The Scott Family
by C. E. Smith – 14 March 1967
[Charles Smith was the manager of the Newcastle Region Public Library and was instrumental in the building of that library’s Local History Collection.]
The story of the Scott family, who played an important part in the early development of Newcastle and the Hunter Valley, begins in India with a medical practitioner, Dr Helenus Scott. Dr Scott was President of the Medical Board and Assay Master in Bombay. The son of a Scottish minister, the Reverend David Scott, D.D., he distinguished himself by scientific research and writing. His research was in the field of chemistry, and his writings were varied. He wrote a pamphlet about the use of nitric acid in gunpowder, another pamphlet On the Arts of India, and a romance entitled The Adventures of a Rupee. As a friend and pupil of Dr Jenner he introduced vaccination into India.
While in India, Dr Scott married the daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Frederick, Augusta Maria. This marriage proved to be of consequence to our local history, partly because of the family that ensued, and partly because of the wealth that accrued to the family from the mother. There were several sons and one daughter from the marriage of Dr Scott and Augusta Maria Frederick. The sons, Robert, Helenus, Alexander Walker. Patrick and David Charles Frederick, all became associated with the Hunter Valley, and the daughter, Augusta Maria, married Dr James Mitchell who had extensive interests in the area. Wealth in the Frederick family was apparently inherited from Sir John Frederick who was Sheriff of the City of London in 1655 and Lord Mayor in 1662. He is described as ‘a merchant of great opulence’. Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick, the father of Mrs Scott, was his great-grandson. The importance of the inheritance was implied in a case heard before the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Cause, London, in 1874, to establish the validity of the marriage between Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick and Martha Rigden at the time they went to India in 1773. Fortunately for their eight children and heirs the marriage was proved.
A sister of Mrs Scott [Lucy] married Sir William Young, (first baronet and East India Co. director) and their son, Sir John Young, [Baron Lisgar] became Governor of New South Wales in 1861, the year after Mrs Scott’s granddaughter, Augusta Maria Mitchell, married E. C. [Edward Christopher] Merewether. Dr Scott returned from India to England and established a successful medical practice at Bath. However, his health began to fail and he was persuaded, allegedly by Sir Joseph Banks, to migrate to Australia. Taking his sons Robert and Helenus with him, he chartered the ship Britomart and sailed for Sydney late in 1821. He died on the way and was buried in Capetown. Robert and Helenus completed the voyage and arrived in Sydney in 1822. Soon after they were granted 4,150 acres of land on the banks of Glendon Creek, a tributary of the Hunter River near Singleton. They combined and managed their grants as one under the name of Glendon Station. The Macarthurs at Camden gave them some advice on settling in a new land and maintained a friendship with them, even sending them some corn seed via a mutual friend, Dr Mitchell. The partnership prospered and the two brothers added considerably to their land holdings with purchases between Maitland and Singleton, and along the Munmurra Creek, a tributary of the Goulburn River near Cassilis. Their station at Cassilis was named Dalkeith. In addition, they leased a 32,000 acre run, Murkdool, and 64,000 acre run, Cryon, on the Liverpool Plains.
Glendon became a centre of social life in the Hunter Valley. Robert and Helenus Scott were known as men of means and they earned respect and renown for themselves by importing thoroughbred horses and cattle as well as plants and seeds. Their horse Dover was quite famous and they were connected with events such as the running of the Hunter River Sweepstakes. Scott’s Flat, near Glendon, was named after the two brothers. Both became Justices of the Peace and Robert at one stage was Chairman of the Patrick’s Plains Association for the Protection of Live Stock. When the first District Council was appointed at Patrick’s Plains in 1843 Helenus became Warden and Robert a Councillor. Helenus was also Commissioner of the Court of Request for the Police District of Patrick’s Plains. In his capacity of Warden, Helenus had the honour and privilege of welcoming and escorting Governor Gipps on his tour of the district in 1844. A young man in the party was the Governor’s Aide-de-Camp, E.C. Merewether. Ludwig Leichhardt the explorer stayed at Glendon, as well as with A. W. Scott in Newcastle, before setting off from Glendon in 1842 on his expedition to the Darling Downs.
Some idea of the industry at Glendon, and of the problems of pioneering, comes from the trades of convicts assigned to the Scotts. Apart from building tradesmen there were quarrymen, shepherds, warehousemen, butchers, tobacco manufacturers, and millers. Tobacco growing was an early industry of the Hunter Valley. There were men to make bricks, baskets, clothes, shoes, nails, harness, bread, flour, ropes and fishhooks. Other men were weavers, tanners, curriers, upholsterers, blacksmiths, miners, gunsmiths, leather dressers, grooms, gardeners and coachmen, and there were even a sweep and a stationer. A subsidiary business, the Glendon Steaming Down Establishment, was sold in 1845. One of the anecdotes told about the brothers, to indicate their resourcefulness and superior horsemanship, concerns their capture of the Steel gang of bushrangers. With the aid of a party they captured the gang and handed them over to the Buffs who were then stationed in the district. The gang escaped from the regiment and Scotts recaptured them. Grateful neighbours presented the Scotts with a silver service in appreciation.
Robert died a bachelor in 1844. Helenus married Sarah Ann (Saranna) Rusden, the daughter of the Anglican priest in Maitland, the Reverend George Keylock Rusden, and had a large family. Disaster struck Helenus Scott in 1848 when he was declared bankrupt following the depression of the early 1840’s and the failure of the Bank of Australia. It is said that the bankruptcy could have been averted but for the hasty action of the government valuer. In any case Helenus lost most of his property. The auction sale ordered by the receiver included at Glendon alone 600 cattle, 50 pure bred Durham cattle, four teams of working bullocks, After his bankruptcy Helenus Scott undertook Government posts. Firstly he was appointed as Collector of Royalty in the goldmining district of Louisa Creek; between Orange, Bathurst and Mudgee. There he was appointed also as a Magistrate of the Territory. From Louisa Creek he went to Carcoar, near Blayney, as Police Magistrate and Coroner. Within three years of his first move he was back in this district as Police Magistrate at Wollombi. There he was given additional duties as Commissioner of Crown Lands for Wollombi and Macdonald River, Police Magistrate for the Macdonald River district, and Justice of the Peace.
Disaster struck Helenus Scott in 1848 when he was declared bankrupt following the depression of the early 1840’s and the failure of the Bank of Australia. It is said that the bankruptcy could have been averted but for the hasty action of the government valuer. In any case Helenus lost most of his property. The auction sale ordered by the receiver included at Glendon a1one 600 cattle, 50 pure bred Durham cattle, four teams of working bullocks, After his bankruptcy Helenus Scott undertook Government posts. Firstly he was appointed as Collector of Royalty in the goldmining district of Louisa Creek, between Orange, Bathurst and Mudgee. There he was appointed also as a Magistrate of the Territory. From Louisa Creek he went to Carcoar, near Blayney, as Police Magistrate and Coroner. Within three years of his first move he was back in this district as Police Magistrate at Wollombi. There he was given additional duties as Commissioner of Crown Lands for Wollombi and Macdonald River, Police Magistrate for the Macdonald River district, and Justice of the Peace.
From Wollombi he came to Newcastle in 1857 as Police Magistrate, a position he held until his death in 1879. A highly respected citizen, he took an active part in civic affairs, including the support of Christ Church. Probably, however, it was as the father of celebrated Rose Scott that he is best known. When Dr Helenus Scott sailed from England for Australia in 1821 with his sons Robert and Helenus he left his wife and other children behind, possibly because the younger children were still at school. Mrs Augusta Maria Scott, with her daughter Augusta Maria, reached Sydney on board the Australia in 1831. She then bought a house in fashionable Cumberland Street in The Rocks area. The house, Cumberland Place, had been built in 1823 by Robert Campbell. Prior to Mrs Scott’s occupation of it, Bishop Broughton had leased it from Campbell. The Bishop moved to another house not far away. That Mrs Scott could afford to live in style in the two-storeyed house is revealed by the assignment to her of convicts as coachman, groom, gardener, and footman. Governor Gipps later informed Lord Stanley that she was one of the shareholders in the Bank of Australia at the time of the bank’s insolvency.
Two years after their arrival the daughter married Dr James Mitchell. The wedding was held in St James Church with the then Archdeacon Broughton officiating. Mrs Scott and her sons, Robert, Helenus and Alexander Walker were amongst the witnesses. At first the Mitchells lived in quarters at the Rum Hospital where Dr Mitchell worked, but after his dismissal in 1837 they moved with their two children Augusta Maria and David Scott into Cumberland Place with Mrs Scott. Their third child Margaret Scott was born there. Dr Mitchell developed a private medical practice in the house, and the house is best known for being the home of David Scott Mitchell for many years until he moved to Darlinghurst. Influential friends and neighbours of Mrs Scott and the Mitchells were Bishop Broughton, Mr Justice Burton, and Conrad Martens. Another neighbour for a time was F.L.S. Merewether whose young cousin Edward was later to marry Auqusta, the elder Mitchell daughter. While Helenus Scott tends to be remembered because he was the father of Rose Scott, Alexander Walker, the second son of Dr and Mrs Scott became famous in his own right as an entomologist, author, and a member of Parliament. From the local point of view he is best remembered as a landowner, pioneer settler and industrialist. A. W. Scott was born in Bombay in 1800 and educated at Bath Grammar School before graduating as M.A. from Cambridge University. He visited Australia first in 1827 and returned to settle two years later. The site he chose was Newcastle where he initially purchased 2,560 acres on Ash Island. With the aid of convict labour he developed the island as a farm, and the oranges he grew there were renowned throughout the Colony. He also supplied goods to the Commissariat.
His home, named Newcastle House, was situated where the Customs House is now. Scott Street, when it was formed some years after he had left there to live on Ash Island, was named after him. [Newcastle House, since demolished, was on the corner of the now Scott and Pacific Streets. It was used for some time as the Newcastle Customs House until the new one was built opposite the Newcastle Railway Station.] Amongst his many land purchases was one of fifty acres at Stockton. There, and at Moscheto Island, he established salt works to supply a ready market in Sydney. The method he used was simple, by evaporation of seawater in large tanks. He also established an iron foundry at Stockton in 1840. Governor Gipps inspected the salt works, foundry and Fisher and Donaldson’s tweed factory on his tour in 1844. Stockton at this time was the industrial part of the Newcastle district. In addition to these industries, a patent slip was operated there by Scott. Other of Scott’s landholdings were at Hexham, Merewether, Teralba, and Sugarloaf, as well as several town lots in Newcastle. Unfortunately for him, he lost most of his land when the Bank of Australia failed during the depression of the 1840’s. Dr Mitchell, his brother-in-law, acquired them, despite the doctor’s own and similar financial difficulties. Scott’s Beach, later renamed Dixon Park Beach, and Scott’s Hill next to the beach, were named after him.
An enterprising and resourceful man, A.W. Scott pioneered the manufacture of tobacco at West Maitland, won a medal for growing flax, and devised a scheme for constructing a railway between Newcastle and Maitland. He had the route surveyed at his own expense, and drew up the plans, only to meet with disappointment when Governor Gipps said that the Colony did not have sufficient funds to finance such a project. Apparently the scheme was dear to his heart, for a few years later he advocated a tramway from Newcastle to Singleton, then became a shareholder in the Hunter Valley Railway Company which began to construct a railway between Newcastle and East Maitland. The Government took over the Company in 1855, and so the district had this railway link long before there was a railway connecting Newcastle with Sydney. Scott was a joint owner of the ship Ceres that plied between Newcastle and Sydney. He was also active in civic affairs. A few years after his arrival he was appointed as a J.P., and when the District Council for Newcastle was first appointed in 1843 he became Warden. The latter position he resigned the next year, to be succeeded by [Major] James Henry Crummer. He was a Trustee of the Church of England School at Hexham from 1849, a Trustee Christ Church, and one of the first Trustees of The Glebe. Another position he held was that of Magistrate.
In the first representative Legislative Assembly he was a member for Northumberland and Hunter, and later represented the electorates of Northumberland and Lower Hunter until he resigned in 1861 to become a member of the Legislative Council. In successive years he was an M.L.A. for five years and an M.L.C. for another five years. In addition, he was a Trustee of the Australian Museum for seventeen years, until he retired because of ill health, and President of the Entomological Society which he had helped to found. Despite this busy life, he still found time to practise as an entomologist. No doubt it was largely this interest that prompted him to invite to Newcastle the German botanist and entomologist Ludwig Leichhardt. He sometimes accompanied Leichhardt on hls rambles around the district, and was responsible for sending the latter to visit his brothers at Glendon, from where Leichhardt started out on one of his scientific expeditions that is best known as a journey of exploration. Scott wrote more than 140 articles on entomology. His favourite subject was butterflies. One of his books, Mammalia, Recent and Extinct, was acquired by the Newcastle Public Library when it took over the old Newcastle School of Arts a few years ago. In 1865 Scott sold the Ash Island Estate and ‘retired’ to live in Sydney. The following year he was appointed as a Lands Title Commissioner. He died at Double Bay in 1883.
His two daughters, Mrs Harriett Morgan and Mrs Helena Forde, achieved minor fame as artists. Mrs Forde’s paintings of native plants have been a valuable contribution to botany in Australia. Another of the family who was to make a name for himself in the Hunter Valley was David Charles Frederick Scott, who arrived in 1834 already distinguished with the army rank of captain. It is believed that he began his military career as a cadet at Woolwich and was stationed at one stage on the island of St Helena while Napoleon was imprisoned there. Certainly he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the East India Company in 1824, because the formal document of commission is held in the Newcastle Public Library. This document, signed by General Sir Edward Paget, is the earliest record in the Merewether Estate archives. Captain D.C.F. Scott finished his military career ir:, the Bombay Light Cavalry. His army experience in India is believed to have assisted the development of a new Australian export to India, that of horses. Australian bred horses, known as walers after the name of the Colony of New South Wales, were used in India as cavalry remounts. The trade continued for a century. As Scott settled in the Muswellbrook area when he came to Australia, it is reasonable to suppose that he engaged in horsebreeding with an eye to the Indian market. It is also likely that his brothers at Glendon, Robert and Helenus, as horsebreeders were engaged in the same trade.
Captain Scott settled at Bengalla, Muswellbrook, when he acquired the 2,560 acre grant from Samuel Wright in 1835. Within the next few years he increased his landholdings by purchasing 1,280 acres in the County of Durham, 1,280 acres in the County of Brisbane, 5, 120 acres on the western side of Lake Macquarie, and 5, 120 in the vicinity of Wybong. The issue of a pasturage licence indicates that he had property in New England also. Apart from his land purchases there are indications that he was wealthy. In 1839, for instance, when official policy was to restrict the assignment of convicts to private persons, he received at Bengalla in one assignment twenty six convicts. That implies that he had influence plus the means to care for so many. Photographs of his home at Bengalla show that it was large and well appointed. He, too, was appointed as a Justice of the Peace. When the District Council for Merton and Muswellbrook was first appointed in 1843 he became a Councillor. In the next year he became Commissioner of the Court of Requests for the District of Muswellbrook, and a little later a Commissioner to hear disputed claims to leases beyond the settled districts. By 1850 his interests appear to have gone further afield. He had by then purchases numerous town lots at Longbottom (Burwood, Sydney) and one lot, curiously enough, in Mudgee. In the early 1850’s he was appointed, in quick succession, as a Magistrate of the City of Sydney, Provincial Inspector of Police for the County of Cumberland and neighbouring districts, Inspector of Distilleries, Surveyor of Roads for the Western Road from Parramatta to Bathurst, and Police Magistrate of the City of Sydney. In the midst of this astonishing display of versatility he leased a 48,000 acre run, Waar Waar, on the Clarence River.
It was as Police Magistrate in Sydney that he became best known. He held this position for many years and consequently commanded respect. In 1869, for instance, his evidence of behalf of the Mitchell family in the Great Will Case was valued because of his position in the community. D.C.F. Scott married Maria Jane Barney, the daughter of Colonel Barney, Colonial Engineer. They had one daughter, Henrietta. The last of the Scott brothers to be associated with the Hunter Valley was Patrick. He did not arrive in Australia until 1844. The records of the Australian Club show that in that year Robert Scott and Alexander Macleay proposed and seconded Patrick Scott of the Bombay Civil Service for honorary membership. There was little doubt about the outcome of the election as all his brothers were members, his brother-in-law Dr Mitchell was on the committee, and family friends in the Club included the Macarthurs, Dr Bowman, Conrad Martens, and F.L.S. Merewether. Patrick’s career before he came to Australia is not fully known. It is quite possible that he was the brother who served for some years as a tea taster in China. On arrival in Australia Patrick Scott took up residence at West Maitland. He leased 3,040 acres in Norwood Parish, County of Durham, and 4, 160 acres in Stanhope Parish, Durham, and owned some land of his own, but his property has not yet been traced. In his declining years he relied on his nephew Robert, son of Helenus, to help him manage his affairs, and Robert was a beneficiary under his will although Patrick had three children of his own.
Rose Scott was born on Glendon in 1847, the daughter of Helenus Scott and his wife Saranna, nee Rusden. She achieved fame as a social worker in the interest of women and children. The first few years of her life were spent at Glendon, and from 1857 when her father was appointed as Police Magistrate at Newcastle until 1879 when he died she lived at the Barracks in Newcastle. She and her mother then moved to a house in Woollahra. Of local interest is the fact that she was on friendly terms with her cousins the Merewethers and exchanged frequent visits with them while she and they lived in Newcastle, and afterwards when they all lived in Sydney. She often visited her sister Millie, the wife of Canon Bowyer Shaw, at Singleton, and her aunt Rose, the wife of Dean Selwyn, in Newcastle. She was a close friend of David Scott Mitchell, who founded the Mitchell Library, but declined to marry him because they were first cousins. She died a spinster.
Her membership of the Women’s Literary Society in Sydney helped to inspire her as a suffragette and she became corresponding secretary of the Womanhood Suffrage League when it was formed. The League finally succeeded in winning for women the right to vote. With this mission accomplished, the League reformed as the Women’s Political Educational League, of which Rose was President, and worked for another eight years in teaching women to exercise their new tight properly. For twenty six years she was international secretary of the National Council of Women of N.S.W .. On her retirement from this position, in 1921, four years before her death, she received a cash presentation which she utilized in establishing a prize for women students at the University of Sydney. She worked untiringly for many years in the interest of children, and influenced the passage of many laws affecting them. She was also President of the London Peace Society in N.S.W. for many years. Her influence in achieving social reforms was exercised by the conventional means of correspondence, delegations, and meetings, and by the effect of her personality in conversation. A forceful speaker and keen debater, she attracted important people to her home where there were always hospitality and intellectual discussion on social issues. Conscription and Federation were but two of the subjects on which she held strong views, both in opposition. This is only a brief outline of her life and work, for the reason that much has been written about her and little about her family, and the intention of this series has been to show the family as important pioneers of Newcastle and the Hunter Valley.