Oct, Nov, Dec 2000 BRANCH of CLAN LESLIE SOCIETY
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DOWN UNDER THE NEWSHEET OF THE AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND Vol 1, No 8, Oct, Nov, Dec 2000 BRANCH OF CLAN LESLIE SOCIETY PATRICK LESLIE, OF THE Patrick and Kate had returned to Britain in DARLING DOWNS. PT 3. 1854 to wind up his affairs. In 1857 Patrick sold Goomburra to Robert and After George sold Canning Downs he Frederick Tooth, [who amongst other returned to Scotland, leaving Patrick at interests, were brewers] for an excellent Goomburra Station, which George and price of Forty Thousand Pounds. There st Walter had bought for Patrick on the 1 was a disagreement with the purchasers Feb 1848 for 1200 Pounds, but as Patrick over the value of the property, and finally could not hold any assets in his name, they in February 1860, Tooths were ordered to purchased it in their names. Patrick later pay the sum of Thirty four thousand purchased Gladfield Station, which was Pounds for Goomburra. next to Goomburra Station. 1848 was also In April 1858 Patrick and his family left the year in which Kates father Hannibal for Britain and toured through France and Hawkins Macarthur was declared Italy. Their son William Norman enrolled bankrupt, as he was the President of The at Sunbury Military College, which was Bank of Australia and also a personal the start of much heartache that he was to guarantor of the Bank, and he and his wife bring to his parents. went to live on the Darling Downs. THE NEW ZEALAND STORY. On the 3rd July 1868, Patrick, Kate, and their children, Emma, William Norman, Leonard, Ethel and Mabel sailed from Gravesend on the Shaw Saville and Albion ship “Siam”. They arrived in Auckland New Zealand th Goomburra Homestead about 1851 on the 12 October 1868, and rented a house in Symonds Street, near Government Patrick prospered at Goomburra and was House. They were frequent visitors to a leader in the struggle to separate, what is Government House, where the Governor now Queensland from New South Wales. was Sir George Bowen, who had been the In 1850 transportation of convicts had First Governor of Queensland, after stopped and there was a great shortage of separation from New South Wales. labour. Meanwhile George had become a There had been much resentment among member of The Legislative Council of the Maori people, at the settlement of NSW, and was attempting to get the white people on their lands, and there had transportation of convicts resumed. already been a conflict, which had settled Patrick also became a member of the down, but was now rebuilding. Legislative Council of NSW and A new war broke out in 1868 over continued the fight to get the resumption of lands, this was mainly centred in the transportation of convicts to provide labour Waikato, Taranaki and The Bay of Plenty for the squatters. and continued until 1870 with the pursuit Separation of Queensland from New and defeat of Te Kooti, in the Rotorua South Wales finally happened in 1859, but district. [2] It was in this climate that Patrick 3rd Waikato Regiment, and as an Assistant bought several parcels of land in 1869, in Surgeon in the 3rd Armed Constabulary the area south of Hamilton. Over the next Division. He visited “Wartle “ on several four years, he bought more land, and occasions and commented on how much received several grants of land, but it was Patrick had achieved in such a short time. on the 5th November 1869, that he bought He and Patrick were related through the the land that was to become “Wartle”. Leslie’s of Warthill, the Outram’s of This land was several miles south of Derbyshire and the Setons of Pitmeddan. Hamilton, on the way to Cambridge. Although my Great Grandfather was a medical Doctor, with a practice in Rotorua, I think that his visits were family visits. Patrick put “Wartle” up for sale in 1880, and some of the land was not sold until 1885. During these years, Patrick’s son, William Norman had been the cause of much trouble for his father, borrowing money and selling shares that he did not own. William Norman was born at “Wartle”, Homestead in 1881 Vineyard in Sydney, the home of his Patrick took possession of “Wartle” on maternal Grandfather, Hannibal Hawkins the 21st May 1870, and with other lands Macarthur. In 1860 when he was admitted that he had bought, now had 1544 acres. to Sunbury Military College, he studied Patrick now had to convert rough land into well and passed his exams with good a productive farm. marks. He was offered a position with the Kate would have been in her element, 53rd Regiment as an Ensign, at a cost of and she had many trees and other plants Four Hundred and Fifty Pounds. He joined sent over from Australia. The grounds various Regiments, until in 1864, he met were very extensive, with many large trees the daughter of family friends, Emma and shrubs. The land was divided into Lacon Harvey. William Norman proposed twenty eight paddocks, and as there was no to Emma, and finally she accepted, and shortage of water, the grass and orchards they were married on the 14th December grew very quickly and provided vegetables 1864, at St Peters Church, Eaton Square and hay for the farm. London. William Norman had become a Patrick’s health was now beginning to very handsome young man, but was also a suffer from all the hard work, and coupled gambler, drinker and philanderer. Finally with the privations suffered, when he was in 1867, he was declared bankrupt, and on the Darling Downs, he was now starting Patrick had to meet William Norman’s to think of retirement. debts. Patrick decided that he had no other My Great Grandfather, Doctor course, than to take his family to New Alexander James Leslie, had been granted Zealand, as he could no longer afford to fifty acres of land at Taupiri on the keep on paying for William Norman’s Mangapiko Stream, which is just north of scandals. Hamilton, close to where Patrick also had William Norman carried on his land. He also had been given a grant of one scandalous ways in New Zealand, and acre in the township of Cambridge, almost finally on the 3rd May 1876, William on the corner of what is now Grey Street Norman died at “Wartle”. His death and William Street, for his service in the certificate states that the cause of death [3] was a “Disease of the Brain – Cerebral I would like to thank Jillian Burcher of Paralysis”. He was buried in the Hamilton Auckland New Zealand, for the extra East Cemetery. After William Norman’s material, to enable the telling of this story. death, Emma Lacon and her children Barrie Leslie. Gordon. NSW. returned to England, and stayed with her parents in Bath. R.M.S. TITANIC. Patrick and Kate left Hamilton in April 1881, to return to Sydney, where they lived This morning my family and I visited the in a stone house called “Wrentmore” at annual Melbourne Fishing and Boating Milson’s Point on Sydney’s North Shore. Show. My main interest [apart from sitting th On the 12 September 1881, Patrick died around in very expensive boats, which I and was buried at St Thomas’s Anglican would never be able to afford] was to look Church, West Street Crows Nest Sydney. through a ‘Titanic’ exhibition on display. Kate died at William Street Double Bay Part of said display was an old scrapbook th Sydney, on the 11 April 1894, and was with letters and newspaper articles, one of buried in the same grave as her husband, which caught my eye, was as follows: - Patrick. 23rd May 1926. Dundee Evening Telegraph. “An interesting memory of the Titanic disaster is realised by the engagement, just announced between Lord Leslie, eldest son of the Earl of Rothes, and Miss Beryl Dugdale of Crathorne Hall Yorkshire. The Bridegroom elect’s mother, Lady Rothes, was a passenger on the ill-fated vessel, and one of the heroines of the disaster and won by her bravery, a sudden fame which she consistently shunned. Patrick and Kate’s Gravestone at St Thomas’s Cemetery. There are many survivors who can never forget her behaviour in the face of great In the 1950s the Warringah Expressway peril, when she helped for hours on end to was built through the St Thomas’s row their boat to safety and were inspired Cemetery and the graves were moved to a by her calm courage and cheerfulness”. central position, and the cemetery was made into the West Street Rest Park. Apparently the Countess of Rothes sent In 1975, The Warwick Historical Fifty Pounds to Able Seaman T Jones. He Society attached a brass plaque to Patrick’s replied with an appropriate letter of grave, with the following wording. grateful thanks, and they remained friends “This plaque is dedicated to the memory of till his death in the Seaman’s House Patrick Leslie. The First Settler on the Southampton. Darling Downs Queensland [then part of New South Wales] He established Lea Hess. Sunbury Victoria Toolburra Station near Warwick 1840. Warwick Historical Society 1975. [4] POSTSCRIPT TO THE ANOTHER SUCCESS ABOVE I have just managed to link one of our Able Seaman T Jones, who was the members, Peter Allan Leslie of NSW, only crew member in the life boat, on that with one of our newest members, Lea sad day, 15th April 1912, made a plaque Hess of Victoria. Their Grandfathers were h incorporating the actual number 8 from the James Leslie born 26t June 1860, and th life boat, and presented it to The Countess Alexander Fullerton Grant Leslie, born 27 of Rothes, whose hair was said to have Jan 1865, being brothers, both born in turned white, overnight.