A.W. SCOTT
ALEXANDER WALKER SCOTT, BA, MA, MLA, MLC (1800–1883) by Cherylanne Bailey
NEWCASTLE’S EARLY MANUFACTURING PIONEER TITANS.
Alexander Walter Scott’s impressive land grants on Ash Island, Stockton and the coastal grant of 456 acres between the harbour and Merewether, together with the large footprint he left on early Newcastle’s industrial development, have ensured that history books continue to record him as an early Newcastle mover and shaker.Alexander came from a large wealthy family whose fortunes brought to the colony were increased by early large land grants.
THE SCOTT STORY
Alexander’s father, Dr Helenus Scott,married Augusta Maria Frederick, his parents spending many years in Bombay, India, where Dr Scott, as a distinguished physician and botanist, was a member of the East India Company. Their children were Robert (1789-1844], Helenus [1802-1879), Alexander Walter [1800-1883], Captain David Charles Frederick [1804-1881], Patrick [-1887] and daughter Augusta Maria [1798-1871]. After 30 years in India, where his children spent their childhood in Bombay,he returned to England in 1809 with his family, developing a successful medical practice at Bath, however with health failing and persuaded to travel to Australia for a period of 3 – 4 years to recuperate his life was unexpectedly cut short on the voyage, leaving the family floundering.
Dr Helenus Scott chartered the Britomart and in late 1821 they set sail for Sydney. Fate however intervened and Helenus died on the voyage and was buried at Capetown in November 1821. His two sonsHelenus and Robert continued the journey to New South Wales, arriving here in early 1822. Helenus’ wife Augusta, their daughter Augusta and their third son Alexander Walker Scott returned to England where Alexander continued his legal studies in London.
Brothers Helenus and Robert applied for and each received land grants in the Hunter Valley totalling 4,150 acres on the banks of Glendon Creek, a tributary of the Hunter River near Singleton. Adding to the grant they purchased additional land which extended their property to 10,000 acres. They settled calling it “Glendon”, known today as being on Scott’s Flat outside Singleton, and developed one of the first cattle, sheep and thoroughbred horse studs in the Hunter Valley, purchasing sheep from John Macarthur and importing horses and cattle from overseas.Macarthur also provided them with seed corn and advice which assisted in their continued success at “Glendon” as well as other properties they had acquired on the Liverpool Plains – “Crayon Station” 64,000 acres, “Dalkeith” at Cassilis and “Murkadool” 32,000 acres.
Both brothers quickly become wealthy, respected and influential movers and shakers in government posts and both became Justices of the Peace As resourceful, enterprising, civic-minded and important pioneers in the establishment of the Hunter Valley, the footprint they left on the early colony is large by any measure. The reputation for their methods and their achievements leaves them recognised as founders of the Hunter Valley horse studs. Robert meticulously kept a stud book, used by breeders and purchasers of the day, which is still referenced. Quoting author Keith Robert Binney “The Glendon Stud grew rapidly and by 1833 boasted a stock of some 300 blood horses.”¹ Their lasting legacy includes the fact that today the pedigrees of many current Australian horses can be traced back to the “Glendon” stud.
Robert enjoyed an affluent lifestyle, was appointed a Magistrate in 1824 and is recorded as performing well in this role, despite being removed by Governor Gipps in 1838 for his injudicious defence of those men involved in the Myall Creek massacre. Whilst records reflect that his work on the Bench was admired, including time spent tracking and capturing bushrangers, on the other hand there are also accounts which paint a picture of a man harsh towards his convicts and who often sought the removal of indigenous persons from their traditional hunting grounds. It is noted for a time he was chairman of the Patrick Plains Association for the Protection of Livestock.
An extract from Welcome to Ash Island-The Volunteer Workshop-6 April 2011 provides an account of Robert, expressed in the opinion of his brother, David (Charles Frederick) Scott,and summarised as follows: “Alexander’s siblings all spent time in the Hunter Valley with many of the family interests inter-related. Most siblings had a well-developed social consciousness and whilst Robert may have been seen as a bit of a renegade despite being well thought of by his peers, his brother David was on record as saying he did not like him.”
Quiet-mannered brother Helenus Scott, also a Magistrate from 1823 onwards, was more content to stay and farm when he could, keenly interested in the running of “Glendon” thus leaving his footprint at a more local level. Documents reflect he held positions including President of the Patrick’s Plains Benevolent Society, Founding President of the Mechanic’s Institute at Singleton, Founding President of the Patrick’s Plains and Upper Hunter Agricultural Association and also Founding President of the Patrick’s Plains Racing Club. Newspaper accounts of annual horse races held at Maitland from 1833, and at Patrick’s Plains from 1835, report that their stock was constantly award-winning.
There are accounts that on occasions the Scotts entertained lavishly at “Glendon”, with many important visitors the same as those who spent time with Alexander on Ash Island. Glendon’s demise appears directly attributable to the inability to source and retain workers as well as the Depression and with Robert’s death in 1844 the brothers were insolvent. A year earlier in 1843 Helenus had accepted a position on the Bench with the Newcastle Court and from all accounts was reputed to act diligently and honestly, well respected both in Singleton and Newcastle. Another claim to fame is that fact his father-in-law was the Rev. GK Rusden, he having married Sarah Anne Rusden (Saranna) in 1835. Scott’s Flat near Singleton is named after the two brothers and Helenus’ wish was granted following his death he was buried at his beloved “Glendon” near his unmarried brother Robert.
Brother Captain David Charles Frederic Scottentered the Army at 13 and later held a commission in the Bombay Light Cavalry. In 1838 he married Maria Jane, daughter of Major George Barney, at St James, Sydney. Maria was an artist and exhibited paintings at various competitions, receiving much praise for her work. They had one daughter Henrietta.
Younger brother, Captain David Charles Frederick Scott, and his artist wife, Maria Jane’s property “Bengalla” was near Muswellbrook where he acquired a 2,560 acre land grant from Samuel Wright in 1835. Like his brothers he was to acquire several parcels of land, including on Moscheto Island, and with similar interests to is brothers in horse racing, in 1846 he was a Judge at the Muswellbrook Races and spent time editing the NSW Sporting Magazine.
In 1860 he became Police Magistrate of Sydney and was greatly concerned for the needy and the destitute. He initiated the establishment of a school to train young females as servants, a boarding house for men from the bush and a soup kitchen. He and his wife worked together to assist the needy which in 1876 culminated in Maria opening a home for destitute children. This was later amalgamated with other homes for needy children, and post WWI many of these were the children of war heroes. David Scott died in 1881 at their home “Lisgar” Paddington, his wife Maria following when she died at home in 1889.
In 1831 mother and daughter emigrated aboard the Australiato join the rest of the family. Augusta Snr purchased “Cumberland House’ in The Rocks which had been built in 1823 by Robert Campbell and previously leased by Bishop Brougham. It was here that she passed aged 65 years on 17 November 1840.
Brother Patrick had settled at West Maitland, both leasing and owning several properties. He became a well-known poet however returned to England where he died in 1887. Emigrating to NSW in 1844, he was the last of the brothers in the Colony. Whilst his life prior to emigration is uncertain, it is believed he spent time in China as a tea taster. He settled at West Maitland and leased 3,040 acres in Norwood Parish and a further 4,160 acres in Stanhope Parish, both in the County of Durham.
In 1833, sister Augusta Maria Scott married Dr James Mitchellat St James Church Sydney, Archdeacon Broughton officiating and her mother and brothers Robert, Helenus and Alexander Walker present. This marriage connected forever the Mitchell and Scott families with the union forging an exciting period of early development and legacy, the brothers-in-law often documented as joining forces in Newcastle’s early development. James had received generous land grants including what is present day Burwood and what historically was known as the extensive Quigley Estate at Stockton, which just so happened to adjoin James’ brother-in-law Alexander Scott’s grant.
ALEXANDER WALKER SCOTT JP
Alexander(10 November 1800 – 1 November 1883) was born on an island near Bombay. His father Dr Helenus Scott had married Augusta Maria Frederick and his work as a botanist with the East India Company had taken his family there where Alexander’s life-long interest in botany and entomology began.Scott inherited his father’s artistic talent and as a trained artist passed on these skills to his daughters.
The family having returned to England in 1809 Alexander continued his educationat Bath Grammar School and obtainedhis Bachelor of Arts (1822) and MA (1825) atPeterhouse, Cambridge, England. According to “Manufacturing in Newcastle 1801 to 1900” by John W Turner, Alexander “appears to have visited NSW several times between 1827 and 1829 as an importer and part-owner of the ship “Australia” before settling in the colony” in 1829 having returned as the ship’s owner.
After initially residing in Sydney Alexander relocated to Newcastle. He is documented on 2 June 1835 as being in attendance at a meeting when the Newcastle Mechanics Institute was launched, following which he was voted one of the Institute’s first officials (Treasurer), later serving in the capacity of both its Librarian and Curator². Two decades on in the First Parliamentary election Alexander was elected to Parliament, an appointment his mother had not lived to see.
In Newcastle Alexander built a grand house on the harbour named “Newcastle House” (in proximity to today’s Customs House where a wharf at the foot of Watt Street once stood). Scott St, Newcastle, takes its name from the fact that Scott’s “Newcastle House” was once found in proximity. Here he supervised the establishment of several early businesses and thus cemented his place as a founding father. In 1847 the House was described as being an 8-roomed brick stately mansion with kitchen, servants’ quarters. At the rear were outhouses which included to stables, a coach house, men’s quarters, a piggery, and occupied a half an acre of land. In front of the residence was a fine garden enclosed with a brick parapet wall and carriage entrance.
Alexander married Harriet Calcott on 29 December 1846 when their daughters were still young. Harriet was a dressmaker by trade and who, unusually for the time, was a property owner due to inheritance.
After residing at “Newcastle House”for a while the grand home was sold in December 1848 and the family (Alexander, wife Harriet, the Scott Sisters and their eldest sister Mary Ann) took up residence on Ash Island where he had built a cottage and cultivated an orchard growing oranges that were to become famous all over the colony, ie “Ash Island oranges” as evidenced by numerous newspaper articles located on Trove. The Ash Island cottage has been described as being a modest, simple house with a verandah, their home sheltered by pines and a huge Moreton Bay fig tree with a plantation of oranges. It was situated at what today is knownas “Scott’s Point”, on the western end of the island, and close to Hexham. In its heyday, it was surrounded by an impressive garden and a jetty which ran deep into the Hunter River and included a 30 acre lucerne paddock. Whilst the buildings have all disappeared traces of the garden were still visible in the 1950s.³
It is written that the Island was “a naturalist’s paradise”. In 1855, Botanist WH Harvey is quoted as describing Alexander as “a very agreeable and well informed educated, gentleman with two daughters, very clever and in many respects accomplished…” The farm welcomed many visitors, its appearance captured for posterity by the artist Conrad Martens in his sketches of marshy landscapes. In 1842 the explorer Ludwig Leichhardt noted the artesian bore and commented that it was “a romantic place” and he would be “content to live and die there”. Alexander’s daughters Helena (Nellie) and Harriet (Hattie), today affectionately known as “the Scott Sisters”, grew up amongst people who were intelligent and curious about the natural world and spent their days on foraging trips, collecting plants and insects, shells, nests and eggs, which were documented in diaries and journals in meticulous detail.
Life for the family changed forever when Harriet died on 20 January 1866 and whilst still grieving, and less than 2 months later, Alexander put his Island land up for auction. It had been reported that in 1851 land on the Island was sold in 24 and 30 acre blocks from 10/- to 30/- per acre. Scott’s Ash Island Estate, submitted to an auction sale on 29 March 1866, is documented as comprising “some 2844 acres, the biggest portion of which was subdivided into 63 small farms, varying from 10 to 60 acres, a huge sale indeed for the auctioneers. At the time of the sale 21 of these farms were occupied and were returning a rental of about £600 per annum.” ⁴
Alexander died on 1 November 1883 at Paddington, Sydney⁵, of liver disease leaving an estate valued for probate at £1602 to his daughters Helena and Harriet and step-daughter Mary Ann Calcott.
NEWCASTLE’S EARLY MANUFACTURING PIONEER TITANS.
In the 1830’s, Alexander was successful in securing grants of several large areas of land in the Newcastle district. In 1834 a grant known as “Crown Grant 456 acres” (despite the fact that the Gazette stated the area to be 300 acres more or less) at Burwood (Old Merewether) was obtained and on 16 January 1835 he purchased 50 acres of the southern portion of the Stockton Peninsular (Pirates Point) at £1.5 per acre and 2 years later his brother-in-law Dr James Mitchell had purchased most of the remainder. According to Terry Callen’s Bar Dangerous Stockton residents numbered 535 residents in 1833 which had risen to 1300 by 1841. Mitchell quickly then purchased additional landadjoining that owned by Alexander (advertised on Wednesday July 29, 1835 in the Government Gazette as “Sale of Land, Northumberland, 900, nine hundred acres, more or less, near the town of Newcastle; bounded on the east by land of A.W. Scott, Esquire; on the north by the Australian Agricultural Company grant of 2000 acres, about seventy chains on the west by the Government; and on the south by the ocean and salt water lake”). This 900 acre parcel of land stretched from Glenrock Lagoon, north west to Hamilton and south west to Highfields.
Turner describes Alexander’s Stockton land purchase as follows:
“This low-lying land was covered with scrub and so sandy as to be considered worthless for agricultural purposes but by 1844 it was described as “a place of considerable importance”, a village where “manufacturers have chiefly taken root”. By then it boasted a saltworks, a wooden textile mill and an iron foundry which was casting pans for a soap boiler to be established in the village and a sugar refinery and railway were being planned. Already by May of that year, the value of the salt, cloth and metal products of Stockton were stated to be £30,000 per annum.” ⁷
Turner also states that “at one time he [Alexander] was stated to have owned allotments of land in nearly every street in the town of Newcastle, besides vast holdings nearby, such as the Deega Estate (2560 acres, near Sugar Loaf), Ash Island (2560 acres), Hexham (1150 acres), Merewether, and Teralba as well as several Newcastle property lots.
Some of the industries Alexander developed on land grants were:
1. Stockton Iron Foundry and Forge;
2. The construction on Moscheto (Mosquito Island which now forms part of Kooragang Island) of large tanks where evaporated sea water was used to supply salt for the Sydney market, at one time over 100 employees engaged in the industry;
3. The Stockton Salt Works. Next door to brother-in-law Dr James Mitchell’s Tweed Factory, Alexander’s manufacturing salt works were built close to the harbour’s edge with water pumped by a steam engine to a trough about 40 feet high. The salt was in high demand and was probably built to capitalise on the demand for salt as a meat preservative. The manufacturing was carried out until 1848 when the Works was destroyed during a wind storm and whilst not rebuilt, the remaining structure was converted for use as a sulphuric acid manufacturing plant;
4. The Stockton Shipbuilding Company, established in 1847 on an acre of land leased from Alexander Walter Scott. Two years on, 2 barges for use on Lake Macquarie were slipped down the slipway, built by their shipwright Mr Taylor Winship;
5. Shipowner with several ‘sixty milers’ trading along the East Coast; ⁸
6. According to Margaret Osborn’s “A Forest No More: A Short History of Millers Forest (including Duckenfield)” Alexander for a time owned the Hunter River Steamship Company based at Raymond Terrace and operated several vessels, one of which collected milk from some Millers Forest farmers;
7. Scott’s Patent Slip established in 1860, was capable of working on ships up to 400 tons. The slip was located on the south-west harbour side of Stockton foreshore and in 1862 employed 50 men. The Slip was sold to Daniel McQuarrie in 1869 and thereafter became known as McQuarrie’s New Patent Slip;
8. The construction of large tanks on Moscheto Island, where sea-water was used to supply salt for Sydney; and
9. Alexander also grew tobacco and flax (award winning) at East Maitland, the demise of which was due to being paralysed by the price of labour during the period of the discovery of gold in 1851.
“On the security of his 50 acres and saltworks Alexander is documented as having borrowed £1000 in January 1841. Two years later an additional £1500 pounds was obtained and there were further loans until by 1849 Scott owed £8230 to his brother-law who took over the estate”, what was left of it that is as he also suffered heavily with the demise of the Bank of Australia during the 1840’s Depression.
Turner writes “It is possible that Scott was not a capable manager and he certainly appears to have dissipated a large fortune between his first arrival in the colony and 1866 when he was declared bankrupt. Alexander’s daughter in writing to a friend is quoted as saying “We shall leave this place [Ash Island] poorer than we ever were in our lives and I am and shall be until poor Papa gets something to do, working to gain a livelihood, for us three.” ⁹
ASH ISLAND
In 1829 Alexander had taken possession of a land grant of 2560 acreson Ash Island directly opposite land owned by John Laurio Platt, Newcastle’s first and famous miner, and one of the first to survey the Newcastle region. When Governor Brisbane abandoned Newcastle as a penal settlement Platt became one of the first settlers, having been granted a magnificent estate of 2,000 acres on 2 August 1822 in the locality of present day Mayfield, up the Hunter River north of the present Tourle Street Bridge and included land directly opposite the bottom portion of Alexander’s 1920 grant. Alexander and Platt’s estates, together with the AA Company’s 1960 acres in Newcastle, taken up in 1829 by the Company’s agent Sir Edward Parry, Dr James Mitchell’s sea-coast grants of 950 acres and 413 acres and Alexander’s coastal grant of 456 acres between the harbour and Merewether, meant all land in Newcastle and surrounds was owned by a handful of wealthy owners by 1830.
INTERESTING FACTS
– Alexander was an originating Member of the Australian Club, a Warden of the first Newcastle District Council in 1843, a Trustee of Christ Church and a founder of the Newcastle Corps of Volunteer Rifles;
– He was a joint owner of the Ceres, which traded between Sydney and Newcastle;
– The first person to ever propose the construction of a railway from Newcastle to Maitland in 1844-1845 having the route surveyed and plans drawn up at his own expense. He advocated what he termed a Tramway from Newcastle to Singleton which he estimated could be constructed and was not deterred by Governor Gipps’s comment that ‘the colony was not sufficiently advanced to entertain such important works’;
– In 1853 he became a shareholder in the Hunter River Railway Company which began to construct a railway between Newcastle and East Maitland. Only two years later, in 1855, the Company was taken over by the Government. As history records it was Scott’s original project which eventually became part of the Great Northern Railway! Nothing came as a result of his proposition to build a Newcastle to the north railway however when the Sydney Parramatta railway was constructed on 3 July 1860 there were many in the community advocating for a similar line between Newcastle and Maitland;
– In 1862 he is documented as a founding member of the Entomological Society of New South Wales and the following year voted a Councillor. In 1866 he became the Society’s President;
– He published 7 papers on butterflies and moths in its Transactions, and the first volume of Australian Lepidoptera and Their Transformations (London, 1864), illustrated by his daughters, was followed by Mammalia, Recent and Extinct (Sydney 1873). On the initiative of his daughter Helena the second volume of his Lepidoptera was completed and published in five parts, 1890-98, by the Australian Museum; ¹⁰
– He was an active Trustee of the Australian Museum in the mid-1860’s and in 1876 became a Member of the Royal Society of New South Wales;
– Alexander was for a time a Member of both the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council, in 1866 was declared bankrupt and that same year was appointed Land Titles Commissioner under the Torrens’ Act, a position he held until his death; and
– He counted amongst his friends Conrad Martens (artist), Ludwig Leichhardt (explorer, botanist and entomologist), William Kirchner (German Immigration Shipping Agent), John Macarthur (Camden Park) and John Gould (ornithologist).
A FURTHER LEGACY: HIS DAUGHTERS “THE SCOTT SISTERS”
Over the last two decades his daughters, referred to largely as “The Scott Sisters”, have become very celebrated on Ash Island, where their sketches and paintings of the flora and fauna they encountered residing on the Island in the mid-1800s, is proving an invaluable blue print of the vegetation to be replanted and the moths, caterpillars and butterflies which may one day return once again to call Ash Island their home. In the last decade media exposure and museum collection showings has meant the legacy they have left for early Newcastle flora and fauna is becoming more celebrated and the fact that these sisters were made honorary members of the Entomological Society in 1864, after the publication of the father Alexander’s book Australian Lepidoptera and Their Transformations, is becoming more well known.
¹ Horsemen of the First Frontier (1788-1900) and the Serpent’s Legacy – ² Newcastle & Hunter District Historical Society Journal c. 1950 p. 37
³ Newcastle and Hunter District Historical Society Monthly Journal October 1951 – ⁴ Cessnock Eagle and South Maitland Recorder — 2 February 1932 ⁵ NSW BDM death 4216/1883
⁷ Manufacturing in Newcastle 1801 to 1900 by John W Turner -⁸ The Newcastle Chronicle, 6 February 1869 – ⁹ JW Turner’s Manufacturing in Newcastle, 1801-1900 – ¹⁰ https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Scott-22105