south past a stand of eucalypts, records the original course of the Macarthur’s driveway, as it led to the homestead past a vast kitchen garden and orchard, taking in panoramic views of the property and river. An early gatekeepers house probably existed somewhere in this vicinity, although no trace or reference to such a building exists.

From the late 1850s, a small house, referred to as the Gate Lodge, stood in an enclosed yard, overlooking the estate entrance and driveway. Its location is roughly in the old bowling greens, now car parks of the Parramatta Workers Club, at the corner of Purchase and George Streets. In 1858, Edward Macarthur specified that ‘the cottage should have a verandah at least on one side, if not two, and the pillars might be framed out of trees on the farm’.

Between 1859 and 1899 its occupants were Robert and Mrs Farrance and their daughter Sarah, who worked for Emmerline Macarthur and her husband Henry Parker, Edward Macarthur and with later tenants of the estate. The Farrances purchased the cottage outright from developers carving up the estate in the early 1880s. The gate lodge survived intact until the 1970s when it was demolished for construction of the club and bowling greens.

The cottage appears on an1895 drawing prepared by the Water Board, now Sydney Water, showing a short verandah on either side of a T shaped dwelling. The north facing verandah provides surveillance for the entrance gates into the estate, presumedly across George Street to the old Barracks wall.

HAMBLEDON COTTAGE 1824

Hambledon Cottage was commenced in November 1821 on the western boundary of the Macarthur estate, close to town and river. A fashionable bungalow, built of brick, with smart Doric columns, trellised verandah screens and French doors, Hambledon was clearly intended to promote the tastes and sensibilities of a well established and worldy family.

The first occupants were visiting Macarthur family members and later the Archdeacon Thomas Hobbes Scott, the newly arriving head of church in the colony and former secretary to Commissioner Thomas Bigge. Scott was responsible for building the coach house and planting the earliest garden.

It wasn’t until late 1826 or early 1827 that ‘Mrs’ or ‘Aunt’ Lucas moved in, eventually renaming the cottage ‘Hambledon’, after the township of Hambledon in Hampshire, England. With John Macarthur’s descent into madness in 1832, the cottage was occupied by his daughters Elizabeth and Mary. Penelope lived on at Hambledon until her death in 1836. John Macarthur had left her a small annuity in his will and the use of Hambledon during her lifetime. A memorial in the chancel of St John’s, Parramatta records her involvement in the congregation and her charitable interests in the community.

The cottage and a small acreage was sold as part of the Elizabeth Farm estate in 1883, renamed Firholme, and used as a family home until 1947, when it was purchased by the Wyeth Pharmaceutical Company for factory land. The cottage was resold a few years later to the Parramatta Council and placed under the management of the Parramatta and District Historical Society.

Built of rendered sandstock brick, the design resembles the Macarthur’s cottage at Camden, both of which are attributed to the architect Henry Kitchen, who died before either building was completed. The main eastern wing was later connected to a detached kitchen wing, forming an unusual L shaped footprint. The shallow pitched shingled roof was covered by vertically seamed iron sheets in the 1850s, about the same time changes were made to Elizabeth Farm’s eastern verandah. The broad ‘bungalow’ roof covers the building and verandah in one swoop. The verandah, with French doors opening onto it, has a stylishly vaulted ceiling. The narrow glazed doors have internal cedar screen shutters which fit into the reveals as panelling when not in use.

BYRNES CLOTH MILL 1847

In 1841, on Macarthur land, a flour mill was built on the riverbank, just to the east of the Queens wharf. In 1844 construction began on an ambitious 5 storey, steam driven cloth factory, alongside the flour mill, opening in 1847.

It was named the ‘Australian Steam Mills and Cloth Factory’ and run by the well known Byrnes brothers until 1881 when the lease expired. Complications arising from the end of this lease eventually left the Macarthurs of Elizabeth Farm in serious debt, ultimately leading to the forced sale and subdivision of the estate. In 1889, the old mill was purchased by the government for additional wards and offices of the Benevolent Asylum.

In addition to the main factory structure, there were several smaller buildings to the east, providing rooms for weavers, a warehouse and workers accommodation. The warehousing and distribution of goods worked well with the company’s existing interest in wharf and ferry activities on Sydney harbour and an exemption from wharfing fees at Parramatta.

With the convict system in its final years, and the Female Factory (on the other side of Parramatta) soon to close, the Byrnes saw an opportunity to capture a ready market for woollen goods – mainly tweeds and tartans. One of their fabrics, a blend of black wool and cotton named the ‘Parramatta Cloth’, gained unexpected fame when Queen Victoria adopted it as part of her mourning dress in the 1850s. Remnants of ‘Parramatta Cloth’ have been identified on clothing found under floorboards at the Hyde Park Barracks, linked to its period as an immigrant depot and destitute asylum.

The site was initially leased in 1840, for a term of 40 years at an annual rent of 200 pounds. An agreement was reached whereby the Macarthurs, as lessors, at the end of the lease term, would recompense the Byrne’s business for the value of the Mill. This ended in court in 1881 with the Macarthurs disputing the amount claimed by the Byrnes, which included a dam and loom machinery fixed to the premises. The court’s decision to favour the Byrnes represented a substantial, and for the Macarthurs an almost crippling, amount of money – approximately 7000 pounds.The sale of Elizabeth Farm was considered the only means of recovering losses.

COMMISSARIAT STORE 1825

The 4-storey Commissariat was built in 1825. This was the second ‘Government Store’ on the Queens Wharf. Until the construction of the neighbouring textile mill in the late 1840s, slightly closer to the river, this was the most dominating structure on the Parramatta skyline.

A roadway clearly shown in Augustus Earle’s drawing of 1827, led behind the Commissariat, running directly into the Macarthur estate. Its possible a small gatehouse was situated here, at the eastern end of a long timber paling fence. During the 1820s several other buildings were located around the commissariat, including a storekeeper’s cottage, boatsheds and a small tavern, later known as the Emu Inn, only demolished in the early 20th century.

Recommissioned and fitted with dormitories, mess halls and parade areas, the building served as a Military Barracks from 1828 to 1848 and briefly operating into the early 1850s as a dormitory, depot and clearing house for immigrants. In 1862, the old commissariat building was again ‘re-purposed’ for use as an asylum for old and destitute men – mirroring, exactly, uses made of the Hyde Park Barracks.

During its operation as a military barracks, a long triangular compound was created running back towards Parramatta, enclosed in a brick wall. At the extreme western point was an entry gate, guarded by a gatehouse.

In later years, around the early 1880s, an overhead passageway connected the building to the Byrnes Brothers Mill on the riverbank, after it was absorbed into the asylum complex.

After 1883, a tramway ran between the two buildings, parallel with the river.

Both buildings were demolished in 1937, when the inmates were moved to Lidcombe.

In 1946, the newly established Housing Commission resumed the land for flats and ‘commission’ housing, making this one of the first government housing scheme projects in New South Wales.

WHARVES 1790-1880s

The half submerged retaining wall is all that survives of a busy wharf built in 1834. Stretching back from this wall was 5 metres of hard stone surfacing, for loading and unloading heavy cargoes. To the east of this platform was a boundary fence delineating government land from the private wharfing facilities of Byrnes Mill.

The first wharf facility was situated upstream from here, constructed around 1790 from timber logs. It was from here the Parramatta High Street (later Macquarie’s George Street) commenced, to run for roughly one mile due west, lined on either side with regulation sized convict huts, past the town markets and the site pegged out for Town Hall, past the stocks and log bridge crossing over to the government farm buildings in the vicinity of present day Parramatta Stadium, to terminate at the gatehouse to Government House, on the low rise known as Rose Hill.

Back behind us somewhere, on original Macarthur land, an early 4 storey stone Granary, or grain store, was built in 1809. The land was offered to the government in exchange for land given to him elsewhere. This original Granary was served by a landing then known as Kings Wharf. It was demolished in the 1840s after a devastating fire.

The wharves along this section of the river provided landing facilities for goods and people traveling between Sydney and the headwaters of the Parramatta River. In addition to the manufactured textiles from the Byrne’s Mill, there was timber and farm produce heading into Sydney.

Travel between Sydney and Parramatta was provided by a succession of steam powered vessels including the first to operate in Australia – a paddle steamer named ‘the Surprise’ – launched in 1831. By the 1880s, modern screw-powered vessels dominated the ferry trade. As one newspaper described the 15 mile ferry commute between Circular Quay and Parramatta in the 1890s, ‘A boat excursion from one town to the other is one of ever changing scenes of beauty’.

An old, bedraggled, pair of grey-leafed olives (Olea europaea) survives in the garden at Elizabeth Farm. They are believed to be the oldest olive trees in Australia, planted either in 1805 or 1817. Their existence enabled John Macarthur to claim credit for pioneering the introduction of olives into Australia. It also provided Macarthur with a ‘return ticket’ to the colony from London, after years anxious waiting.

In fact market gardener and free settler George Suttor is often reported to have introduced the olive to Australia. Although the colony’s first recorded olive did arrive with him in November 1800 in a collection of plants sent to New South Wales by Sir Joseph Banks, only a small number of these plants survived the voyage. An official inventory of imported plants drawn up three years later made no mention of the olive, so it is very likely that Suttor’s single specimen had perished in the meantime.¹

By contrast, the olive tree brought to Sydney by John Macarthur in 1805 had flourished. It was a healthy tree in 1808 when John Macarthur’s eldest son Edward returned to England. Years later, as a British army officer stationed in Spain during the Peninsula War, Edward wrote to his sister Elizabeth in Sydney, advising her that once the tree began to bear fruit he would send instructions on how to produce its oil.² It was flourishing still in 1816 when John’s wife Elizabeth described her Parramatta garden planted with a great abundance of fruit, including ‘oranges, lemons, olives, almonds, grapes, peaches, apricots, nectarines, medlars, pears, apples, raspberries, strawberries, walnuts, cherries, plums,’ as well as loquats, citrons, shaddocks, pomegranates and guavas.³

Suttor had meanwhile been back to England and returned to Sydney in 1812 with ‘several plants of the date, palm and olive in a healthy state’, confident that they would do well in the local climate.⁴ London’s Colonial Office, where great hopes were held for horticulture in New South Wales, shared this confidence. John Macarthur, in exile in London over his involvement in the overthrow of Governor William Bligh, sensed the mood of the administration and, accompanied by his sons James and William, set off in 1815 on a tour of France and Switzerland to study ‘the whole practice of the Culture of the Vine and the Olive, and the making [of] the Wine and the Oil’.⁵

By May 1816 Macarthur was back in London with a collection of vines and olives, ready for shipment to Australia. He was certain that they would impress Earl Bathurst, Secretary of State for the colonies, and allow his return to Australia. In the event, it took nearly another year of letters and representations before the Macarthurs got the go-ahead. John and his sons arrived in Sydney in September 1817 with a collection of ‘useful plants’ including two olives from Provence.⁶

Five years later Macarthur made a favourable impression on Commissioner J T Bigge who had been sent to New South Wales to investigate all aspects of Governor Macquarie’s colonial administration, including the development of agriculture and trade. Bigge reported that the olive trees introduced by Macarthur had already shown signs of assimilation to the climate. He was also confident that olive oil from New South Wales could prove a successful export either to India or Britain and recommended that plants be sent in the convict ships at every convenient opportunity.⁷

Hard on the heels of Bigge’s report, the London-based Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce offered a prize for ‘the person who shall, in the years 1824, 5, and 6, manufacture and import the finest specimen of oil, not less than 10 gallons’ produced from olives grown in New South Wales. In response, the Agricultural Society of New South Wales was forced to admit that, while the olive was now in the hands of more than one individual in the colony, it was too early to expect the commercial production of oil.⁸ Even by 1828, when the Sydney Botanic Gardens could boast several varieties of European olive trees and had thousands of olive cuttings available for distribution to colonists, an olive-oil industry showed no signs of emerging. According to one landowner, the problem lay with the settlement’s British cultural background. Had the colonists ‘been brought up in climates where the grape vine and olive tree are cultivated, we should have years ago been exporters of wine, olives, and oil.’ ⁹

Experience was probably lacking in New South Wales, but the real competition came from the industry for which Macarthur is best remembered, the production and export of fine wool. Even so, the Macarthurs knew that their supporters in the Colonial Office were interested in their progress with the olive, anxious to have a bottle of olives and a bottle of wine as evidence to support their political investment.¹⁰

Macarthur’s reputation as the colony’s olive pioneer was consolidated in the 1820s. When French explorer Hyacinthe de Bougainville visited Macarthur at Parramatta in September 1825 he was shown ‘a very fine 20-year-old olive tree laden with fruit from which oil is manufactured’.11 A few years later the Sydney Gazette published a chronological history of the introduction of the olive into New South Wales, giving Macarthur credit for its first appearance and listing a number of other early cultivators. A letter to the editor challenged the list of names but did not question Macarthur’s role as pioneer. No one mentioned Suttor.¹²

Nearly 200 years later it’s impossible to know if the two surviving olive trees at Elizabeth Farm are descendants of those in Macarthur’s 1805 cargo, or else of the later imports. Either way they are a powerful symbol of early European interest in cultivating the olive in Australia.

Gary Crockett  Curator, Elizabeth Farm
Megan Martin  Head, Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection

[1] Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol IV, p277; Historical Records of Australia, Vol IV, pp234–239

2 Letter from Edward Macarthur to Elizabeth Macarthur, 12 February 1813, in Macarthur Papers, ML MSS A2912

3 Letter from Elizabeth Macarthur to Eliza Kingdon, March 1816, in Macarthur Papers, ML MSS A2908

4 Sydney Gazette, 23 May 1812, p2

5 Letter from John Macarthur to Elizabeth Macarthur, 26 December 1814, Macarthur Papers, ML MSS A2898

6 Letters from John Macarthur to Elizabeth Macarthur, 1814–1817, in Macarthur Papers, ML MSS A2908; ‘List of plants, remaining alive, on board the Lord Eldon’ in Macarthur Papers, ML MSS A2943

7 Report of the Commissioner of Inquiry on the state of agriculture and trade in the colony of New South Wales: ordered to be printed 4th July 1823, p93

 8First anniversary address, list of members, and rules and regulations of the Agricultural Society of New South Wales, Sydney, 1823, pp12–14

9 Sir John Jamison, Report of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of New South Wales for 1828, Sydney, 1829, p32

10 Letter from John Macarthur (junior) to James Macarthur, 24 March 1882, in Macarthur Papers, ML MSS A2911

11 Marc Serge Rivière, The governor’s noble guest: Hyacinthe de Bougainville’s account of Port Jackson, 1825, Melbourne, Miegunyah Press, 1999, p126

12 Sydney Gazette, 29 May 1830, p3; 1 June 1830, p2

‘There is no point’, claims feted house museum curator James Broadbent, ‘in recreating interiors if they do not demonstrate, teach or contribute to our understanding of the domestic life of a particular social stratum at a particular time. If the audience cannot understand the performance the whole thing is a self indulgent waste of time and money on the part of its creators, or re-creators’. Good point, but has this performance ever really worked? And if so, what kind of ‘understandings’ has the pious cult of ‘recreationism’ so far provided?  this article under development – come back later

John Macarthur was declared a lunatic in 1832, in the presence of 30 or so Parramatta citizens, under the direction of his sons James and William. As a result, he was stripped of all involvement in family business and politics and sent back to Elizabeth Farm where he lived for a year or so, imprisoned in his bedroom and overseen by servants who were required to sleep in the same room. People are surprised to learn that John Macarthur was disinherited by his sons, physically restrained to minimise family embarrassment and neutralise a serious image problem.

As psychotic episodes grew increasing worse it was decided to send him to Camden.

Along the way, he shouted from his carriage that his family had plotted against him and that he wasn’t mad.

He died at Camden, alone, in 1834.

It is equally surprising to learn of Macarthur’s desperate, and impoverished, circumstances a few months before sailing for Australia – a man without any means of supporting his new wife and child, facing court marshal for being absent without leave from his regiment stationed on the Rock of Gibraltar… his fate was truly uncertain.

A BIOGRAPHICAL SNAPSHOT

John Macarthur was born in Plymouth and arrived in Australia as a young Lieutenant with his wife and son in 1790. Between 1792 and 1799 he was promoted to Captain and held numerous important public positions based around the settlement at Parramatta, including Inspector of Public Works, Superintendent of Convicts and Regimental Paymaster. During these years, his role as a military officer, a local trader, farmer became intertwined, bringing him and fellow officers into a succession of conflicts with the colony’s governors. It was also during this period that army officers formed a tight cooperative monopoly, using public money to speculate on incoming cargoes and trading these on for profit.

By 1800, this monopoly was dismantled, as new operators (mostly ex convicts) entered the colonial trade. For Macarthur, an involvement in trade was hampered by the possibility of court marshal, following a duel with his commanding officer Colonel Paterson in 1801. Paterson was badly wounded and Macarthur was sent to London to face charges of insubordination. These charges were dropped for lack of evidence.

During his 4 years in London Macarthur was busy developing contacts and ‘talking up’, among many other things, the benefits of colonial wool production. A reluctant Joseph Banks, eventually authorised Macarthur to purchase a small mob of Spanish Merinos from the King’s flock, for breeding and experimentation in the colony. Macarthur sold his commission in the army, purchased a trading boat ‘The Argus’ and returned to the colony as a ship owner, businessman, sheep breeder and futurist. Much to the anger of local governors, he was also promised 5000 acres of ‘the best land he could locate’, at no cost, to develop his plans for sheep production. Macarthur took up his grant in the Cowpastures, south west of Parramatta, naming it Camden. In coming years vast landholdings were added to this estate, creating one of the country’s most famous properties, remaining in Macarthur ownership to the present day.

Macarthur’s home and property ‘Elizabeth Farm’ was started in 1793 – a simple rural cottage on a government grant of 100 acres. With plenty of fresh water and fertile soil, land was quickly cleared for pasture and planting. Doubled in size within a year, the farm was cropped with corn, wheat, potatoes and vegetables and well stocked with cows, goats, hogs and poultry. The cottage was surrounded by acres of fruit trees and vines. In coming decades, the cottage was enlarged and refined, reflecting the growing prosperity and dominant social position of the Macarthur family. The most ambitious and complicated building program of the late 1820s saw the house transformed into an Indian Bungalow. Further plans were to remain unfinished, or scrapped, when John Macarthur died in 1834. His wife, Elizabeth Macarthur, continued to live at Elizabeth Farm until her death in 1850.

A TROUBLED BACKGROUND

On the eve of his departure to Australia in 1788, John Macarthur was in desperate straits – financially and socially. He lacked family connections and influence – the two most important pieces of survival equipment in the late 18th century backpack. His recent marriage to a timid, penniless villager from Devon and the arrival, a few months later, of their newborn son, threw a cold new light on his prospects.

John Macarthur was born near Plymouth in Devonshire, Devon. His father, Alexander Macarthur, travelled to Plymouth from Scotland, via America and the West Indies – a young man in search of opportunity and the prospects offered by an expanding empire. In Plymouth (a maritime doorway to the world) he ran a drapery business from the main street, just up from the Docks, selling slop clothing to the Navy till the 1780s.

Alexander had lost his wife in 1777. In less than a decade he’d hand over the drapery business to his eldest son. It is not clear what plans he had for his only other son John, (our John) who left school at 14 and entered the army in 1782. Plans, it appeared, were John’s business. He was just short of 16 years old and now an Ensign – a junior officer. With peace being settled in America, the regiment was disbanded, leaving Macarthur on half pay for the next 5 years. He lived at unknown locations, probably in the country around Holsworthy. His annual pay of 33pds must have been supplemented with other earnings, as there was no wealth from his past to sustain him. His Ensign commission alone cost 400pds, money probably borrowed from his brother’s new ‘in laws’, the Hawkins. This would not be the only useful connection Macarthur would employ in the future.

In 1788, after 5 years ‘off the radar’, Macarthur exchanged his position for a more senior posting as lieutenant on full pay in a regiment stationed on Gibraltar. War with Spain had also ended in 1783. He had no intention of joining the dismal outpost, but appeared to covet the seniority and, of course, the salary.

Back to Holsworthy and Macarthur’s 5 years in the ether. Family versions paint Macarthur as living a fairly bucolic life of hunting parties, horsemanship, the study of history the classics and even the contemplation of a career in law. There is a suggestion that Macarthur had falling into debt – was living beyond his means. Curiously, the marriage records show him as John Macarthur Esquire, a compliment usually reserved for gentry and land owners.How did he support himself? His transfer to the Gibraltar regiment alone cost him another 100 pds – the equivalent of three years pay.

So what was he doing…? Its most likely that Macarthur was teaching at a local grammar school. This would explain his ability to support himself on half pay, his practical interest in reading history, his ‘acquaintance’ probably as a teacher with the 10 year old Thomas Kingdon and, through this, his contact with a local family, the Kingdons around 1785, as mentioned later by Elizabeth Macarthur.

In 1788, Macarthur resurfaced on record, along with Elizabeth Veale, together as god-parents at a baptism service for the youngest Kingdon child. They were probably engaged, as less than a month later Elizabeth was pregnant with their first child.

The importance of meeting the Kingdons (a local clergy family of some wealth) cannot be underestimated. In many ways it was highly fortunate that John met and taught the young Thomas Kingdon, who enabled several critical connections to occur in coming years, one of which was Elizabeth, although others were soon to prove equally useful.

Once again, I will digress, to highlight the possible influence of John Macarthur’s mother. Don’t panic, all these threads will come together. Whilst history has made much of Elizabeth Macarthur’s farming background and the way in which her origins might have prepared her for life in Australia (a tale riddled with inaccuracy), the legacy of John’s mother Catherine remains virtually untouched. In a surprisingly under-rated article penned in 1979 historian Alan Atkinson draws together sketchy details as follows: she died in 1777 (when John was 11), both her maiden name and date of birth are unknown although its likely she was Scottish, she was regarded as a Lady of ‘beauty and accomplishment’ who married Alexander against her family’s wishes, possibly below her social level. Atkinson wonders whether Catherine inspired in John a sense of superiority against the odds, or the courage to overcome the loss of social dignity, through education, self-confidence and grit. Years later John Macarthur advised his own son Edward what to look for in a good marriage…and writes:

do not make money an object of the first consideration – character, connection and education are in my estimation infinitely more important

Certainly John went on to make a huge improvement on his father’s social standing and was certainly well known to be ‘a little too proud’.

Nonetheless, putting pride aside for the moment, lets look at his prospects…

Its October 1788. The 21 year old army officer John Macarthur is standing at the alter with a women the same age. Neither party brought family wealth, land or inheritance to the marriage. Each was similarly fixed to the lowest rungs of respectability. The fact that she was at least 4 months pregnant, suggests she led a life without chaperones and therefore moved outside the orbit of ‘polite’ society. She was no lady according to the codes of her day. She had no experience in farming or animal husbandry, having left the countryside at the age of 7 when her father died. Since the age of 11 she lived apart from her family with carers. Her teenage years were spent in the town vicarage at Bridgerule, semi-orphaned from her mother (who married again twice) and taken in by the parish vicar as a charitable measure. As it happened, both Elizabeth and John grew up reasonably well educated, highly literate and articulate. Nonetheless, she had no dowry, he had no influence. Their options were not so much limited as nonexistent. There was nothing to lose.

On the horizon however, was a dark cloud, with John’s reputation, and therefore the prospects of his young wife and child, soon to hit desperate straits.

Shortly before his marriage, John swapped his Ensign commission, along with the half pay, for a lieutenant posting on full pay. This meant more money and status, although he was now under serious pressure to join the regiment in Gibraltar – something he had no intention of doing. He may even have been planning to leave the army entirely and win back the 400 pds outlaid 5 years ago. The series of events that followed is complicated and confusing although eventually resulted in Macarthur taking up a new posting, as a trade off, possibly to save face, with a regiment being assembled for the remote prison settlement of Sydney Town. The first few months of 1789 were frantic with correspondence and travel between London and Bridgerule. Elizabeth suffered a difficult coach ride, in her final days of pregnancy, and giving birth to a son five months into their marriage, at a travellers pub in Bath. Reinforcing their dire circumstances there were no family or friends present at the birth of their first son Edward.

Their lives must have felt stripped bare at this point – outsiders with uncertain futures.

Six months later (11 months into their marriage) the Macarthurs were on board the squalid Neptune, awaiting orders to pull out from Gravesend, along with a fleet of transports, the new colonial regiment and around 1000 prisoners locked below decks. Elizabeth was again pregnant – Macarthur may have been expert at co-opting his superiors but his timing was terrible. The 6 month voyage to Sydney left 278 prisoners dead, almost a quarter of those who boarded.

On landing at Sydney Cove in 1790, the Macarthurs found a ramshackle settlement on the brink of collapse. Authority was dispirited and stores were almost totally gone. Governor Phillip’s vision of an orderly and planned agricultural settlement had crumbled due to an absence of farmers, appropriate crops, fertilisers and farming implements. The Marines were close to mutiny – they were reduced to sharing the same rations as convicts…so was the Governor.

So looking back on Macarthur’s story so far…He’d joined the army for one thing alone – to rise up, out of a world of uncertainty and open doors otherwise locked to a man of his background and breeding. He had no intention of fighting in America – he was neither brave nor patriotic – his regiment was only ever intended to defend England on home soil.

Considering the great bulk of Macarthur family papers, it is remarkable that we have to go elsewhere (ie Public Records Office, London) for any details about Macarthur’s early life. His relationship with his own children is said to have been close, but it is clear that he never told them much about his boyhood or his parents. Everything suggests a desire to make a clean break with his youth, a striving towards independence. And think about this…none of his children were given names of his parents.

INTRODUCTION

‘The Trouble with John’ is really the trouble with history. Its love of fiction, myth, black and white characters and a good yarn. The trouble with John Macarthur is that the ripping yarn is full of holes. When people mention the name John Macarthur, its common to attach some form of negative quality to him. He was a scoundrel, an opportunist, a political schemer, cheat, villain …even a bad husband.

A recent biography of John Macarthur, Man of Honour by Michael Duffy, portrays him differently and far more objectively…soldier, pioneer, farmer, trader, amateur lawyer and architect, shipowner, family man, duellist, administrator, rebel, plutocrat, political thinker, founding father, man of honour.

This program will cover 3 main areas of John Macarthurs story – beginnings and origins, the world of colonial trade, and finally his strange demise into insanity and very sad death. Macarthur was what might be termed a ‘big gun of history’ and his story is vast and in many ways too complicated to unpack in a short presentation like this. We have chosen these 3 areas and exclude others because they have generally been the most poorly treated by historians and popular culture. These are the areas most deserving of attention – origins, honour and insanity – an hopefully will provide a far more accurate, and interesting, picture of this most extraordinary person.

DUELLING PISTOLS

John fought at least 3 duels in his life…probably a few more.

The first was fought in 1789 with Captain Gilbert, on the Docks at Gravesend. The dispute appears to have arisen over the poor treatment of his family and the foul accommodation they were expected to travel to Sydney in. No other officer seems to have been living in these conditions. Macarthur called the Captain a scoundrel for his ‘ungentlemanly’ conduct towards Elizabeth and himself, and so, of course, they dueled. When eventually their accommodation was changed John conceded that the Captain’s behaviour was that of a gentleman and man of honour. We don’t know who challenged who …although once an accusation of this kind was made between gentlemen, a fight was inevitable to clear the matter up, as quickly as possible.

John’s second duel was fought with Colonel Paterson, his commanding officer. John had tactically boycotted Government House after a number of disagreements with Governor King. Paterson had refused to support Macarthurs boycott and continued to visit Government House, as did most of the other officers. Macarthur’s response was to orchestrate a very messy series of insults aimed at Paterson and his wife, using innuendo and revealing private conversations in public. To be fair, this was very poor form. And so Paterson demanded a duel. Once again, John was not the challenger, though he clearly provoked it. The duel was fought on 14th September 1801 at 1 pm.

John fired first and hit Paterson in the right shoulder. The injury was so severe that they didn’t know if he would survive! John was put under house arrest; presumably because Paterson was his commanding officer and his life hung in the balance. Paterson’s second also accused John of yelling out something like “gotcha”, which would have been incredibly bad form. It appears that John favoured a court martial in this instance, possibly to further assert his position, so King sent him off to England. A stroke of good luck occurred on the way – the only witness to the duel died when his ship disappeared. John’s name was cleared for lack of evidence.

Just before leaving for England in 1809, John dueled again. This time it was with Major Joseph Foveaux who was relieving Macarthur of the position of colonial secretary after the Bligh Rebellion. Foveaux’s accusation was that Macarthur hadn’t accounted for 500 pounds in the accounts. Macarthur was obviously insulted when asked to repay the money, leading him to challenge Foveaux to a duel. John actually repaid the money, so clearly the duel was more about manners.

After a coin toss John shot first, standing 10 paces from his target who was quite fat. Foveaux’s second said of the duel that Macarthur “took a very deliberate aim and was perfectly cool, yet missed his object which was of no small magnitude”.

Foveaux then declined to return fire and the duel was concluded. Perhaps he didn’t wish to echo Paterson’s fate?

We can understand Macarthur’s behaviour…by briefly looking at the history of this strange, but very useful practice.

Dueling was introduced in Britain in the late 16thC as one way a gentlemen might deal with a disagreement. They may have been reckless and barbaric, but the duel was as an improvement on earlier methods of settling differences, where assassinations and vendettas sometimes placed a whole family at risk of retribution, Romeo and Juliet style. The duel was a way of localizing or containing violence. It was also neat, private, bound by rules and carefully administered. It seemed quite humanitarian and progressive at the time. The British preferred to use pistols rather than swords, believing this to be fairer and perhaps even less dangerous. Until the early 19th century courts were reluctant to prosecute men charged with wounding or killing someone in a duel.

So what actually happened in a duel? Once gentlemen fell out or felt insulted, a challenge was laid down. They would first of all appoint an assistant, called a second. It was the job of the second to coordinate the show. This included contacting the other gentleman and communicating key details…time, place, etc. The two gentlemen would then meet with their seconds at the appointed place, with a doctor. They would stand quite close to each other, ten to twelve paces. They would either shoot simultaneously or toss a coin and take it in turns. They would have 2 shots each.

People were rarely ever hit and hence very rarely killed. The aim of the duel was to allow men to defend their reputation, in an open display of bravery, beyond question. In a world dominated by the military, valor, courage and integrity were not just badges of approval – they went to core of one’s identity. To be a liar, or a coward, or corrupt, threatened social fabric.

The men would also stand side on, meaning there were less of them to hit. In fact, duelling pistols were not rifled so that they were deliberately less accurate. So a bloodless outcome seems to have been encouraged. Clearly the purpose of a duel was not justice, but rather a method of making a dispute strategically, perhaps even politely, go away.

HONOURABLE TRADE

Commerce meant 2 things in the antipodes.

It was both the key to economic and social prosperity and an honourable pursuit for gentlemen of the military. This intertwining of business and an individual’s sense of honour and duty is rarely understood by observers of the early years of colonial life. Military officers were merchants in India, Canada, the American colonies and the West Indies. This was a time honoured practice. In the Australian context, the trading monopolies developed by Military Officers like Macarthur actually laid the groundwork for economic security, by concentrating capital in the hands of those whose interests were bigger than day to day survival. Saving and a long term vision, not consumption, is necessary for investment. The colonial military in Australia also enjoyed access to land – unlike the other colonies.

After 1793, the gentlemen officers ‘on the make’ quickly lost interest in the hard, time consuming business of agriculture, turning instead to commerce and grazing. As merchants they speculated, using regimental funds at their disposal, on incoming ship cargoes, and persuading the government store to buy goods they could then trade back into the colony. Later they used agents in London to divert their salaries into trading ventures, filling up entire ships with goods for local consumption, at huge mark up rates. They amassed great wealth in land and stock and invested in large scale grazing estates.

Self-interest aside, had there not been a visionary class of traders, and instead, as Phillip saw it, a self sufficient, small scale economy of yeoman farmers, the colony’s future would have been grim indeed. When challenged Macarthur always argued his economic activities were a public service, curbing the power of ships captains to externally control colonial prices. In any case, there was no other coherent socio-economic group capable of concerted action.As for the use of government money to speculate on goods, and line the pockets of officers, this too has been misunderstood. The 18th century didn’t differentiate between private and public money. As long as the initial sum was accounted for, any profits were the legitimate property of the individual. In fact, profits made through clever speculation were upheld as honourably gained. And equally, an officer may be embarrassed by a poor commercial decision, but his honour clearly stopped him behaving corruptly.And trade itself was a greedy pursuit. Monopolies and trading blocs were common practice, especially in situations where government control was limited. Macarthur would have been familiar with monopolies in Plymouth Dock where drapers and other ship suppliers and boat builders and artisans combined to push up prices. He was well acquainted with clashes between the state and tightly organised commercial interests. Throughout his career, Macarthur’s activities were never outside the law – it wasn’t his fault the law was inadequate to control him. That he exploited loop holes, at every turn, said one thing about his tenacity. His honour, and the sense of himself as fulfilling the role of a gentleman, was never in doubt.

The arrest of Government Bligh in early 1808 and the installation of an unauthorised, rebel administration, has been mistakenly represented as a conflict over local trading monopolies and in particular the business interests of John Macarthur and the colonial corps. Looking freshly at the so-called Rum Rebellion, historians now generally agree that a dispute between officers and Governor Bligh, carefully coopted and inflamed by prominent colonists (such as Macarthur) festered into insurrection around matters of protocol, behaviour, respect and honour. And that Bligh himself, conducted his office in an ungentlemanly manner. Of course, there were a vast range of differences between the way in which the officers and traders saw the colony managed and Bligh’s vision of an agriculturally diverse, small scale settlement.

The name Rum Rebellion was a term created in the 1850s by a tee-totalling Quaker historian whose mission was to combat the scourge of alcoholism. Rum was barely mentioned in trial proceedings, even by Bligh’s supporters. Whilst Bligh referred in general terms to the problems of a monopoly in spirits, others claimed any such monopoly was a thing of the past by then, having petered out in the late 1790s. Its truly extraordinary that Major Johnston was not hung for forcibly toppling and illegally arresting a representative of the King. Much of his defence however was based on the claim that Bligh was unfit to govern and that his behaviour, as a governor was inappropriate. He had behaved dishonourably.

So what was the ‘code of honour’? It was actually several things combined… a kind of blueprint of beliefs, responsibilities, behaviours, loyalties and a way of conducting oneself. Most of all, it underlined the notion of the gentleman. In Britain, unlike on the continent, the archetype of the gentleman was not structured around birth, breeding or even wealth. An English gentleman could overcome being poor, having no land and occasionally even having no family. A gentleman could not survive without honour, or put differently, conducting oneself honourably. Uppermost in the minds of gentlemen, and those aspiring to be regarded as gentlemen, were thoughts of gentility, proper conduct and social duty. This is easily dismissed today as a kind of redundant or arcane relic, spoken of but not applied – like modern manners.

But quite to the contrary, ‘honour’ informed everything John Macarthur did during his heyday of colonial trading and political agitation, during his 2 important visits to London and later as a politician and advocate for economic development in the colony.

And unlike on the continent, British social strata was more porous, with openings for those with means and aspirations to rise up from below. A convenient entry point into the league of gentlemen was through the Navy or Military as an officer – a continuous cycle of renewal and rebirth. Macarthurs rise from a 16 year old Ensign to a Captain stationed in New South Wales can be read as both a continual striving for acceptance as a gentleman as well as a desperate attempt to uphold the value of this notion against those who would demolish it. Its demolition spelt his demolition.

LUNACY

So far we’ve looked at certain aspects of John’s life that have often been misinterpreted. We’re now going to look at the last few years of his life.

Since this room has such a dramatic feel I want you to try and picture this room in the year 1832. It is Monday, March the 26th, five minutes to midnight. The room is cloaked in darkness. The shutters and doors are closed. The house is eerily still. Its occupants are still coming to terms with the death of John, the Macarthur’s second son. Illuminated by a single candle, Macarthur is bent intently over his desk, quill in hand. To his eldest son Edward he writes…

…I sit down, to write to you at five minutes before midnight, and after a day of considerable exertion…at four O’clock in the morning I arose after a sound and refreshing sleep of four hours and spent the time until daylight in sound reflection on the important affairs both public and private, which have for some weeks occupied my mind – as soon as I had sufficient light I sallied forth on foot to inspect the work of the preceding day and to give orders for the execution of other improvements… The evening was afterwards spent in conversation, sometimes sportive sometimes argumentative, with Dr Anderson (a plain sensible worthy man who generally visits us every Evening)…By these means I keep in subjection many melancholy thoughts, which in spite all my Philosophy at times bear very heavily upon me. Poor dear John. How often do I suffer when alone undergo a bitterness of grief which no language can describe – and this is perhaps more intense, because I find it necessary to conceal from your dear Mother what I feel.

Picking up again on Tuesday morning at 4 a.m., he continued…

You will not be surprised when I tell you that the subject into which I unintentional launched last night disqualified me from proceeding with my Letter and constrained me to desist. – after a burst of grief which the world will never suspect me of giving way to I retired to my solitary Bed, for intending to write all night Your dear Mother slept alone. – thank God I was soon enabled to recover myself possession, and I have slept soundly about two hours and feel much refreshed – still however I must make this Letter short and endeavour to withdraw my mind from the subject of its secret grief by active occupation…

So you can see John, sleeping very little (between 2-4 hours), obviously grieving for his son yet keeping himself busy. He is also being visited frequently by Dr Anderson, who was in charge of the hospital at Parramatta.

A month later, Elizabeth also wrote to Edward but presents quite a different picture about her husband. She has left Elizabeth Farm because of the constant alterations which are keeping the family in a constant state of worry. She wrote,

We cannot attribute this excitment (sic) to any one particular cause he bore the shock of our lamented dear Johns death with becoming fortitude – & certainly he grieved at heart deeply.— I cannot but consider that he labours under a partial derangement of mind and views many objects through a distorted medium…

So, what was really going on with John? Was he simply a grieving father? Or an eccentric personality, a brilliant mind that needed little rest? Or was he suffering from a derangement of the mind as Elizabeth suggested? 3 weeks after John wrote that letter he was declared insane. Instigated by James and William, his youngest sons, the Supreme Court declared that John:

was a lunatic and did enjoy lucid intervals but not so that he was sufficient for the government of himself his Lands, Tenements, Goods and Chattels…

John’s symptoms, his thoughts and experiences are not known…and in any case weren’t described in modern terms. This is the trouble with John – what did it mean to be a lunatic or insane at the time?

Well, in the early 1800s a lunatic, idiot or mad person could be someone mute, incoherent, or even someone crazed on strong drink. In many ways mental illness was understood in terms of its impact on others, whereas today we focus more on internal processes and chemical imbalances. One was social the other medical. The key question seemed to be – was the person fit to manage themselves and their property?

So why did think John was incapable of managing himself and his property?

Three sources of documentation: Family Letters, Supreme Court documents held in the archives and Macarthur Papers, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (access is currently restricted).So lets look a little closer at the records…

Traveling from England on the 2nd Fleet, John was struck by a fever, which immobilized him for the remainder of the journey. It seems to have been a rheumatic disease. Perhaps his mental illness stemmed from this, but we don’t know. The next major mention of disease is in John’s letters written in England during 1809-1817. He wrote that he was in a state of “mental despondency” since the trial, an acute melancholy and depression of spirits.

To Elizabeth he lamented that his depression was so much increased…

That I often pass weeks, without one cheerful moment, and I am seldom relieved from this dreadful gloom, except by the return of an acute pain…

His reflection on past events, his poor bodily health, his exile from his family and uncertainty about his future were clearly distressing to him, in a way he described as the “malady of the mind”. From the 1820s the theme of illness and suffering runs regularly through the Macarthur’s correspondence. Elizabeth often wrote to her sons of John’s great depression of spirits. Then in 1831 terrible news reached Elizabeth Farm. Their beloved son John had died, and John’s melancholy seemed to deepen, as we heard in his letter.

This then brings us back to 1832. In June of that year Elizabeth wrote…

I left Parramatta which was at your poor fathers most persevering and earnest desire nay even command he had taken a most unaccountable dislike to our friend Mrs Lucas inasmuch as it caused her to isolate herself altogether to the Cottage after I came here one dislike close followed upon the heels of another until your sisters were discovered and the House thrown into confusion Pistols swords and offensive weapons in his hands!

So Elizabeth and the others are banished from the house under the threat of pistols and swords! John occupied this room, the small bedroom and dressing room attached, attended to by one of their old servants. Was this the last straw for the family?

It was in the following month that James and William applied to have John certified as a Lunatic. The affidavits attached to their petition offer a fascinating insight into John’s behaviour at the time.

Donald McPherson: This Deponent further saith that on or about the 29th day of June he called on the said John Macarthur…that the said John Macarthur had read the draft of a letter…to his Excellency General Bourke in which letter it was stated that the said John Macarthur had been poisoned and that his sons with a formidable band of adherents had taken possession of a strong position in some remote part of the Colony from which it would be necessary to dislodge them by force of arms.

That the said John Macarthur stated in the presence of this Deponent that there had been a conspiracy of some months past to poison him…and that his sons were under the influence of similar poison which had completely deranged their intellects but that the poison had not in the slightest degree affected the intellects of him…although it had produced the most grievous effect upon his bodily health as an instance of which he showed this Deponent a sore upon his hand…the conversation and behaviour of the said John Macarthur on the above occasion was so wild and incoherent throughout that this Deponent can have no doubt his mind is completely deranged.

So we get to see much more of a picture of what was really going on with John. Intrigue, paranoia and poison attempts!

As we’ve heard, the court considered John to be a Lunatic. Importantly, the Court also had the power to appoint guardians to protect the property of the lunatic. The appointment of guardians was not for the purpose of securing the person but rather their estate. So we can see that property played a large role in their understanding of lunacy. Was it then mostly wealthy men who were declared to be insane? Certainly this process seems only to have been used for men of property. Did insanity have more to do with Estate ownership than physical health? Should our question be then, how much was John worth?

According to the Court documents he owned 24,380 acres of land, mortgages worth 2,908 pounds, livestock worth 30,000 pounds, Plate worth 500 pounds and Furniture and Library Books worth 1,250 pounds. So Edward his eldest son stood to inherit a lot! But wait…wasn’t it James and William petitioning the Court? Where was Edward in all of this? This seems to be an interesting twist to the story. Edward is off in England, so James and William petition to become the heirs at law instead. Much of the court proceedings seem to be tied up in this issue – James and William are humbly petitioning the Court for the Estate to be granted to them. Were they perhaps securing their inheritance, worried John was going to waste it away?

A further complication appears in May 1833. A number of newspapers at the time suggested that John seemed quite well, and that he should be able to regain control of his Estate. Such a commotion was caused that the Chief Justice wrote to James advising him to present a petition to consider whether John had been unnecessarily restrained, and that it should be a petition from someone outside the family. James replied to say that he and his brother decided not to apply. He blamed the malice of others who were attempting to injure their reputation. It was then around this time that John was taken out to Camden, or as some newspapers suggested he was removed. Perhaps away from prying eyes or the influence of others? He died, of unknown, or at least unrecorded, causes.

And here ends the story of an extraordinary individual, who rose from nothing, with no more than grit and determination, who prospered and was destroyed and whose legacy remains endlessly open to question… we hope this examination throws new light on his story and helps to correct centuries of bad press.

A new chintz has been hung in the Drawing Room. The fabric, a high quality printed and glazed cotton, is called Tropicale Hermitage and was reproduced for the restoration of President Andrew Jackson’s home in Nashville, The Hermitage.

Detail, Tropicale Hermitage glazed chintz

The chintz will be used to cover curtains, cushions, fire screens, hassocks and case covers, demonstrating the taste, prosperity and horticultural interests of the Macarthurs at Elizabeth Farm.

Funding for the recreation of Drawing Room soft furnishings, including supply and manufacture, was generously provided by the Friends of Elizabeth Farm, an arm of the Members of the Historic Houses Trust.

The design was based on a ‘document’, or archaeological reference sample, dating to the mid 1830s, although appears to be based on a plate in Dr Thornton’s Temple of Flora, published 1805. [try this link]

Plate from Dr Thornton’s Temple of Flora

The original design was achieved using two printing methods: a strident block printing of graphic floral (cactus branch and flower) shapes in long vertical columns applied by hand, overlaid on a swirling fancy ground of roller printed linework. While the modern reproduction is printed in one go, using high quality screening technology, it effectively mimics the slight off-setting of printing plates, typical of the original block print and steel roller process.

While the fabric date is later than the interpretive range of the room (late 1820s) it is worth noting that John Macarthur’s newly enlarged rooms remained unfinished and probably undecorated until after his removal from the house in 1833. It is believed that Macarthur never saw the joinery of John Verge, nor the interior paint schemes we’ve reproduced.

The cactus design appears be a ‘Night Blooming’ cereus or ‘Moon Cactus’, originating in southern Mexico.

Chintz was originally a painted or stained calico produced in India, popular for bed covers, quilts and curtains. It became common throughout 17th and 18th century Europe, where it was imported and later produced. Europeans at first produced reproductions of Indian designs, and later added original patterns. Chintz was sometimes referred to as plate furniture, owing to the use of block printing plates to create patterns.

A new chintz has been hung in the Drawing Room. The fabric, a high quality printed and glazed cotton, is called Tropicale Hermitage and was reproduced for the restoration of President Andrew Jackson’s home in Nashville, The Hermitage.

Detail, Tropicale Hermitage glazed chintz

The chintz will be used to cover curtains, cushions, fire screens, hassocks and case covers, demonstrating the taste, prosperity and horticultural interests of the Macarthurs at Elizabeth Farm.

Funding for the recreation of Drawing Room soft furnishings, including supply and manufacture, was generously provided by the Friends of Elizabeth Farm, an arm of the Members of the Historic Houses Trust.

The design was based on a ‘document’, or archaeological reference sample, dating to the mid 1830s, although appears to be based on a plate in Dr Thornton’s Temple of Flora, published 1805. [try this link]

Plate from Dr Thornton’s Temple of Flora

The original design was achieved using two printing methods: a strident block printing of graphic floral (cactus branch and flower) shapes in long vertical columns applied by hand, overlaid on a swirling fancy ground of roller printed linework. While the modern reproduction is printed in one go, using high quality screening technology, it effectively mimics the slight off-setting of printing plates, typical of the original block print and steel roller process.

While the fabric date is later than the interpretive range of the room (late 1820s) it is worth noting that John Macarthur’s newly enlarged rooms remained unfinished and probably undecorated until after his removal from the house in 1833. It is believed that Macarthur never saw the joinery of John Verge, nor the interior paint schemes we’ve reproduced.

The cactus design appears be a ‘Night Blooming’ cereus or ‘Moon Cactus’, originating in southern Mexico.

Chintz was originally a painted or stained calico produced in India, popular for bed covers, quilts and curtains. It became common throughout 17th and 18th century Europe, where it was imported and later produced. Europeans at first produced reproductions of Indian designs, and later added original patterns. Chintz was sometimes referred to as plate furniture, owing to the use of block printing plates to create patterns.