The Emancipist: ‘On His Own Hands’ 1840 – 1858

“You must fetch wood an’ water, bake an’ boil, Act as butcher when we kill; The corn an’ taters you must hill, Keep the gardens spick and span. You must not scruple in the rain To take to market all the grain. Be sure you come back sober again To be a squatter’s man.” (The Squatter’s Man – Traditional)

As an emancipist, William was now ‘on his own hands’ in the colloquial vernacular of the time meaning he was his own man and not beholden to anyone or the Crown. William’s freedom in 1840 coincided with the end of the transportation era in the colony of N.S.W. As befitted a newly emerging and confident state, pressure had been mounting from within the colony for an end to the transportation of criminals in favour of encouraging free settlers. On the 22nd of May 1840, an order was made by the Government that no more convicts be brought to the colony of NSW effective from the 1st of August 1840. The last load of convicts, 270 males, was subsequently deposited at Port Jackson from the ‘Eden’ on the 18th of November.1 Prior to this, the pastoral industry had continued to grow through the 1830s, as settlers continued to take land beyond the official ‘limits of settlement’ bringing continual conflict with Indigenous landholders. The land was being taken up by squatters from the English aristocratic or military classes as well as through less official means by emancipated and escaped convicts. Pressure was growing on Governor Bourke to act against the illegal use of Crown Land and, in 1836, legislation was passed. Those wishing to claim land for running stock beyond the limits of settlement would be required to pay an annual licence fee of ten pounds for the occupation of otherwise unalienated Crown Land.2 Thus, the scene was set for decades of conflict to come, as the Frontier Wars raged with the inexorable push west and north into the interior in search of new agricultural land. Indigenous populations would be devastated by murder and disease and new settlements mercilessly established. There are suggestions a member of the 73rd Regiment of Foot patrolling from the Hunter Valley between 1810-14 may have been the first European in the Mudgee district3; however, historically the debate has been over whether William Lawson or James Blackman discovered Mudgee first. Blackman, then the Superintendent of Police at Bathurst, is generally accepted as being the first European to explore the Mudgee valley. In 1821, he’d struck out from Bathurst and headed north to Sofala where he crossed the Turon River and travelling north east toward country held by Walker at ‘Wallerawang’ eventually discovered the ‘Cudgee-gang River’. Blackman and his party of four then followed the river downstream for about twenty five to thirty miles before coming across the reedy swamps of Burrundulla, east of present day Mudgee, and turning around.4 William Lawson, Commandant at Bathurst and himself a military man of His Majesty’s Veteran Regiment of the New South Wales Corps, followed in Blackman’s steps in November of the same year travelling over 400 miles and apparently reaching the fertile flats west of the Burrundulla swamps. Lawson subsequently organised a party of six men, including an Indigenous man they called Aaron, in 1822 with the intention of following his previous route to find a pass through the Liverpool Ranges in search of grazing land still further north. Aaron refused to continue past the descent into the Cudgegong valley as he was now entering land of another tribal group - the descent today known as Aarons Pass. Nonetheless, Lawson again made it to the present-day site of Mudgee blazing a line of trees to mark his route and followed the river west where he crossed it at ‘Menah’ before heading north east.5 Following the discovery of verdant grazing country along the Cudgegong River at Mudgee, Lawson encouraged his friends, George and Henry Cox, to also pursue the opportunity represented by the newly discovered grazing lands. With blatant disregard for its existing Indigenous owners, the two parties agreed to divide the district between them with Lawson taking up the land to the north of the river and the Cox’s the land to the south.6 Their arrangements were confirmed by several grants of land made by the governor with William Lawson granted 717 acres and Henry Cox land at ‘Cullenbone’ giving them ownership of the best country around Mudgee.7 This was to later become a source of angst for those wishing to see Mudgee develop, as claiming the almost exclusive ownership of the best land along the Cudgegong River prevented closer settlement around the flourishing village.8 Others to also be granted land in the following years included Lawrence Dulhunty in 1824 who acquired 2000 acres at ‘Putta Bucca’, east of Mudgee on the upper Cudgegong, near today’s Rylstone, Robert Fitzgerald was granted ‘Dabee’ and Edward Cox ‘Rawdon’. Further down river from Mudgee Robert Lowe received ‘Wilbetree’ and his step mother Sarah, ‘Goree’. In the valley of Lawson’s Creek, north east of Mudgee, William Hayes was granted ‘Havilah’ and further upstream James Walker acquired ‘Lue’. The Cox brothers also originally held ‘Guntawang’ before relinquishing it to Richard and Edwin Rouse in the face of bitter opposition from local Indigenous clans.9 While these were the official land grants dividing up the Mudgee valley, there seems little doubt those in possession would’ve also taken advantage of opportunities on surrounding unclaimed land, both licence and unlicensed, with the Coxes subsequently establishing runs throughout the south of the Mudgee district. In this way the land was claimed for the subjects of the Crown and the fate of the local Wiradjuri tribes was sealed. Some had been peaceful and welcoming originally; Lawson’s group in 1822 was entertained at Menah by a large gathering on the night they camped there.10 Relations soon deteriorated, though, as the reality of what it meant began to set in with the original inhabitants suffering the destruction of their people and way of life in the face of overwhelming force. Many runs north of Mudgee in the Coonamble district were taken up in this manner by those already established within the nineteen counties which made up the limits of settlement encircling Sydney. Some of those who held land around both the Mudgee and Coonamble districts in subsequent years included members of the Walker, Blackman, Lawson, Rouse, White, Cox and Lowe families. Their runs were usually managed by overseers and staffed by ticket of leave men with the holders of those far flung runs seldom living on them. William already had a lengthy association with the Cox family, and it may be that early interaction around Mudgee that resulted in him working in the Coonamble district for either the Coxes, or on their recommendation, for someone else. The irony of William gaining his freedom just as transportation ceased was probably not lost on him as the news would’ve travelled quickly along the bush telegraph given the shortage of labour and insatiable demand for men required to look after stock, and construct outbuildings and yards on the licensed runs further out. William was now well-placed to capitalise on the opportunities and set about working in the pastoral industry around the Mudgee district and later in the isolated country along the Castlereagh River to the north. To prevent the newly arrived free emigrant and emancipated convict from spurning the labour market in favour of establishing their own properties on the back of the high wages they were able to command, the government raised the price of land. This cynical move was taken to ensure the wealthy could obtain the labour needed to maintain the colony’s growth and prevent the proliferation of labourers making the move to becoming landed smallholders. Consequently, land previously made available at five shillings an acre was suddenly worth one pound an acre.11 This measure alone might have accounted for the gap of eighteen years before William had freehold title to land of his own at Campbells Creek. A plan of the survey undertaken of the Meroo Creek tributaries in early 1843 shows the catchment of Campbell’s Creek, or Guigong Creek as it was also known, and reveals the limited extent of settlement in the area at the time. The only infrastructure identified on the plan consists of two sets of sheep yards, one at ‘Kellaris’, later held by Timothy Kirwin, and the other on country at the top of the creek which would later be taken up by William Hundy. A track to ‘Suttor’s Sheep station’ and Married Man’s Creek in the vicinity of ‘Warratra’ is the only other note to identify European settlement of the valley.12 The sons of William Cox , George and Henry, had established runs in addition to their early holdings of Guntawang, Burrundulla, and Menah at various locations around the south of the Mudgee district including World’s End (at the bottom of Meroo Creek), Bocoble (near the head of Campbells Creek), and at Cullenbone (south west of Mudgee).13 The sheep yards at the top of Campbells Creek may well have been used to protect sheep overnight on their Bocoble run, or possibly even the Toolamanang run (on the southern boundary of present day Pyramul) held by George Suttor, son of William Suttor of Brucedale. The presence of Cox holdings, and the sheep yards at the same location as the land William was ultimately granted is unlikely to be a coincidence. It’s certainly plausible that William may have been working for the Cox family as a shepherd at the time, looking after their flock grazing the small flats at the head of Campbells Creek and the surrounding gullies and hill sides, or labouring at clearing the surrounding slopes. His obituary pointedly makes reference to him working for the Coxes. The presence of sheep yards there as early as 1843 suggests a permanent flock of sheep, and William’s time as a ‘government man’ would have seen him employed at shepherding at least some of the time, providing him with the skills to find employment once he was free in that hated occupation considered the lowest of jobs on the sheep runs. Given William’s continued association with the area and its relative isolation, it’s also possible William had already taken his first tentative steps toward becoming his own man by squatting on otherwise unsettled land at the very top of Campbells Creek with a view to setting himself up there. In the same year William took the next step on his new life as a free man in a colony when he married Honora McGrath from Nay, Tipperary, in the south of Ireland. Nay is probably the modern day Nenagh in north Tipperary with the rural inhabitants surrounding the town pronouncing it as ‘Nenaye’.14 Honora was born in 1824, most likely in Ballynevin near Waterford, the first child of Patrick and Honora who were nineteen and eighteen respectively at the time. She was the first of six children born between 1824 and 1836 with Michael (1826), Patrick (1828), Thomas, William, and James (aged 10, 8 & 5 at the time of their parents’ emigration), following. The 18th and 19th centuries were times of great unrest in Ireland with emigration soaring as a consequence. Many were uprooted from their homeland by the desire to escape the grinding poverty that had come with English colonisation and re-distribution of estates among the absentee landlords. Raised rents, crop failures and sectarian violence combined to force many to take up the option of emigrating to countries in the New World such as America, Canada and Australia. In 1841, four years before the failure of the potato crop and subsequent years of famine, the McGrath and Hayes families, that would become central to the development of the early Hundy family in Australia, became part of the Irish Diaspora. Patrick and Honora McGrath decided to take advantage of the demand for rural skills in the colony of NSW and applied to be considered as bounty immigrants under the scheme put in place by the government there in 1838 and amended in 1840. The scheme was designed to increase the free labour force in NSW after the loss of free labour previously provided by convicts. Bounties were paid to married couples at thirty-eight pounds, children between ten and fifteen at ten pounds, and single women received between the age of fifteen and thirty received 19 pounds.15 As a farm labourer, Patrick qualified for the scheme, and being a dairy woman Honora was also guaranteed to get employment. Their daughter, also named Honora, was listed as a farmhouse servant which, combined with her age of seventeen, was enough to qualify her on her own right rather than a dependent child of Patrick and Honora. The Bounty Immigrants were sponsored by firms to make the trip across the seas with the requirement they work for their sponsor upon arrival. They would receive their bounty once their qualifications and ‘usefulness’ had been assessed. Patrick managed to scrape together six pounds ten shillings, which was enough to pay for himself, his wife and the three eldest children, but was unable to raise another two pounds and eight shillings to pay for the other three. They were then faced with the heart rending decision to leave the three youngest at home; at the time they were aged just five, eight, and ten. Thomas, William, and James must have subsequently been put into the care of relatives while plans were made to have them join the rest of the family at a later date.16 In 1841 no less than 19,523 men, women, and children arrived in Australian colonies as bounty immigrants with an overwhelming majority, 13,334 of them, leaving Ireland. Those that could read and write (8,643) also outnumbered those that could read only (2,961) and the illiterate (3,178). The scheme was criticised for failing to conduct rigorous enough checks of the immigrants’ qualifications with complaints that many were found upon employment to have little idea of their stated occupations.17 Patrick and Honora, and their three eldest children, were sponsored by the importation and exportation firm of Messrs. Gosling and Brown, and embarked at Liverpool, England on the Joseph Cunard on the 3rd of August 1841. Patrick was thirty-six when he farewelled his troubled home land and his wife thirty-five while the children were seventeen, fifteen, and thirteen. They were sponsored on their trip by Doctor Aspinall Brown Esq.18 Their passage was not without its share of dangers as was highlighted by reports in the local media after their arrival in the colony. The Sydney Gazette reported the passengers arrived in good health; that notwithstanding, two adults and nine children still died en route. In addition to their deaths, a seaman fell to his death from the rigging and drowned when off Cape Howe.19 Indeed, in 1841, there were 630 deaths among those seeking Australia’s shores, or as the Agent for Immigration dryly put it in his report for the year, ‘rather less than 3 in each hundred persons’.20 The reports demonstrate the perils desperate emigrants were willing to face to escape the misery of nineteenth-century Ireland and the United Kingdom to enjoy the prosperity of the southern colonies and is reinforced by the willingness of Patrick and Honora to leave their three youngest children behind. Typical of the time for poor rural labourers in Ireland and England, none of them could write; however, Patrick and Honora, and their daughter, are listed on the ship’s records as being able to read. They belonged to the Roman Catholic Church and were in good health upon arrival. A hastily scribbled note on the bottom of Patrick’s record regarding the children he left behind resonates as a plaintive plea for compassion. The fact he felt compelled to tell his story to a nameless English bureaucrat demonstrates the toll leaving his three children must have taken on him.21 Family folklore has it that Honora walked out to Bathurst with her two children after arrival in the colony; a feat that, despite the best efforts of the government would have been accomplished in the face of great danger given the lawlessness that still existed.22 William’s first wife had no children upon arrival in the colony, so it would follow that the story has lost something in the translation down the years. Like many such stories it’s conceivable that a kernel of truth lies in there somewhere, though, perhaps relating to the later arrival of Honora’s younger brothers William, Thomas, and James. The 1840s were marked by a depressed colonial economy, though, its impacts on both William Hundy and the McGrath family may have been tempered by the continuing demand for their skills in the rural sector. Government monetary policy was being questioned in the face of falling wool prices and a declining revenue base as imports continued to outstrip colonial exports. Relief was eventually found by the discovery in the mid 1840s of another source of colonial income when a market for tallow opened up in England becoming second in importance only to wool which was also increasing in value.23 None of the colony’s difficulties were going to prevent William and Honora from getting married, and after making the trip into Bathurst they were wed in the old Saint Michaels Church on the 19th of February 1843. William was aged around twenty-seven or nine and Honora was eighteen. Neither gave their ages for the register; perhaps, to avoid the need for her father’s consent given she was under twenty-one. William didn’t mark the declaration to state he was a member of the Catholic Church having been baptised in the Church of England. Honora was Catholic and marked the register with an X to attest to the fact also stating she was from ‘Bundowra’. ‘Bundowra’ is presumably a property or now forgotten locality, though, there is a place named Bundoran in Ireland, well north of Tipperary, in County Donegal.24 The witnesses to the wedding were Owen Murnane and Anne Brodigan both of whom were from the Suttor property ‘Brucedale’. Honora’s name is given as Anne McGragh on the register one of many variations of her name to occur throughout her life on the public record. An indication of how they may have met may be gleaned from the witnesses to the wedding. Owen Murnane and Anne Brodigan were both Suttor staff, and the presence of Suttor country at Warrangunyah, Warratra, and Toolamanang (which Murnane later managed) during the 1840s may have provided the opportunity for their paths to cross. The combination of those factors lends weight to the possibility they may have met on one of those properties while Honorah was working for the Suttor household and William shepherding stock on one of the Cox or Suttor runs in the country south of Mudgee. Over the course of their eleven-and-a-half-year marriage, William and Honora had six children together at various locations around the Mudgee district between 1843 and 1855. Their children were Thomas (1843), James (1845), Elizabeth (1847), William, (1850), Michael (1853), and Patrick (1855). James, William, and Patrick ultimately ended up living in and around Coonamble where between them they owned sheep and cattle properties, and businesses, including butcheries and hotels, and whose descendants became the Coonamble chapter of the Hundy family. Just over nine months after they were married, William and Honorah had their first child, Thomas Hundy, on the 29th of November 1843. At the time of his birth, William and Honorah were living at Grattai suggesting that, although he’d gained his freedom from assignment to William Reeves, he may well have returned to work for him as a free man. Thomas became entry 685 on the Bathurst Catholic Register when baptised over twelve months later on the 15th of December 1844; presumably the first opportunity they had to catch up with a Catholic priest who at that time was still based at Bathurst. Witnesses to the baptism include Thomas Yates and Fanny McGrath, the wife of James McGrath, another of the Irish McGraths to emigrate to Australia and settle at the head of Campbells Creek.25 By 1845, the country around Meroo was already opened up for sheep and had not yet been subject to the ravenous appetites of the gold miners that would compete with the established pastoral industry in the following decades for access to land in the pursuit of wealth. An advertisement placed in the Sydney Morning Herald on the 25th of August 1845 for the lease of 983 acres on Meroo Creek describes the buildings, paddocks, and use to which the property was being put. The owner of the property was also making use of the surrounding country probably as a squatting run under licence.26 James Hundy was their second child, born on the 2nd of October 1845, with the family now living at Warratra (at the time pronounced as the Waratah flower) a Suttor property east of Windeyer on the Meroo River. James was baptised just six weeks later as was customary if a priest was available with belief dictating that a baby would not be able to enter heaven if it died unbaptised.27 Infant mortality rates in the nineteenth century being what they were, it wasn’t uncommon for most families to lose at least one child in infancy and consequently baptisms were organised hastily if possible. James’ uncle, Michael McGrath, was one witness to his baptism with the other being Ann McMahon. With two children and a wife, William now had a family to provide for and, despite its reputation as the worst of the work available on the sheep runs, his trade was shepherding, something he’d have learnt whilst a convict, and a trade that during the 1830s and 1840s was in high demand. A shepherd’s wages varied depending on the number of sheep and other shepherds he had to look after, but he could be expected to earn twenty to thirty pounds per annum and up to 100 pounds if a master of other shepherds.28 A shepherd, or ‘hatter’ as they were known (as in mad hatter – an allusion to their stereotypical mental state) could be in charge of a flock ranging in size from 200 to 2,000 sheep, and in the 1840s would work in pairs with one acting as shepherd and the other as watchman. They’d set out in the morning at sunrise from their outstation hut and follow the sheep making sure to keep them on the run and away from other flocks that might introduce the dreaded Scab; a disease with no known cure at the time. At night, it was the duty of the watchman to erect the folds, to pen the sheep, and keep them safe from the ever present dingoes.29 Unlike the archetypal rural occupations of shearing and droving which have traditionally contributed so much to the Australian identity, the shepherds and their critical role in the early days of the colonies pastoral industry seem to have been largely forgotten. There are none of the poems and folk tunes that regale us with the exploits of their higher profile cousins with the later roles of stockman and boundary rider supplanting the job description upon the advent of fencing. Their low modern profile may perhaps be yet another legacy of the convict stain that attached to the ex-convict or ticket of leave man, by whom the job was so often filled, or simply a reflection of the low esteem in which the job was held at the time. The opportunities for working as a shepherd in the Mudgee district during the 1840s were plentiful with the large sheep runs of the Cox, Suttor, and Reeves families in the country south of town dependent on them at a time when fences were non-existent. With the exception of yards at the outstations and main homestead, the majority of sheep runs didn’t see widespread use of fences until the 1860s and 70s resulting in the need for constant supervision of flocks and shepherding consequently being one of the most common rural trades in the first half of the nineteenth century. The presence of the sheep yards at the head of Campbells Creek before 1843, and the typical working arrangements for a shepherd in the 1840s, lends weight to the possibility William was based at Campbells Creek after obtaining his Certificate of Freedom. If William was in fact working for the Coxes at the time he may well have been living at Campbells Creek at the yards; and it’s likely that at that time he may have built himself a hut to accommodate himself after returning with his flock every night. A gully which runs behind the woolshed on John Hundy’s property, ‘Green Hills,’ has always been known locally as McGraths Gully (also Tom McGraths Gully), suggesting the early presence of Honora’s extended family in the area as well. Further evidence for the early and continued presence of the Hundy and McGrath families includes the naming of Hundys Creek and McGrath’s Gully after them. Hundys Creek, a tributary of Campbells Creek feeding in from the south, is noted as such from the earliest parish maps, though spelt Handys Creek, a spelling no doubt affected by William’s strong west country accent. William was thirty-five and Honora was twenty-three when they had their first and only daughter, Elizabeth, on the 27th of December 1847. Her parents had to wait for nearly twelve months before getting the opportunity to have her baptised on the 17th of September 1848. Her sponsors were Michael Hartley and Charlotte Reynard. William’s surname is given as ‘Handey’ on the register and suggests a phonetic attempt at spelling his surname by the parish registrar.30 William and Honora had their next child two and a half years later with the birth of a third son they named William; this was to be the start of a family tradition which has seen the name proliferate and confuse ever since. William was born on the 21st of February 1850 at Cherry Tree Hill suggesting his father may have been performing duties with the Coxes or Reeves at the time such as the driving of bullock wagons. The family was living at Pyramul which was described as ‘Berrimel’ on the baptism register. He was baptised three months later by Father Farrelly on the 23rd of May with Jane Crow acting in the place of her sponsor, Ms. Campbell.32 Significantly William gave his occupation as settler suggesting he had now graduated to the ranks of the ‘Dungaree Settlers’ by acquiring land of his own where he was running some sheep and probably a couple of cattle. The first evidence of formal title to land for William doesn’t occur until 1858, though given the still isolated nature of the district and its sparse pre-gold rush population, it’s possible he was squatting illegally on the large areas of Crown Land in the hills that hadn’t been alienated. The Meroo, Pyramul and Campbells Creek districts were still largely the domain of the leased sheep runs belonging to wealthy absentee landlords who had established their runs in the 1820s and 30s. The population consisted of those living in out stations forming the core of the runs and the shepherds scattered around the country side looking after the increasingly prized flocks of Spanish Merino sheep. The township of Mudgee was growing and about to undergo transformation through the erection of a new generation of public buildings having become an important regional centre supporting the surrounding settlers. The indigenous population had been decimated and the Wiradjuri’s traditional lifestyle destroyed through the impact on their country from the pastoral industry, disease and the massacres conducted by those prosecuting it. Hunting lands had been cleared of habitat and native animals in favour of cloven hoofed sheep and cattle. Small scale cropping was appearing on drained swamps where once the game they had relied upon for thousands of years had been plentiful. Access to what remained and their ancient ceremonial sites was denied by the commercial imperative of European settlers. The landscape was undergoing substantial change, and the creeks and rivers would never run as clear again. The clearing of the catchments that fed them changed a balance that had existed for 10,000 years resulting in erosion of hillsides and the deepening and widening of many streams as erodible soils were washed away. This ironically caused the drying up of catchments as streams, which had been described as consisting of chains of ponds with fringing swamps, became channelised and their floodplains no longer received the benefit of regular flooding. The changes were made irrevocable by the end of the nineteenth century after the introduction of rabbits in the 1870s, and still scar the landscape today. The 1850s brought even more change to the natural and social landscape of the Mudgee district with the discovery of gold and subsequent establishment of gold fields at Louisa Creek, Long Creek, Campbells Creek, and Meroo Creek among others. George Suttor reported in July 1851 that he’d come across gold in numerous locations between Bathurst and Mudgee while exploring the area, and a party including George Cox had then subsequently panned for gold, meeting with success, south of Grattai near Henry Cox’s run at ‘World’s End’.33 The population soon grew as leases were taken up by a mobile population of miners on the move from worked out diggings in pursuit of the elusive prize. Once there, the digging up of the banks of the streams and alluvial plains commenced in earnest in the process turning large areas into moonscapes as mullock heaps, bare earth, tree stumps, and calico tents peppered the landscape. The early diggers at Meroo were described as generally well behaved, if unsettled, owing apparently to the low number of diggers on the fields and their being spoilt for choice. Opportunity was also seized upon by those with more mercantile intentions and it wasn’t long before sly grog shops and uncontrolled gambling proliferated.34 Not only did the population grow but the ethnic groups it consisted of changed as men came from all walks of life to get in on the action. One of the features of the gold rushes in Australia was the presence of the Chinese, or ‘Celestials’, as they were often called at the time. The Chinese were hard workers, often re-working ground given up on by European diggers, leading to resentment and riots at places such as Lambing Flat (Young, NSW) with regulations put in place to restrict their activities.35 The Mudgee goldfields were no different and when land was opened up at Spicer’s Diggings at Meroo some of the diggers included men from Lambing Flat who’d brought their prejudices and hate with them. They soon started agitating against the Chinese and a petition was circulated in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to ban them from obtaining mining leases.36 Violence ensued with an unknown number of Chinese murdered in several violent clashes. Other petitions were also raised by Meroo miners in a bid to generate support for their numbers to be limited. Despite the best efforts of European and Californian miners, by 1861, the Chinese comprised nearly twenty five percent of a population of just over 6,500 people reported in the census return for the Mudgee Police District.37 During the height of the Meroo and Richardsons Point (today known as Windeyer) goldfields’ productivity, William and Honora had another two children, with the births of Michael in 1853 and Patrick in 1855. Michael was born on the 10th of February 1853 and baptised just three weeks later while the family were living at Campbells Creek. One of the sponsors of Michael’s baptism was his uncle Michael McGrath who would later prove to be a less than ideal role model for his young nephew.38 The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River Advertiser, published on the 12th of August 1854, carried a notice from the Government Gazette advising that all unclaimed letters being held at Post Offices across the north of the colony had been returned to the General Post Office in Sydney. Included in the list is a letter for William Hundy that had been sent to the Mudgee Post Office, though, it doesn’t state the sender. The notice would’ve been no help to William who wasn’t able to read anyway and as a consequence the letter probably never reached it’s intended recipient.39 Was the letter the latest news from his family back in Crowle, and if so, was he in fact in regular contact with his family despite the circumstances? Or was it the decision on an application for a grant of land at his chosen location of Campbells Creek? No correspondence survives today that would shed light on the mystery, but it’s certainly possible that despite all that had happened William managed to retain a link with his family in the Old Country. The last of William and Honora’s children, Patrick, was born when they were fort- two and thirty-one respectively. They already had five children Thomas (11), James (9), Elizabeth (7), William (5), and Michael (2) when Patrick was born on the 30th of April while the family was living at Meroo.40 It’s possible William may have been trying his luck at Married Mans Creek on the Meroo goldfields during the height of the rush with a family story claiming that when the family was moving one of the children fell off the back of the cart and was thought to be dead.41 The same area ended up in the hands of one of William’s children in later years when George Hundy selected land next door to his in-laws. Tragedy befell the family when Honora died at the age of only thirty-one on Boxing Day 1855 less than eight months after giving birth to Patrick.42 The cause of her death and whereabouts of her burial remain a mystery with no registration of the event existing on either the public record or church’s registers. Given the difficulties and risks associated with childbirth in the nineteenth century it’s possible Honora never recovered from complications arising from the delivery of Patrick. After her death William was placed in the difficult position of having to manage his young children who ranged in age from just eight months to twelve years, whilst also providing for them. Honora’s three brothers, James, William, and Thomas, were by this time reunited in the colony with their parents, Patrick and Honora, with all of them residing in the Campbells Creek area at various times. Honora’s uncle, also named James McGrath, ultimately owned thirty acres next to William Hundy’s country; her father or brother, both named Patrick, also owning thirty acres at Bumbandry (also Bombandi) just over the ridge to the south43, and at Tonebutta (Tannubutta) near Cudgegong44. Her other brothers, Thomas and William, both bought house blocks on the southern edge of the Village of Cudgegong two years later in 185945. In all likelihood, William relied heavily on the McGraths in the months after Honora’s death. In May of 1856, the respectable of Mudgee and district petitioned the Sydney Morning Herald over charges of assault levelled against one of Mudgee’s most esteemed citizens in Henry Bayly Esq. J.P., who was a Magistrate on the Mudgee Bench. The names of 184 local citizens, including that of William Hundy, were gathered and subscribed as Bayly’s ‘faithful friends and obedient servants’. Given William’s colonial experiences to that time, one can only imagine which of those he felt he belonged to. At any rate the presence of William’s name on the same subscription as that of his former master Michael Lahy, and his later employer George Cox, suggests a continuing association with them as late as 1854.46 Five months later, William re-married just eleven months after the death of his first wife. On the 16th of November 1856 he was married to the thirty-five-year-old Catherine Hayes from Limerick, Ireland who was herself a widow, and still using her married name of Russell.47 Catherine had arrived aboard the ‘Portland’ on the 11th of March 1841, and, like Honora, she was a bounty immigrant. Also on board were Thomas, John, and Patrick Hayes, who may have been her brothers.48 The Portland carried about 310 emigrants and, much to the disgust of the Sydney Herald, most of them were Roman Catholic Irish from the County of Tipperary, ‘the most infamous county in all of Ireland for deeds of violence and blood’.49 John and Thomas were twenty-eight, suggesting they were twins, with both of them described as labourers. Patrick was also described as a labourer and was twenty-six. How much knowledge any of them had of rural skills is unknown; however, being from the city of Limerick they may well have been examples of those who falsified their trade in a bid to get passage out of Ireland. Catherine was just twenty-two when she embarked upon the ‘Portland’ on the 2nd of November 1840 with her occupation described as dairy maid. She was in very good health upon arrival despite diarrhoea having been prevalent on the voyage and resulting in the deaths of ten children. Like her brothers, Catherine was able to both read and write. Their passage had been sponsored by the firm of Gilchrist and Alexander.50 Two years later, Catherine married an Englishmen by the name of Joseph Russell on the 25th of September 1843 at Sidmouth Valley west of Sydney and the Blue Mountains. Though she’d stated she was able to write for the purposes of gaining acceptance as a bounty immigrant, she left her mark with a cross on the marriage register in lieu of a signature as did her new husband. Catherine was living at the nearby O’Connell Plains at the time, and Michael Hayes, most likely a relative, was one of the witnesses to sign the register.51 Joseph had been transported to the colony as a convict after being convicted of house breaking for which he received a sentence of fourteen years transportation. He was transported on the ‘Surrey’, along with another 259 convicts, and arrived in Sydney, after a trip of 132 days, on the 17th of August 1834.52 He had famous company on the trip out with the prisoners known as the ‘Tolpuddle Martyrs’ also on board. They’d been convicted of ‘uttering unlawful oaths’ after attempting to form one of the first agricultural unions to fight for improved conditions and wages.53 Joseph was of average height at five feet five and had brown hair and hazel eyes with a mole above his right cheek bone. Like many of his compatriots, he also carried a couple of tattoos with ‘J. Russell’ and a heart tattooed on his lower right arm. At the time of his imprisonment, he was a single man and was able to read but not write. Joseph would have been in demand by those seeking convicts for assignment given his background in his native Dorsetshire where he had worked as a shepherd.54 Together, Joseph and Catherine had five children three of whom died while still children. Their eldest was Mary, born on the 7th of November 1845 at Castlereagh River, probably on Major (his name, not rank) and James Lowe’s run at ‘Warree’. Joseph had been granted a Ticket of Leave on the 18th of July 1841 by the Mudgee Magistrates Bench allowing him the freedom to work for himself provided he remain in the Mudgee Police District. He was subsequently granted Ticket of Leave Passports on the 7th of January, 1842 and the 25th of February 1843 allowing him to travel to the district of Bligh to work for Major Lowe for periods of twelve months.55,56,57 Mary was baptised at over two years of age in Bathurst on the 14th of December 1847.58 Her brother, Michael Patrick Russell, was born on the 4th of February 1848 while his parents were living back at Sidmouth Valley where Joseph was working as a labourer.59 Joseph and Catherine had another child the following year with the birth of a daughter they named Catherine on the 4th of July 1849 while the family was living at Fish River near O’Connell. As was the case with her older sister, Catherine was nearly two years old when she was baptised in Bathurst on the 10th of March 1851.60 In the meantime Joseph had died from reasons unknown, the only record of his death being Catherine’s statement when she later married William Hundy that she’d been left a widow on the 25th of June 1850. Their daughter Catherine had also died by the time of her mother’s second marriage. The marriage register also reveals Catherine and Joseph had lost another two children probably born before Mary their eldest surviving child.61 William was forty when he married Catherine and had been in the colony for just over twenty-three years; sixteen of those years as a free man. When he married Catherine, he was working as a labourer, and whilst on the register he states his abode as being Mudgee, he was probably using it in the generic sense and was in fact living near Mudgee, as at no other time is he described as living in town. Catherine was probably doing the same when she stated her residence as Bathurst. They went on to have another four children bringing the total number of children between them to nineteen; five of whom died before adulthood.62 In the same year as William married Catherine a curious entry on the electoral role for the Electoral District of Kilmore appears. In 1856, Kilmore was a small rural town on the road between Sydney and Melbourne, about sixty kilometres north of Melbourne, in the newly declared Colony of Victoria. An area of land which would become the parish of Willowmavin had been purchased and subdivided by survey some years before by William Rutledge as a speculative venture. Early on, the plan suffered due to the depression of the 1840s and some of the land was sold off to other developers who continued the process which ultimately formed the township of Kilmore. The venture was popular with speculators from within both the new colony and in NSW. One such speculator appears to have been William Hundy who appears on the electoral role by virtue of his holding freehold land at Willowmavin whilst residing in NSW. Many of the names appearing on the 1856 electoral role for Kilmore belonged to the speculators, many of whom never lived on their purchased land, or indeed even went anywhere near the place.63 The entry is most likely to be the same William Hundy the subject of this book as there are no other accounts of another William Hundy residing in the Colony of NSW at that time. Conversely there is no reason to suggest William was ever in Victoria, or indeed, held any sort of tenuous link to the area through his previous associations with the likes of the Coxes. Perhaps he had managed to come into some money either through his hard work since gaining his freedom, or through a find on the Meroo Goldfields while living at Married Man’s Creek and had invested it at the advice of a friend he’d met who may have come from the Victorian Goldfields to try his luck at Meroo. The other, and most likely explanation, is that he travelled seasonally to the Victorian goldfields, as many of the gold rush era diggers did from the Meroo and took the opportunity to invest his earnings with an eye to the future. Whatever the case, it’s clear William was living at Campbells Creek by this stage and, on the 1st of October 1857, William and Catherine had their first child together with the birth of George Hundy at their home. There were no witnesses to the birth suggesting Catherine had to do it all on her own without the assistance of a midwife, and William informed the registrar in Mudgee nearly a month later leaving his mark with a cross. William grandly declared himself to be a Squatter on the register, which technically he was, as he still held no title over the land he was living on at Campbells Creek, though, he may have obtained a licence to run stock in the area.64 On obtaining a ticket of leave all convicts were entitled to a grant of land and could also purchase additional land if they had the capital; however, the evidence points to William not obtaining title to land prior to 1858.65 Eighteen years after gaining his freedom, William took advantage of an opportunity which presented itself when two country lots were offered for sale at the head of Campbells Creek in September 1857. Lots 44 and 45, both thirty acres in area, were auctioned at the Crown Lands Office on Wednesday 28th of October at eleven o’clock with a reserve set at one pound per acre.66 Whether William engaged an agent to bid on his behalf or whether he made the trip to Bathurst is not known; however, on the 8th of April 1858 he was successful in being granted a total of sixty acres in two thirty acre portions at the head of Campbells Creek.67 The two portions appear in subsequent parish maps as being held by Thomas Hundy and James McGrath which was possibly a tactic adopted to enable him to apply for the conditional purchase of more land upon the advent of the Robertson Land Acts in 1861. Another of the McGraths, Patrick McGrath, also obtained thirty acres around the same time on land just to the south east of William’s at Bombandi Creek and near Cudgegong where he’d been granted 51 acres on the 7th of July 1858. The land purchases demonstrate the continuing close links between William and his first wife’s family and suggest a close-knit clan of McGraths, Hundys, and Russells at the top of Campbells Creek, Aarons Pass, Green Gully, and Cudgegong. The ownership of land provided William with a status he could never have achieved otherwise. Aside from the obvious practical advantages of having his own country on which to build a house and earn a living, his new-found respectability meant he was also eligible to vote. He had the opportunity to expand on his holdings to provide a future for his family and provide a level of security he had never before been afforded as a member of the landless labouring classes. Over the next forty years, his achievement allowed his sons to establish a series of family properties creating an enduring link between the Hundy name and Campbells Creek.