No Looking Back: Edward Thomas Newton, Early Settler of Port Phillip (1813-1882)
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No Looking Back: Edward Thomas Newton, Early Settler of Port Phillip (1813-1882) Figure 1 Albert River from Alberton Cemetery Compiled by Janice Newton, Mt Pleasant 2018 0 PREFACE This small history of Edward Thomas Newton owes much to the local and family historians who have gone before me, most notably Rev. George Cox, Wally Stewart, Margaret Ross, John Howe and Greg Newton. I have gained extra contextual information from the State Library, Public Records Office, Australian Dictionary of Biography and Wikipedia websites, and from general histories which are listed in the bibliography. Endnotes are included where possible. 1 INTRODUCTION Australia was a land of opportunity for colonists. Many greatly increased their life opportunities and experienced some promising periods. Others made their fortunes. Edward Thomas Newton can be counted among the former. The story of his life is fluid, our interpretations changing as more and more sources come to light. In those first few years in Launceston, Melbourne, Mordialloc, then Alberton in South Gippsland, he appeared to seek and win respect from his contemporary colonists. He earned the affection of: his friend and employer, John Batman; the pious, hard-working Assistant Protector of Aborigines, William Thomas (initially); the Reverend Waterfield, who officiated at his marriage; English architect, artist and writer, George Haydon; the Martin family; and the Alberton community. Newton was literate, intelligent, thorough, kind, hospitable, loyal, charitable, and, like most migrants, not afraid to take on new challenges. He gained social esteem in his time, particularly as a mature adult, for his dogged pursuit of justice and development, but was not always successful in his many ventures. This did not, however, prevent him from trying different ones and from expounding his vision for the future of South Gippsland. Cognisant of his place as a pioneer in exciting times in a new colony, he thought deeply about the potential directions of the colony of Port Phillip and of Gippsland in particular, and wrote a history of his home in his adopted land.1 Aside from this interest in his role in the recent past, there was no looking back. Edward Thomas Newton did not visit England nor dwell on the distant past. When he died there was no-one available who could register information on his parents or his birthplace. Wally Stewart commented: In spite of being a well -known citizen of early Melbourne and a pioneer of Alberton’s early years, we know surprisingly little about E T Newton. Perhaps he was a typical Victorian parent and unconfiding to his children. Certainly when he died his family did not and probably could not name his birthplace, and could supply no details of his early life for his obituary. E T Newton thought of himself as ‘Edward Thomas’, or ‘E T’ Newton, and this name was important enough to his descendants to be passed on for another four generations.2 I will often refer to him as ET. 1 According to an entry in the Sale Historical Society ET Newton wrote a history of Gippsland in 1857. M. Ross to J Howe 1999. 2 His sister Sarah also saw that his name was passed on: Edward Newton KAY (1833-1884) son of Thomas Softly & Sarah (Newton) Kay; Edward Newton KAY (1877-1878) son of Thomas Softly & Sarah Ann (Sellwood) KAY; Edward Newton BUTTERWORTH (1910-1993) son of Edward & Rose Avonia (Kay) BUTTERWORTH. John Howe, genealogical research. 2 Figure 2 Edward Thomas Newton, Shire Councillor Alberton (President 1863-6) 3 ENGLAND ‘Newton’, meaning ‘new enclosure or settlement’, is a relatively common surname, appearing in English records as early as the 11th century. During the Middle Ages it became dispersed as people moved further afield for work, taking on the surname of their home. Edward Thomas Newton was born on 26th November, 1813, to Thomas Edward and Sarah Newton in London and baptised a month later on December 26th at St George of the East, Middlesex. His older sister Sarah, born 3rd December 1811, was also baptised at St George in 1812. Their parents, Thomas Edward and Sarah Newton had been married at All Hallows, Barking, London in 1809.3 The family lived at Ratcliff Highway, Tower Hamlets, Middlesex, a hamlet on the north banks of the Thames. It was known as a sailor town, with a history of shipbuilding in the 14th and 17th centuries, becoming a notorious slum area with lodging houses, music halls, bars and brothels.4 In spite of the unsavoury environment, E T learned to read and write, possibly a beneficiary of the beginnings of free education in 19th century England.5 His baptismal Church, with its attached workhouse, would have made him aware that the poor had to work for charity and had uncertain outcomes. ET’s sister Sarah married Thomas Softley Kay on Christmas Day, 1832,6 the year when eighteen year old E T made the decision to emigrate, a step he would find that must ‘involve deliberate calculation, not to be taken as a whim’,7 as before him lay a field of possibilities and pitfalls. VAN DIEMEN’S LAND ET is believed to have arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1832, as a young man of 19.8 Lieut. Governor Arthur favoured wealthy settlers who could employ numbers of convicts. E T fitted neither this criterion, nor the criteria for the Assisted Passage Scheme.9 Hence, he 3 Boyd’s Index of Marriages, ex John Howe. 4 In 1794 half the hamlet was destroyed by fire when a barge full of saltpetre ignited and in the year of Sarah Newton’s birth, the hamlet of 7000 was traumatised by the murders of seven people. 5 Sunday School education also embraced a quarter of the population by 1831. Anglican National Schools adjacent to parish churches began in 1811, and a Ragged School was set up in the area in 1818. 6 Sarah Newton married Thomas Softley Kay on 25 Dec 1832 at St Leonard’s Shoreditch, Tower Hamlets district, East London. John Howe, Genealogical Research. https://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi- bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=marycotter&id=I95349275. 7 Haydon Five Years p 145. 8 A Mr Newton arrived in Hobart on the Rigalia 4 September 1832. Name Index, Tasmanian Archives online. A letter to Governor Arthur on behalf a Mr Newton, friend of Lord, Mitton, asking to be given a position in VDL was a Thomas Newton. He was given a position as Chief Constable of Police in Launceston by Arthur. PROV Original Correspondence of Sec of State 1833 Feb 25, CO 714, 255-6, piece 149. 9 This ran from 1831-7, bringing in over 300 assisted migrants in 1832. 4 may have been a free settler, or an indentured servant for the Van Diemen’s Land Company, who had to work to pay back his fare. By 1838 he was claiming he had a long experience in the colonies.10 ET Newton made his way from Hobart to Launceston, which, by 1827, had a population of 2000 and had become an export centre for the northern pastoral industry. Launceston had a number of small hotels and breweries that during the 1830s began to be superseded by more substantial buildings. While in Launceston E T met both John Batman and Fawkner, so may have been party to discussions about the good land available across the Strait. On March 5 1835, when 22 years of age ET was listed as one of the respectable settlers, including Captains and Reverends, to be allocated an Assigned Servant, a convict working towards his pardon.11 Six months later, in October of 1835 he set up a wharf side trading business with Peter Sinclair, as Custom House Agents and General Dealers. Sinclair and Newton began importing and selling on a large scale - huge quantities of alcohol, cloth, clothing, ironmongery, cutlery, practical and luxury goods. For example, on 3 March 1836 they advertised Sherry in barrels and quarter casks, pontac wine in quarter casks, claret in 1 dozen casks, cognac brandy, Caledonian distillery whisky, cape wine, fine old port wine in bottles and casks, Dunbar’s bottled ale and porter, Taylor’s brown stout, Geneva in cases, pale sherry in bottles, as well as cloth, shirts, coats, trousers, hats, hosiery, blankets, rugs, weights and scales, pepper mills and gluepots, trowels, meat hooks and stands, locks, spring bolts, wash stand basins, spittoons and assorted brush ware. 12 Sinclair and Newton were willing to trade colonial goods at the wharf side store in exchange for the imported goods, and advertised regularly to buy in cut or uncut wattlebark, crucial for tanning in the burgeoning leather industry. They also advertised the schooner Ellen available for freight or charter.13 In March 1836 Sinclair and Newton signed a group letter of support to the former Collector of Customs, Henry Arthur and were appointed provisional assignees for the estate and effects of John Armstrong’s insolvency,14 but by July 1836 their own business was faltering. It was declared insolvent by Justice Montagu in November 1836, although the partnership had petitioned the Supreme Court for relief.15 On January 20th 1837 the Insolvency sale for Sinclair and Newton was held at Campbell Town, 68 kilometres to the south east of Launceston. 10 Launceston Advertiser 5 March 1835. 11 Launceston Advertiser 5 March 1835, p 4. 12 Launceston Advertiser 3 March 1836, p 1. On the 5 March 1836 the first export from Port Phillip was a load of wattle (mimosa) bark. Syme, Shipping p 57. E T, like his father, Thomas, imported and sold slops, ready-made working garments or industrial aprons.