or outside the marriage "bond, assumed the social status of their fathers and could go wherever their fathers were accepted. Ex
convict mothers remained socially anonymous unless they married when they gained some sort of social acceptance according to the status of their husbands. Fudie told the Transportation Committee that ladies in the colony could not afford to he as punctilious in their reception of women of doubtful character as they would have been in England; ” .... they say it is beginning to get a cross in
the blood, Joking about the convicts” • 7
Even if colonial sexual mores were no longer so nakedly profli gate Gipps soon found himself reporting: ”Drunkenness, the fruit ful parent of Crime, is still the prevailing Vice of the Colony.” Respectable Emancipist Dr. William Eland, on the other hand, con tended that Judge Burton, James Fudie and even James Facarthur ex aggerated the depravity of the colony for political purposes. ”The alleged depravity of manners, which was principally observable in the licentious habits of the upper classes of days gone by, has al most disappeared,” he wrote in 1838, ’’crime has decreased and is daily decreasing — the police is superior to what it ever had been at any previous period of the Colony — and the want of free immi grants, whether for the purpose of ’infusing tones into society’ or of forming a means of permanent increase in our population .... is
id
already decreased ....”
At the apex of the social scale came the landed gentry, high- ranking Establishment officials and the merchants and bankers who provided the channels and capital for economic development and over seas trade. Then came a wide amorphous band of the ’’middling classes” , those who possessed property or professional qualifica tions sufficient to make them ’’respectable” even if they had no pre tensions to gentility although some of them, much to the indignation 17. P.F. Report S.C. on Transportation, 1837« Fudie.’.s Evidence,
p. 102.
18. Dr. VJilliam Bland, Examination of Fr. James Facarthur’s Work, ’Few South Wales: It’s Present State and Future Prospects (Sydney,
Decide 106
of the Sydney Gazette laid claiir to the title " gentleman" without
1
9
any social or legal right to it. Strictly speaking, in England, a gentlemanvas anyone who maintained himself without manual labour. By the nineteenth century social custom pitched the requirement higher, including besides the nobility, the gentry and the Angli can clergy, barristers and physicians but excluding Dissenting min isters, apothecaries, attorneys, and schoolmasters; including overseas merchants but not inland traders; amateur authors and. art ists but not professionals, despite Carlyle’s assertion that a now "Aristocracy of Talent", the’journalists, Political Economists, Politicians, Pamphleteers" constituted "... the m o d e m guides to Nations" replacing"... the ancient guides ... Prophets, Priests,
or whatever their name ...."
The top layer of the "middling classes" included publicans, brewers, auctioneers, money-lenders, landlords and various kinds of entrepreneurs, all edging into the gentry. Clinging precari*- ' ously along the bottom edge were overworked clerkp, underpaid teach ers, penny-a— liner journalists, professional musicians, actors, artists, petit-bourgeois shopkeepers and petty functionaries of various kinds. The whole rested on a broad base of the anonymous labouring poor, including a solid wedge of convicts. Intermingled with the different strata were incorrigible thieves, forgers,
standover men, sexual deviants, and others who, if caught, com prised chain-gangs that still clanked along city streets or were thrown into the social cesspool provided at Norfolk Island for the doubly and trebly convicted. From top to bottom, the prevailing vices were acquisitiveness, drunkenness and sexual promiscuity but then, as always, moral intergity was not an exclusive attribute of any one class#
If it were t rue in England, as D r# Johnson claimed, that distinctions of rank created no jealousy in a people ’’polished by art and classed by subordination” it was certainly not so in Aus tralia where class distinctions were not held to be accidental.
According to the Exclusives, those on the lower rungs of subord
ination were there mostly through their own crimes and follies and could not therefore claim status according to profession or wealth.
Respectable Emancipists, however, exemplified the Puritan justi
fication of economic prosperity as a sign of God's blessing on dil
igence and enterprise. "And the L o r d was with Joseph, and he
was a luckie felowe," as Tyndale had it in his translation of Gene
sis. Squatters also presented a problem. Wh atever their claims
to gentility they certainly had to work with their hands and many of them soon learned to share the habits if not the company of their
subordinates. "The bottles were placed on the Table and six
y o u n g men some of them gentlemen by birth set to for the express
purpose of getting drunk during the night. The conversation was
not bad, but even the common expressions at table were accompanied,
almost invariably with the most horrid, oaths .... Any person might have fancied he was overhearing the discourse of fiends while cele- b r a t i n g their orgies."
James Mudie told Charles Luller at the Transportation Commit- tie hearings in London that although some Emancipists were people
of fortune no one would associate with t h e m •** Gipps soon learned
that this was not strictly true. Emancipist Samuel Terry, the
"Botany Bay Rothschild", died the day before the Governor's arriv
al, leaving a personal estate of £2 5 0,000, £10,000 a year income
from Sydney rentals and landed property estimated at £150,0 0 0. He
also achieved a widely admitted respectability, busying himself
with the affairs of the Benevolent Society, the Auxiliary Bible
20. William A d e n e y ’s Journal, 1842-3. Quoted Margaret Kiddle,
Men of Yesterday (Melbourne, 1961), p. 117.
• P. P. Report of S. C. Transportat i o n , l837t Mudie's Evidence,
p. 103, p. 107 and p. 110.
Decade 108
Society, Sydney College and the Wesleyan Church, He was presid
ent of the Masonic Lodge and foundation president of the Australian Society for the Promotion of the Growth and Cultivation of Colonial
Produce and Manufactures, He also played an active part in organ
ising petitions for trial "by jury and the establishment of represen
tative government. He built for himself "a formidable mansion"
in Angel Place, Sydney, with "a hollow square .... stables, coach
houses, servants' quarters, and a celebrated pigeon-loft in the
y a r d . " ^
There were always plenty in the colony ready to raise an eye
brow at the sources of the sturdy old Emancipist's wealth. He was
accused of smuggling, extortion and worse but Mr. Commissioner Big-
ge, no friend of convicts or ex-convicts, dismissed all such alle
gations as "....mere naked assertions, unsupported by any fact of
evidence ...." Alexander Harris, on the other hand, contended
that Terry's licensed houses ("Terry properties had a knack of
sprouting pubs sooner or later: he had a shrewd eye for advancing
business sites.") were the resorts of "...the lowest women, sail
ors, and ruffians,who supported themselves by waylaying and robb-
ing and often murderously wounding any intoxicated sea officer... n
Charles Harpur celebrated Terry's death with a few lines of irrev erent and indifferent verse:
Old Sam Terry went to a Church meeting
Where he met from the parsons a. good deal of greeting, But as he stood bowing on his old gouty toes there, All on a sudden he made a. great snort they say Alarming the belles and the beaux there!
Let a great f-- 1 too; — then fell all amort that day:
Dying the next, and g o i n g -- God knows where!
VJhatever Samuel Terry’s destination "from out this bourne of
Time and Place" Sydney gave him an impressive send-off. He was
not only buried with full Masonic honours but the band of the 50 th
22. Paul McGuire, Inrs of Australia (Melbourne, 1952), PP* 23—4•
23. Ibid. p. 24.
24» Alexander Harris, Settlers and Convicts, p. 7«
25» Adrian Mitchell, (ed.) Colonial Poets: Charles Harpur (Mel-*
R e g i m e n t h e a d e d t h e c o r t e g e o f t h e g r a n d e s t f u n e r a l t h e c o l o n y had e v e r Been.'* The p a c t "being w h a t i t m i g h t , h i e p r o g e n y f l o u r i s h e d l i k e t h e g r e e n hay t r e e a s c o n f i d e n t o f t h e i r r e s p e c t a b i l i t y a s any B r i t i s h b l u e - b l o o d whose f a m i l y f o r t u n e s w e r e f o u n d e d on p a t r o n a g e
a n d j o b b i n g . I n o ne t h i n g , a t l e a s t , Dew S o u t h Wales r e s e m b l e d a c h a n g i n g B r i t a i n : i t was an o p e n - e n d e d s o c i e t y r e a d y t o make room f o r some q u e e r b e d - f e l l o w s . I n a d d i t i o n t o Ang el P l a c e he b u i l t T e r r y ’ s B u i l d i n g s , on t h e e a s t s i d e o f P i t t S t r e e t w h e r e Mar t i n P l a c e now g o e s t h r o u g h , l o n g o n e o f S y d n e y ’ s f i n e s t n o n - o f f i c i a l b u i l d i n g s a l t h o u g h i t d i d e n c r o a c h on t h e p u b l i c way. The A u s t r a l i a n S u b s c r i p t i o n L i b r a r y , o f w h i c h more a n o n , o c c u p i e d Do. 1 T e r r y ’ s B u i l d i n g s , ’’h e l d c o n j o i n t l y w i t h t h e Sydney D i s p e n s a r y , t h e o f f i c e r o f w h i c h s e r v e d a l s o a s / t e m p o r a r y l i b r a r i a n , d a i l y , .17
f r om 1 t o 4 p * n i . " i H i s c o u n t r y s e a t a t Box H i l l was b u i l t f o r Jam
es Meehan, an E m a n c i p i s t s u r v e y o r who a t t a i n e d d i s t i n c t i o n u n d e r M a c q u a r i e , p r o b a b l y w i t h t h e s u p e r v i s i o n o f M a c q u a r i e ' s n o t e d con v i c t a r c h i t e c t , F r a n c i s Gr een way. I n i t i a l l y , S q u a t t e r s w e r e p e o p l e who o c c u p i e d Crown l a n d w i t h i n t h e n i n e t e e n C o u n t i e s w i t h o u t l e g a l r i g h t , m o s t l y e x - c o n v i c t s and t i c k e t - o f —l e a v e men. B u t a s e a r l y a s 1837» J a m e s T’a c a r t h u r , i n h i s e v i d e n c e t o t h e T r a n s p o r t a t i o n C o m m i t t e e , was c a r e f u l t o make a d i s t i n c t i o n b e t w e e n ’’ r e s p e c t a b l e ” ( i . e . ’’o w n e r s o f e s t a t e s ” ) and. " n o n - r e s p e c t a b l e ” i l l e g a l o c c u p i e r s . " I t i s u s u a l , ” he s a i d , " f o r o w n e r s o f e s t a t e s t o a l l o w t h e i r f l o c k s t o g r a z e u p on u n o c c u p i e d l a n d b e y o n d t h e l i m i t o f o c c u p a t i o n . ” The d i s t i n c t i o n h e d i d n o t make was b e t w e e n " o w n e r s o f e s t a t e s ” ( i . e . t h e " A n c i e n t D o b i l i t y ” and t h e "Dev; G e n t r y ” ) a n d t h e men o f w i d e l y d i v e r s i f i e d s o c i a l o r i g i n who commanded en ou gh c a p i t a l o r c r e d i t t o b uy a f l o c k o f s h e e p a nd c h u c k - w a g g o n s en o ug h t o h e a d o u t b e y o n d
2 6 . Sydney G a z e t t e , 27 F e b r u a r y , 1 83 8.
27» J o s e p h F o w l e s , Sydney i n 1848 ( S y d n e y , I8 4 8) . F a s c i m i l e e d . , S y d n e y , 1 9 7 3 , p . 14- P- 4 2 .
Decade 110
the 'boundaries of settlement in search of "stations” . These were mostly free settlers with no inclination or insufficient capital to set up as "lew Gentry" who had chosen Hew South Wales as the fittest place to "begin life anew or offering the lest opportunities for mak ing money quickly during a limited colonial sojourn.
In 1836, Governor Pourke had "been forced to accept and regul ate this sort of occupation, frowned upon by the British Government pnd Colonial Reformers alike, By issuing licences which acknowled ged the existence of squatting "but gave the squatters no legal right to their runs. When Gipps arrived a million or more sheep were spread over 900 nüles of the Crown lands of the south-eastern sec tion or the continent which the British Government had hoped to hold for the posterity of the Empire as a whole. Neither Gipps nor British authority could now ignore the fact that squatters provided
the greater part of the colony’s increasingly valuable export — fine wool. The fact wap that the character of the new continent and changing economic circumstances in England had modified colonial development along lines quite different from those envisaged By eith er John Nacarthur or Lachlan Macquarie.
The first of the free settlers were mostly ex-Army and Ifavy officers jobless at the end of the Napoleonic wars; younger sons or the impecunious offspring of fecund parsonages and professional homes; farmers suffering under the post-war agricultural depress ion an'? the slump in wheat prices; impoverished minor gentry fear ful of the rate of change in an England dislocated by the Industrial Revolution; middle— class parents anxiotis about the material pros pects of their children in an increasingly competitive society; and, here and there, imaginative Romantics seized with intellectual or