Margaret Scullion Oldham

We should have done this a while back, but only yesterday we visited Lorna's gran and asked her

Gregory Blaxland

BLAXLAND, GREGORY (1771-1852),
pioneer and explorer,

was born in Kent, England, in 1771 (Burke's Colonial Gentry 1891). In 1805, with his brother John Blaxland (q.v.), he arranged with the government to go to Australia as a free settler. He came of farming stock, had some capital, and as the English authorities thought it advisable to encourage settlers of a good class, he was given a free passage for himself and family, a grant of land, and other privileges. He arrived at Sydney in April 1806 and in 1808 was associated with the Macarthur (q.v.) faction in the deposing of Governor Bligh (q.v.). He made his peace with Governor Macquarie but fell out of favour later on. In 1813 Blaxland, who was living at South Creek within a few miles of the mountains and had done a little exploration, arranged an expedition with William Lawson (q.v.) and W. C. Wentworth (q.v.) to cross the mountains. Starting on 11 May the three explorers, with four convicts, decided to keep to the ridges instead of endeavouring to find a way through the gullies, and on 29 May found themselves on the other side with good grass land before them. On 1 June they turned back and arrived at their homes on 6 June. An important and remarkable piece of work had been done, but at first its importance was not realized. In February 1814, after G. W. Evans (q.v.) had made his expedition, a grant of 1000 acres of the newly discovered country was made to each of the three explorers.

Blaxland did no further exploring. About 1819 he bought land near his brother at Newington on the Parramatta. He did experimental work with fodder plants and imported vine-stocks from the Cape of Good Hope. He visited England and in February 1823 was in London, as is shown by the preface to his A Journal of a Tour of Discovery across the Blue Mountains published in that year. In the same year he was awarded the silver medal of the Royal Society of Arts for some wine he had exported to London, and five years later he received its gold medal. In January 1827 Blaxland was elected by a public meeting with two others to present a petition to Governor Darling (q.v.) asking that "Trial by jury" and "Taxation by Representation" should be extended to the colony.

Blaxland was engaged during the next few years in wine-making. and other activities, but took no prominent part in the life of the colony. For the last six months of his life he was suffering a great deal with pains in his head which affected his mind, and he died by his own hand on 31 December 1852. He married in 1798 Eliza, daughter of John Spurden, and was survived by sons and daughters.

J. H. Heaton, Australian Dictionary of Dates; A. Jose, Builders and Pioneers of Australia; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. V, VII, VIII and other volumes; The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 January 1853; J. K. S. Houison, Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. XXII, pp. 1-41; W. L. Havard, ibid, vol. XXIII, pp. 28-42.

John Blaxland

BLAXLAND, JOHN (1769-1845),
pioneer,

was born in Kent, on 4 January 1769. Educated at King's School, Canterbury, he entered the army and became a captain. He resigned his commission in 1792, settled down on an estate at Newington, and in 1805 decided to emigrate to Australia with his brother Gregory Blaxland (q.v.). He made a good bargain with the English government which agreed that if he brought £6000 to the colony he would be granted 8000 acres of land, the labour of 80 convicts who would be fed for 18 months by the government, and a free passage for himself, his wife, children and servants. He decided, however, to charter a ship and arrived at Port Jackson on 4 April 1807, with instructions to Governor Bligh (q.v.) to give him various concessions in place of the free passage. Bligh was no more helpful than he thought necessary, but Blaxland obtained cattle from the government herd, started a dairy in Sydney, and also sold meat and vegetables. He did a very useful piece of work in reducing the prices of these necessaries, but Bligh was insistent that he should go in for agriculture as well as grazing. He antagonized Blaxland, who joined in the deposition of Bligh in January 1808, but Blaxland could not get the concessions he wanted from Colonel Johnston (q.v.) and decided to go to England. Bligh, however, succeeded in getting him arrested at Cape Town and taken to London. After three years in London he obtained a letter to Macquarie directing that the original agreement should be carried out. But Macquarie was obsessed with the idea that the land grants were for the purpose of growing grain and put various obstacles in his way. However, in the eighteen-twenties, under Governor Brisbane (q.v.), Blaxland obtained good land in the Hunter valley and was successful as a stock owner. He was a member of the legislative council from 1829 to 1844 and died at Newington on 5 August 1845. Blaxland was married twice and was survived by sons and a daughter.

Blaxland was a keen man of business, anxious to drive a good bargain, and as a free settler was in a stronger position than the emancipists. But he antagonized both Bligh and Macquarie and met with much opposition. In spite of this Blaxland as a pioneer grazier became an important figure in the early development of Australia.

J. H. Heaton, Australian Dictionary of Dates; A. Jose, Builders and Pioneers of Australia; Historical Records of Australia, ser. I, vols. V to XXIV; J. K. S. Houison, Journal and Proceedings Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. XXII, pp. 1-41; Burke's Colonial Gentry, 1891; Sydney Morning Herald, 6 August 1845.

Welcome!

After researching my side of the family, in the past couple of weeks I tried to reconstruct the other side and got very much into the history of the Blaxland. The connection was Lorna's gran, Eileen who is a direct descendent of John Blaxland from whom descend the Blaxland so famous in Australia.
Incidentally, my interest came about as the late Eileen kept telling me about her italian connections. Furthermore, in our conference trip to Australia last february we actually visited the Blue mountains and passed by some of the places which were pioneered by Gregory Blaxland during the XIX century.

In this blog I'd like to talk about and document the research done as well as initiate the discovery of the other three families close to me: Higgins, Hempstead and Scullion. Hopefully, in time, I will manage to involve directly also others who can contribute.