By David Morgan

Supported by a Create NSW Arts and Cultural Grant – Old Parramattans & St. John’s First Fleeters

Members of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are advised that this essay contains names and images of deceased Aboriginal People.

All of true blood, bone and beauty that was not murdered on their own soil or had fled to America or other countries to bloom again another day, were doomed to Port McQuarie, Toweringabbie and Norfolk Island and Emu Plain [sic].

— Ned Kelly^[1]

By 1879, when the bushranger Ned Kelly composed his ‘Jerilderie letter’ detailing his grievances against the police, Toongabbie had gone into folklore as one of the sites of the most brutal tyrannies of the convict transportation system. If that tyranny had a face, we could say it belonged to Thomas Daveney. An able seaman on HMS Sirius, he came ashore in Sydney in 1788 and was put in charge of the artificers—the tradesmen needed for construction in the colony. His appointment as the superintendent of convicts working at Toongabbie in 1791 is evidence of the faith Governor Arthur Phillip had in him. But three years later he was dismissed by Phillip’s temporary successor Lieutenant Governor Francis Grose, accused of having ‘improperly and tyrannically abused’ the confidence Phillip had placed in him. Within a year he was dead, having almost literally drunk himself to death.^[2]

The Artificer

Daveney came from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, probably the son of James Daveny [sic] and Martha Willett, who were married there in 1758. His will of 10 March 1791 names his sisters Sarah, Martha, Ann and Susannah as beneficiaries. We do not know when or why he joined the Royal Navy, but he joined HMS Sirius as an able seaman on 30 December 1786, aged 27.^[3] He set sail in the Sirius from England on 12 May 1787, with the ship under the command of Captain John Hunter and carrying Governor Arthur Phillip.

After arriving at Warrane (Sydney Cove) in Cadigal Country on 26 January 1788, Daveney came ashore from the Sirius and went to work as a superintendent of artificers engaged in construction, a post he would hold until the end of March 1791.^[4] Daveney’s position as an ‘artificer’ implies he was not a career seaman but one of the ‘landsmen’ who had joined the navy to practise some sort of trade, in many cases because they could not find work ashore.^[5] The original 1786 ‘Heads of a Plan’ by Home Secretary Lord Sydney called for ‘[t]wo companies of marines to form a military establishment on shore,’ and that ‘[a]s many of the marines as possible should be artificers, such as carpenters, sawyers, smiths, potters (if possible), and some husbandmen [farmers].’^[6] A September 1788 report to Phillip by Major Robert Ross listing the 29 artificers belonging to the Marine Detachment, and detailing how and where they were employed, gives us a picture of the trades which were eventually represented: carpenters, masons, shinglers, sawyers, a file cutter employed at the public forge, and a miner employed at the public cellar. Ross also noted their skills: some were ‘good,’ others were ‘tollerable’ [sic], ‘very ordinary’ or ‘indifferent.’^[7] There were few more skilled men among the convicts. Phillip, for example, wrote to Lord Sydney on 15 May 1788 that only twelve convict carpenters could be found, several of whom were sick.^[8] The immediate need to build storehouses, quarters for the civil staff, barracks for the marines, and huts for the convicts led Phillip to tell Sydney: ‘I should hope that few convicts will be sent out this year or the next, unless they are artificers,’ and to ask that ‘proper people will be sent to superintend them.’^[9] This was the skillset of the men Daveney had to manage.

To remedy Daveney’s lack of skilled artificers, Lord Sydney ordered that ‘twenty-five of those confined in the hulks in the river who are likely to be the most useful should be sent out in the ship [HMS Guardian] intended to convey the provisions and stores, and that about eight or ten persons should also be engaged and take their passage in the said ship, to be employed as overseers of the convicts.’^[10] Carrying skilled convicts, superintendents, and two years’ supplies, the Guardian left England in September 1789, stopping at the Cape of Good Hope to take on more supplies, including plants. But disaster was to follow. The ship hit an iceberg on 23 December, and limped back to the Cape nine weeks later only after jettisoning much of its cargo and losing almost all those people who had left the ship in small boats.^[11] On the arrival of the Lady Juliana at Warrane (Sydney Cove) on 3 June 1790 with news of the Guardian’s loss, Judge-Advocate David Collins noted that ‘[one]-third of the stores and provisions intended for the colony were put on board the transport [Lady Juliana], the remaining two-thirds were on board the Guardian; none of which it was supposed would ever reach the settlement, the small quantity excepted (seventy-five barrels of flour) which was put on board the transport at the Cape…Had the Guardian arrived, perhaps we should never again have been in want.’^[12]

Before the Second Fleet’s arrival, Daveney was already having to deal with another disaster, as the loss of the Guardian had a knock-on effect. When it failed to arrive as expected, Phillip was forced to send convicts to Norfolk Island on the First Fleet flagship HMS Sirius (accompanied by HMS Supply) on 6 March 1790. His hope was that he would take pressure off the settlement at Cadi (Sydney) by sending people to a place that stood a good chance of becoming self-supporting, while the Sirius would then go on to China to procure more supplies. Such hopes were destroyed when the Sirius was wrecked on a reef off Norfolk Island on 19 March, leaving the crew and passengers stranded. Collins recorded the ‘general melancholy’ when the Supply returned to Cadi (Sydney) with news of the shipwreck on 5 April: ‘every one looked up to her as to their only remaining hope [sic].’^[13]

With the arrival of the rest of the Second Fleet ships later in June 1790, the workers Daveney received would also not match expectations. Not only were there more mouths to feed, but the poor condition of the convicts on arrival—the result of scandalous mistreatment, which contributed to the deaths on the voyage of 256 convicts out of 1006 transported—meant few were in any condition to work.^[14] Phillip described the ‘scene of misery which the hospitals and sick-tents exhibited when those people were landed.’^[15] He further found that ‘of the five superintendants [sic] who have arrived [on the Lady Juliana] one only is a farmer, two say they were used to the farming business when seventeen and nineteen years of age, but they cannot, from the knowledge they then obtained, be able to instruct the convicts or direct a farm; and we are in great want of a good master carpenter, brick and tile maker.’[16] The two gardeners who had been expected were also ‘said to be lost’ and, according to the officers on board the Lady Juliana, the surviving artificers who remained at the Cape would probably be returned to England.[17] Of the trades needed, carpenters were the ‘most wanted; of the six we have only three merit the name of carpenters. In our present state but little preparation can be made for the accommodation of a thousand convicts which are to follow the Guardian. A roof for a store-house, which has been framed several months, still remains on the ground, for it has not been possible to get the walls up.’[18] The only good news was that the provisions sent out in the Lady Juliana, including the 75 casks of flour, would allow the ration to be increased so ‘a little more work will now be done.’^[19] We do not have a record of Daveney’s actions at this time, but his position as superintendent of artificers would have meant he was reporting to Phillip on the quality of men working for him and trying to get the best work out of them. He was beginning to prove himself to Phillip as ‘a most useful man’ in difficult circumstances.^[20] Phillip would soon have a new role for him: superintendent of convicts working at Toongabbie.

Toongabbie: The Third Mainland Settlement

Governor Phillip needed both artificers to build the colony and farm workers to feed it. Daveney had demonstrated his abilities as a superintendent of the former, and on 1 April 1791 Phillip put him in charge of the latter at Toongabbie, the Country of the Toogagal clan of the Dharug People.^[21] Why he chose Daveney is not clear but, in his letters to England, Phillip stressed the need for experienced farmers—especially after the death of the Parramatta farm supervisor Henry Dodd on 28 January 1791—so Daveney must have demonstrated some knowledge of agriculture to have been appointed to this role.^[22] As superintendent of artificers, he had dealt with men who lacked the skills he needed, but most of them had at least volunteered to come to the colony. Now he had men he could direct in farming, but they were largely unskilled and poorly-fed convicts who did not want to be there. Within a few years, his skills in managing such men would be called into question.

Daveney’s personal life was also changing. At Parramatta, in Burramattagal Country, on 17 July 1791 he married Catherine Hounsom, a convict woman who had arrived on the Lady Juliana, her age given as 30 when she embarked on 12 March 1789. She had been sentenced to seven years transportation at the Old Bailey in London on 7 May 1788 for stealing silver spoons from her former employer, Sir Henry George Little, Baronet, after being dismissed from her position as assistant to the cook, and trying to pawn one of them. James Muncaster, pawnbroker of Chandler Street, Grosvenor Square, did not believe her when she claimed she had ‘bought it of [sic] a dustman for seven shillings,’ and made enquiries.[23] Nor did the court believe her when she said: ‘The spoon fell out of a dust cart; I took it up, and told the dustman of it; he said, I might take it to eat my porridge with.’[24] On the St. John’s marriage register three years later, she marked her name with an X, while Daveney signed his name.^[25] She was already pregnant, and gave birth to a son named Thomas in November 1791, but he died aged two weeks and was buried in the Parramatta Burial Ground (St. John’s Cemetery, Parramatta), where his headstone survives today.^[26] Considering the number of government officers in the colony who were happy to cohabit with convict women as ‘concubines’ and father children outside of marriage, we may wonder why he thought it important to marry, and what effect the death of baby Thomas had on him.^[27]

The ‘new grounds’ to which Phillip initially sent Daveney lay about ‘a mile and a half’ (2.4 kilometres) to the north of Parramatta, on the present-day site of Westmead Children’s Hospital. The Burramattagal and Bidjigal clans of the Dharug People occupied and managed the area at the head of the Parramatta River, which had good soil, was well-watered, and had stands of tall timber and a rich diversity of animal and plant life. Collins first mentioned this area in his journal in August 1791, noting that it lay ‘along the south side’ of Toongabbie Creek, ‘and it was expected from the exertions which they were making, that between forty and fifty acres [16 to 20 hectares] would be soon ready for sowing with Indian corn for this season.’^[28]

On 5 December, not long after baby Thomas’s death, the marine officer Watkin Tench visited the site, which had now grown to 134 acres [54 hectares], and his report gives us a picture of the progress Daveney was making there. He found the land ‘planted with maize, very backward, but in general tolerably good, and beautifully green.’[29] He then went on to a second site ‘two miles [3.2 kilometres] farther, through an uncleared country’ which had been established six weeks earlier, and here he spoke with Daveney, ‘the person who planned and now superintends all the operations carried on here’: this was the site that would become Toongabbie.[30] With 500 men working for him, Daveney claimed the cleared ground there now totalled 300 acres [121 hectares], although Tench thought he overestimated it by one third. ‘He said it was too late to plant maize, and therefore he should sow turnips, which would help to meliorate [sic] and prepare it for next year…[H]e judged the soil to be good, from the limbs of many of the trees growing on it being covered with moss.’[31] Of the 500 men, he said the day’s muster gave only 460, with the rest either sick and in hospital, or ‘run away in the woods.’[32] When Tench asked ‘How much is each labourer’s daily task?’ Daveney replied: ‘Seven rods [35 metres]. It was eight, but on their representing to the governor that it was beyond their strength to execute, he took off one.’^[33]

The interview with Tench reveals the skills in construction, organisation and agriculture Daveney must have possessed, but is also evidence of his being a hard taskmaster. In response to Tench finding the soil ‘in general light, though in some places loamy to the touch,’ Daveney said he planned ‘to try the Rose Hill marle upon it, with which he thinks it will incorporate well.’[34] At the first site, there were now ‘[t]hirteen large huts, built in the form of a tent…erected for the convicts who work here,’[35] and thirteen more had been erected at the second.[36] ‘To every hut are appointed two men, as hutkeepers, whose only employment is to watch the huts in working hours to prevent them from being robbed. This has somewhat checked depredations, and those endless complaints of the convicts that they could not work because they had nothing to eat, their allowance being stolen.’[37] The summer working hours were from five o’clock to ten o’clock in the morning, with rest from ten o’clock to two o’clock in the afternoon, then work until sunset. To Tench, ‘[t]his surely cannot be called very severe toil,’ but he admitted ‘the inadequacy of a ration of salt provisions, with few vegetables, and unassisted by any liquor but water.’^[38] In January 1792, a convict was charged with robbing Daveney’s garden, with another convict, John O’Hara, giving evidence.^[39] By February, Collins was noting that the convicts at Toongabbie, ‘having been landed in a weak and sickly state, wore in general a most miserable and emaciated appearance, and numbers of them died daily. The reduced ration by no means contributed to their amendment[.]’^[40] This was the beginning of the public farms at Toongabbie being remembered, rightly or wrongly, as ‘landscapes of tyranny,’ places of ‘torment and brutality.’^[41]

Daveney was now in charge of what was quickly becoming the colony’s principal farm, with farming having ceased at Woccanmagully (Farm Cove) in Cadigal Country, due to the sandy nature of the soil at the first Government farm there.^[42] In early October 1792, Phillip wrote to Home Secretary Henry Dundas that ‘One thousand acres [405 hectares] of ground are in cultivation on the public account, of which 800 [324 hectares] are in maize, the rest in wheat and barley, at Parramatta and a new settlement formed about three miles to the westward of Parramatta, and to which I have given the name of Toon-gab-be, a name by which the natives distinguish the spot,’ variously translated as ‘the junction of two creeks,’ ‘meeting of the waters’ and ‘near the water.’^[43] As the ‘Return of Land in Cultivation at the Different Settlements’ sent by Phillip to Home Office Permanent Under Secretary John King a fortnight later reveals, though, it was Daveney’s Government Farm which made up the majority of those one thousand-plus acres: only 320¾ were ‘[a]t Parramatta, under the direction of the Superintendant Clark,’ while 696½, or more than two-thirds, were ‘[at] and leading to Toongabbe, under the direction of the Superintendant Daveney [sic].’^[44] Toongabbie had become so important so quickly because, as Phillip acknowledged, the Toongabbie soil was ‘good’ and ‘in the neighbourhood of this place there are several thousand acres of exceeding good ground.’^[45] The site of the convict settlement as seen in the plan of ‘The Town of Tongabby’ [sic], 1792, shows the main street of the convict settlement running west-east, parallel to the creek, with two cross streets running north-south. The eastern cross street leads to a bridge which crosses the creek to its northern bank, where Daveney’s and the overseers’ huts, along with the military and the stores, were located. The main street was lined on both sides with 35 convict huts. An early drawing, A Western View of Toongabbee [sic], (c. 1798) depicts about 20 of these huts with a communal kitchen.^[46]

Having worked his way up to one of the most responsible positions in the colony, and married a woman whose sentence would not expire until 1795, Daveney believed his future lay in New South Wales. Thus, Daveney informed Phillip he wished to settle permanently ‘when he can be spared from his present employment.’[47] To keep this ‘most useful man’ in the colony, Phillip had to work out what inducement he could offer: while ‘increasing his salary [currently £40 per year] might retain him for some time…the consequence would be every superintendant [sic] would expect the same.’[48] The only alternative was ‘to grant a greater quantity of land…than I am empowered to grant to the non-commissioned officers.’^[49] The land would eventually be granted after Phillip’s departure.[50]

Daveney was now in control of what had become the first location for the secondary punishment of convicts who had committed offences, such as stealing from the maize harvest. Newly arrived convicts were also sent straight there from the ships, causing the farm’s population to grow to over a thousand.^[51] George Thompson, a free settler who arrived on the convict ship Royal Admiral on 7 October 1792, has left a description of the working conditions:

They are allowed no breakfast hour because they have seldom anything to eat…From the heat of the sun, the short allowance of provision and the ill-treatment they receive from a set of merciless wretches (most of them of their own description) who are their superintendents, their lives are rendered truly miserable…Some time since it was not uncommon for seven or eight to die in one day, and very often while at work, they being kept in the field till the last moment and frequently while being carried into hospital. Many a one has died at the storehouse while awaiting for [sic] his allowance of provision merely for want of sustenance and necessary food.^[52]

This was the beginning of the Toongabbie public farms, under Daveney’s supervision, becoming synonymous with ‘Slavery and Famine,’ with descriptions of their terrors being used in the tracts of anti-transportation and anti-slavery campaigners. Primitive though the conditions certainly were, there is nevertheless also evidence of convict agency. As Daveney himself admitted, the convicts were able to negotiate a reduced work rate with the governor.^[53] Collins records in December 1794 that ‘[a] jail [sic] gang was also ordered to be established at Toongabbie, for the employment and punishment of all bad and suspicious characters,’ but this was after Daveney’s discharge.^[54]

On 3 November 1792, three convicts received warrants of emancipation, including one who had been working for Daveney at Toongabbie: the notorious pickpocket George Barrington. On Barrington’s arrival in the Active in 1791, Governor Phillip had sent him to Toongabbie, where he became first a subordinate, then principal watchman—‘a situation which was,’ Collins noted, ‘likely to attract the envy and hatred of the convicts, in proportion as he might be vigilant and inflexible,’ and in which he demonstrated himself to be ‘diligent, sober, and impartial.’[55] On his emancipation, Barrington received a grant of 30 acres [12 hectares] near Parramatta, and would go on to become chief constable there.^[56] He had clearly impressed Daveney with his abilities—but was he also one of the ‘merciless wretches’ of Toongabbie who would go into folklore?

The departure of the sick Governor Phillip in December 1792 left Lieutenant-Governor Francis Grose in control of the colony. There was now a change in policy. Grose believed granting more land to officer farmers, rather than expanding the public farms, would make New South Wales self-sufficient in food.^[57] According to Collins, writing in May 1793, ‘The quantity of land granted since the governor’s departure amounted to one thousand five hundred and seventy-five acres, eight hundred and thirty of which lay between the towns of Cadi (Sydney) and of Parramatta, the lieutenant-governor wishing and purposing to form a chain of farms between these settlements,’ opening up land ‘by some…deemed superior to the land immediately about Parramatta or Toongabbie.’^[58] Daveney himself was to receive his promised grant of 100 acres [40.5 hectares] on 1 April 1794.^[59]

A letter Daveney wrote to a friend back home in High Wycombe on 1 July 1794 gives us a picture of both the progress the settlement had made in the six years after the First Fleet’s arrival, and how precarious the conditions still were. He said that the colonists were ‘at present in a state of ease and tranquillity, having a plentiful supply of every necessary from England, the East Indies, and America.’[60] However, just a few months earlier, ‘[o]n the 8th of March, at eleven o’clock in the morning, the last ounce of animal food then in store was actually issued to all ranks and descriptions of people alike, and nothing but absolute famine stared us in the face; the labour of the convicts was remitted, and everyone seemed to despond, when, in the evening of the same day, the William arrived from London, and a ship from Bengal, loaded with provisions of every kind.’[61] For himself, he had ‘100 head of fine goats, and am hopeful by Christmas to have both horses, cows, and sheep. I have this season returned to his Majesty’s stores 1,514 bushels of Indian corn, at 5s. per bushel, and have now upwards of 1,000 bushels on the farm, in order to pay for men’s labour in building a dwelling-house, barns, out-houses, &c.’[62] He noted that ‘[g]oats thrive better than sheep here, and fetch from seven to ten pounds each.’[63] He had bought another farm of 60 acres in addition to the 100 acres he had been granted, and he had six men whose terms had expired working for him ‘who earn from 18s. to a guinea [21s] per week.’[64] Understandably, then, he was optimistic about the future: ‘I am well persuaded that trade will soon be established between America, Batavia, Bengal, and the Cape of Good Hope, as this place will at all times take off the entire cargoes of provisions and liquors.’^[65] But Daveney would not have long to enjoy his prosperity.

Decapitation, Disputes, Dismissal, Drink…Death

Daveney’s men would soon be coming into conflict with Dharug People at Toongabbie, most likely of the Toogagal clan. On 16 April 1794, magistrate Richard Atkins recorded, ‘An unfortunate rencontre took place between the Natives and the Constables who guard the corn at Toongabie [sic]!’[66] That morning, the constables had driven away about twelve Dharug People, who were carrying bags of corn. Twenty returned in the evening and attempted to take more corn, and Atkins reported that ‘upon the Constables endeavouring to drive them away, they turned on them, threw some spears but fortunately without hurting any of our men, they then closed in upon them, in consequence one was shott [sic] and one cut down with a sword.’[67] In Collins’s version of events, the party was ‘pursued by the watchmen for several miles, when a contest ensued, in which the natives were worsted, and three were left dead on the spot.’[68] Collins added: ‘The watchmen had so often come in with accounts of this nature, that, apprehensive lest the present transaction should not be credited, they brought in with them, as a testimonial not to be doubted, the head of one of those whom they had slain.’[69] According to Atkins ‘the Lt. Gov[erno]r…preserved it, as a present for Dr. [John] Hunter,’ the noted Scottish anatomist and Fellow of the Royal Society.[70] The watchmen claimed to have gone fourteen miles [22.5 km] in pursuit, but Collins was sceptical: ‘It was remarked…that not one of the watchmen had received the slightest injury, a circumstance that threw a shade over their story, which, but for the production of the head, would have been altogether disbelieved.’[71] The following day, ‘six others were driven out of the Corn,’ leading Atkins to conclude ‘it will be absolutely necessary, if the preservation of property is an object[,] to take some fatal steps with them.’^[72] It appears Daveney’s men knew what their superintendent wanted: hard evidence and stern action.^[73]

An incident subsequently took place that seems to have marked the beginning of Daveney’s decline. On 31 July 1794 William Joyce, a convict who had arrived on the Albermarle in 1791 and was then the Chief Watchman at Toongabbie, was involved in a brawl with a private in the New South Wales Corps, John Love. Daveney intervened on Love’s behalf. The fighting ended with Joyce’s jaw being so badly broken he required a two-month stay in the Parramatta General Hospital. Joyce may still have been in hospital in September when he was one of a group of convicts emancipated to enable them to become settlers. Daveney, by contrast, was removed from his position as Superintendent by Grose on 24 August ‘for drunken and irregular behaviour, and on suspicion of having stolen the wheat belonging to Government.’[74] Worse was to follow for Daveney. On 25 October, the newly-freed Joyce went to court seeking damages of £200 for assault. Before the magistrates David Collins, Augustus Alt and John Palmer, Daveney got off on a technicality over his Christian name, but according to Collins, ‘before another court could be assembled he had entered into a compromise with the plaintiff, and nothing more was heard of it.’^[75] The grounds for his dismissal indicate that the altercation with Joyce may have been the last straw for Grose after a series of incidents demonstrating Daveney’s unfitness for his post.

Daveney reacted bitterly to his dismissal.^[76] Nine months later, Collins related the story of his decline and the ‘extraordinary’ cause of his death: ‘He had been always addicted to the use of spirituous liquors; but he now applied himself more closely to them, to drown the recollection of his disgrace.’[77] On 3 May 1795, he had travelled to Cadi (Sydney) ‘in a state of insanity,’ going to a friend’s house ‘determined, as it seemed, to destroy himself,’ and drank nearly half a gallon [2.3 litres] of Cape brandy:

He fell directly upon the floor of the room he was in (which happened to be of brick); where the people, thinking nothing worse than intoxication ailed him, suffered him to lie for ten or twelve hours; in consequence he was seized with a violent inflammation which broke out on the arm, and that part of the body which lay next the ground; to this, after suppuration had taken place, and several operations had been performed to extract the pus, a mortification succeeded, and at last carried him off on the 3^rd of July.^[78]

The cause of the ‘suppuration’ appears to have been what is known in folk etymology as ‘Saturday night palsy’; an injury to the radial nerve of the upper arm, which may occur during deep sleep in an intoxicated person such as Daveney lying on their side on a hard surface.[79] Prolonged compression of the nerve results in paralysis of the muscles of the wrist and fingers, and may injure the nerve at or above the elbow. Excessive alcohol intake may also produce rhabdomyolysis—destruction of skeletal muscle tissue—resulting in muscle cell contents being released into the blood stream, leading to proximal muscle weakness, swelling, and pigmented urine, as a product of kidney failure after drinking.^[80]

Daveney was defiant to the end:

A few hours before his death he requested to see the judge-advocate, to whom he declared, that it had been told him that he had been suspected of having improperly and tyrannically abused the confidence which he had enjoyed under Governor Phillip; but that he could safely declare as he was shortly to appear before the last tribunal, that nothing lay on his conscience which could make his last moments in this life painful.^[81]

Atkins’s own diary merely records ‘Died Thos. Dauney [sic]’ on 11 July 1795.^[82]

At Daveney’s request, he was buried in the Parramatta Burial Ground (St. John’s Cemetery) in Burramattagal Country.^[83] Collins presided at the civil court for the granting of probate in Daveney’s will on 20 July 1795. ‘He had been advancing his means pretty rapidly,’ noted Collins, ‘for, after his decease, his stock of goats, consisting of eighty-six males and females, sold by public auction for three hundred and fifty-seven pounds fifteen shillings.’[84] He also recorded that Daveney’s widow, the former Catherine Hounsom, had ‘for several years been deranged in her intellects’—but she must have recovered them, as by mid-1799 she had 50 acres sown in wheat and 23 in maize.[85] In May 1801 she assigned the farm to Messrs. Larra and Hassall to secure a debt of £6/9s.[86] In 1814 she was mustered as Catherine Hounson [sic], widow, living in the Parramatta district.^[87]

Legacy: Tyrant of Toongabbie?

Daveney had served Governor Phillip in two key roles: firstly in construction, and then in farming. When the First Fleet arrived, its people lived ashore in tents and had to live off the supplies they had brought with them. By the time of his death, the colonists had buildings in which to live and work, and they were on their way to being self-sufficient in food. But his legacy would be clouded by the manner of his dismissal, and Toongabbie’s subsequent reputation. Where Henry Dodd had ‘acquired an ascendancy over the convicts, which he preserved without being hated by them’ with ‘an attentive and quiet demeanor [sic],’ Daveney exhibited ‘drunken and irregular behaviour’ and was accused of acting ‘improperly and tyrannically.’^[88] While Daveney’s anguish over his dismissal is understandable, his farm appears to have been prospering. We may wonder, then, what personal demons led him to drink himself to death, and whether they had already manifested themselves in how he managed his convict workers.

Toongabbie as a place of tyranny would live on in folk memory. In 1905 the Parramatta historian William Freame, in a series of articles for the Cumberland Argus called ‘Our Old Towns and Institutions,’ reprinted letters written by former convicts in 1845 recalling their time at Toongabbie. One wrote: ‘I have often eaten grass. We never had a full ration unless a ship was in the harbor [sic]. The motto was “Kill them or work them; their provisions will be in store.” Many a time have I been yoked like a bullock with twenty others to drag along timber. At a place called Toongabbie 800 died in six months. I knew a man so weak that he was thrown in a grave, when he cried out, “Don’t cover me up, I am not dead.”’^[89] If the large public farms like Toongabbie seemed to resemble slavery’s plantations, then Thomas Daveney could be made to fit the bill for the Australian version of the cruel overseer Simon Legree in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.^[90]

CITE THIS

David Morgan, ‘Thomas Daveney: The Tyrant of Toongabbie,” St. John’s Online, (2019), https://stjohnsonline.org/bio/thomas-daveney-i, accessed [insert current date]

Acknowledgements

• Biographical selection, assignment, editing & multimedia: Michaela Ann Cameron.

References

Primary Sources

• Richard Atkins, Journal of Richard Atkins during his Residence in New South Wales, 1791–1810, (n.d.), Bruce Kercher (ed.), The New South Wales Journal of Richard Atkins, (North Ryde: Division of Law, Macquarie University Library, 1999).
• F. M. Bladen (ed.), Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. II.—Grose and Paterson, 1793–1795, (Sydney, Charles Potter, Government Printer, 1893).
• David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798).
• Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, (Library of Australian History in association with the Royal Australian Historical Society, Sydney, 1979).
• Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series 1: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. 1: 1788–1796, (Sydney: William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, 1914).

Secondary Sources

• Judith Dunn, The Parramatta Cemeteries: St John’s, (Parramatta, Parramatta and District Historical Society, 1991).
• Michael Flynn, The Second Fleet: Britain’s Grim Convict Armada of 1790, (Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1993).
• Stephen Gapps, The Sydney Wars: Conflict in the Early Colony 1788–1817, (NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, 2018).
• Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet, (Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1989).
• Grace Karskens, The Colony: A History of Early Sydney, (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2009).
• Brian Lavery, Nelson’s Navy: The Ships, Men, and Organisation, 1793–1815, (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1989).
• John McClymont and Terry Kass, “Old Toongabbie and Toongabbie,” Dictionary of Sydney, (2010), https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/old_toongabbie_and_toongabbie.
• Doris A. Sargeant, The Toongabbie Story: A Concise History of the Settlement from its Establishment until 1991, (Toongabbie N.S.W: Parents and Citizens Association, Toongabbie Public School, 1991).

NOTES

[1] Ned Kelly, Jerilderie Letter, (n.p., 1879), p. 31, National Museum Australia, https://www.nma.gov.au/explore/features/ned-kelly-jerilderie-letter/transcription, accessed 21 June 2019.

[2] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), p. 423, https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_eRZcAAAAcAAJ_2/page/n499, accessed 24 June 2019.

[3] Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet, (Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1989), p. 95.

[4] Garry Wotherspoon, “HMS Sirius,” Dictionary of Sydney, (2010), http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/hms_sirius, accessed 21 June 2019; Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet, (Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1989), p. 95. For St. John’s Online’s dual naming policy, see Michaela Ann Cameron, “Name-Calling: A Dual Naming Policy,” in St. John’s Online, (2020), https://stjohnsonline.org/editorial-policies/name-calling-a-dual-naming-policy/, accessed 13 April 2020. The essay discusses giving prime position to indigenous endonyms and subordinating European imposed exonyms in both the colonial Australian and colonial American contexts and was adapted from “Name-Calling: Notes on Terminology,” in Michaela Ann Cameron, (Ph.D. Diss.), “Stealing the Turtle’s Voice: A Dual History of Western and Algonquian-Iroquoian Soundways from Creation to Re-creation,” (Sydney: Department of History, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney, 2018), pp. 25–35, http://bit.ly/stealingturtle, accessed 25 March 2020.

[5] Brian Lavery, Nelson’s Navy: The Ships, Men, and Organisation, 1793–1815, (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1989), p. 137.

[6] Thomas Townshend, “Lord Sydney to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, Whitehall, 18 August 1786,” in Alexander Britton (ed.), Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. I, Part 2: Phillip, 1783–1792, (Sydney: Charles Potter Government Printer, 1892), pp. 17–18.

[7] Arthur Phillip, “Governor Phillip to Lord Sydney, Sydney Cove, Port Jackson, 28 September 1788, [Enclosure No. 4],” in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series 1: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. 1: 1788–1796, (Sydney: William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, 1914), p. 81.

[8] Arthur Phillip, “Governor Phillip to Lord Sydney, Sydney Cove, New South Wales, 15 May 1788,” in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series 1: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. 1: 1788–1796, (Sydney: William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, 1914), p. 20.

[9] Arthur Phillip, “Governor Phillip to Lord Sydney, Sydney Cove, New South Wales, 9 July 1788,” in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series 1: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. 1: 1788–1796, (Sydney: William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, 1914), p. 47.

[10] Thomas Townshend, “Lord Sydney to the Lords of The Admiralty, Whitehall, 29 April 1789,” in Alexander Britton (ed.), Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. I, Part 2: Phillip, 1783–1792, (Sydney, Charles Potter, Government Printer, 1889), pp. 230–31.

[11] For their efforts in keeping the Guardian afloat so that it could return to the Cape, fourteen convicts were pardoned upon their arrival in Australia. Jen Willetts, “Convict Ship Guardian 1790,” Free Settler or Felon? https://www.jenwilletts.com/convict_ship_guardian_1790.htm, accessed 27 June 2019. Penny Edwell, “HMS Guardian,” Dictionary of Sydney, (2010), https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/hms_guardian, accessed 27 June 2019.

[12] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), pp. 118–19.

[13] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), p. 105.

[14] Arthur Phillip, “Governor Phillip to the Right Hon. W. W. Grenville, Sydney, New South Wales, 13 July 1790,” in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series 1: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. 1: 1788–1796, (Sydney: William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, 1914), p. 189.

[15] Arthur Phillip, “Governor Phillip to the Right Hon. W. W. Grenville, Sydney, New South Wales, 13 July 1790,” in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series 1: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. 1: 1788–1796, (Sydney: William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, 1914), p. 188.

[16] Arthur Phillip, “Governor Phillip to the Right Hon. W. W. Grenville, Sydney, New South Wales, 20 June 1790,” in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series 1: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. 1: 1788–1796, (Sydney: William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, 1914), p. 185.

[17] Arthur Phillip, “Governor Phillip to the Right Hon. W. W. Grenville, Sydney, New South Wales, 20 June 1790,” in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series 1: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. 1: 1788–1796, (Sydney: William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, 1914), p. 185.

[18] Arthur Phillip, “Governor Phillip to the Right Hon. W. W. Grenville, Sydney, New South Wales, 20 June 1790,” in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series 1: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. 1: 1788–1796, (Sydney: William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, 1914), p. 185.

[19] Arthur Phillip, “Governor Phillip to the Right Hon. W. W. Grenville, Sydney, New South Wales, 20 June 1790,” in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series 1: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. 1: 1788–1796, (Sydney: William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, 1914), p. 185.

[20] Arthur Phillip, “Governor Phillip to The Right Hon. Henry Dundas, Sydney, New South Wales, 4 October 1792,” in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series 1: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. 1: 1788–1796, (Sydney: William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, 1914), p. 384.

[21] Arthur Phillip, “Governor Phillip to The Right Hon. Henry Dundas, Sydney, New South Wales, 8 October 1792, [Enclosure]: Return of Superintendants of Convicts, Store Keepers and others necessarily Employed in His Majesty’s Settlements in New South Wales,” in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series 1: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. 1: 1788–1796, (Sydney: William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, 1914), p. 394.

[22] Phillip had written to London that Dodd was “the only person in this settlement equal” to the management of convicts, and that with his death “the settlement has sustained a great loss.” Arthur Phillip, “Governor Phillip to W. W. Grenville, Sydney, New South Wales, 4 March 1791,” in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series 1: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. 1: 1788–1796, (Sydney: William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, 1914), p. 248.

[23] Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0), 7 May 1788, trial of CATHERINE HOUNSUM (t17880507-25), https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?div=t17880507-25, accessed 5 July 2019.

[24] Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0), 7 May 1788, trial of CATHERINE HOUNSUM (t17880507-25), https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?div=t17880507-25, accessed 5 July 2019.

[25] Parish Marriage Registers, Textual Records, St. John’s Anglican Church Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia; Michael Flynn, The Second Fleet: Britain’s Grim Convict Armada of 1790, (Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1993), p. 341.

[26] The burial register erroneously recorded the family name as “Thomas the Son of Thomas and Catherine Daphney, Buried November 26 1791. Child.” See St. John’s Online, (stjohnsonline.org), “Burial of THOMAS DAPHNEY,” https://stjohnsonline.org/burials/year-1791/bur17911121/, accessed 5 July 2019.

[27] For example, Surveyor-General Augustus Alt: see David Morgan, “Augustus Alt: The Baron,” St. John’s Online, (2016), https://stjohnsonline.org/bio/augustus-alt/, accessed 7 July 2019.

[28] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), p. 176; John McClymont and Terry Kass, “Old Toongabbie and Toongabbie,” Dictionary of Sydney, (2010), https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/old_toongabbie_and_toongabbie, accessed 4 July 2019.

[29] Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, (Sydney: Library of Australian History in association with the Royal Australian Historical Society, 1979), p. 249.

[30] Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, (Sydney: Library of Australian History in association with the Royal Australian Historical Society, 1979), p. 249.

[31] Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, (Sydney: Library of Australian History in association with the Royal Australian Historical Society, 1979), p. 249.

[32] Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, (Sydney: Library of Australian History in association with the Royal Australian Historical Society, 1979), p. 249.

[33] Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, (Sydney: Library of Australian History in association with the Royal Australian Historical Society, 1979), pp. 249–50.

[34] Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, (Sydney: Library of Australian History in association with the Royal Australian Historical Society, 1979), p. 249.

[35] Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, (Sydney: Library of Australian History in association with the Royal Australian Historical Society, 1979), p. 249.

[36] Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, (Sydney: Library of Australian History in association with the Royal Australian Historical Society, 1979), p. 250.

[37] Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, (Sydney: Library of Australian History in association with the Royal Australian Historical Society, 1979), p. 250.

[38] Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, (Sydney: Library of Australian History in association with the Royal Australian Historical Society, 1979), p. 250.

[39] Michael Flynn, The Second Fleet: Britain’s Grim Convict Armada of 1790, (Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1993), pp. 463–64. Daveney’s widow Catherine would later be a witness at O’Hara’s wedding to Mary Jones in 1797.

[40] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), p. 201.

[41] Grace Karskens, The Colony: A History of Early Sydney, (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2009), pp. 93–97.

[42] John McClymont and Terry Kass, “Old Toongabbie and Toongabbie,” Dictionary of Sydney, (2010), https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/old_toongabbie_and_toongabbie, accessed 6 July 2019; Michaela Ann Cameron, “The Crescent,” Dictionary of Sydney, (2015), http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/the_crescent, accessed 24 July 2019.

[43] Arthur Phillip, “Governor Phillip to The Right Hon. Henry Dundas, Sydney, New South Wales, 2 October 1792,” in Alexander Britton (ed.), Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. I, Part 2: Phillip, 1783–1792, (Sydney: Charles Potter Government Printer, 1892), p. 645; John McClymont and Terry Kass, “Old Toongabbie and Toongabbie,” Dictionary of Sydney, (2010), https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/old_toongabbie_and_toongabbie, accessed 8 July 2019.

[44] Arthur Phillip, “Governor Phillip to Under Secretary King, Sydney, New South Wales, 17 October 1792, [Enclosure: A Return of Land in Cultivation at the Different Settlements, 16^th October, 1792],” in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series 1: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. 1: 1788–1796, (Sydney: William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, 1914), p. 401.

[45] Arthur Phillip, “Governor Phillip to The Right Hon. Henry Dundas, Sydney, New South Wales, 2 October 1792,” in Alexander Britton (ed.), Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. I, Part 2: Phillip, 1783–1792, (Sydney: Charles Potter Government Printer, 1892), p. 645

[46] Parramatta and Toongabbie are the earliest recorded places to be officially designated an indigenous name by the European administration. This area now lies between Old Windsor and Oakes Roads in Old Toongabbie, with Baxter Healthcare and an electrical substation on the site. New South Wales Government, “Toongabbie Government Farm Archaeological Site,” (2012), State Heritage Register, (Sydney: Office of Environment & Heritage, 1999), https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/heritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=5061406, accessed 6 July 2019.

[47] Arthur Phillip, “Governor Phillip to The Right Hon. Henry Dundas, Sydney, New South Wales, 4 October 1792,” in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series 1: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. 1: 1788–1796, (Sydney: William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, 1914), p. 384.

[48] Arthur Phillip, “Governor Phillip to The Right Hon. Henry Dundas, Sydney, New South Wales, 4 October 1792,” in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series 1: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. 1: 1788–1796, (Sydney: William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, 1914), p. 384.

[49] Arthur Phillip, “Governor Phillip to The Right Hon. Henry Dundas, Sydney, New South Wales, 4 October 1792,” in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series 1: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. 1: 1788–1796, (Sydney: William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, 1914), p. 384.

[50] The land was granted by Phillip’s temporary successor, Lieutenant-Governor Francis Grose: Francis Grose, “Lieutenant-Governor Grose to the Right Hon. Henry Dundas, Sydney, New South Wales, 30 April 1794, [Enclosure. Return of Lands granted in New South Wales since the date of the last Return per Kitty],” in F. M. Bladen (ed.), Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. II.—Grose and Paterson, 1793–1795, (Sydney, Charles Potter, Government Printer, 1893), p. 213.

[51] Grace Karskens, The Colony: A History of Early Sydney, (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2009), pp. 86–87.

[52] The British Critic: A New Review, for January, February, March, April, May, and June, 1794, Volumes III–IV, (London: F. and C. Rivington, No. 62, St. Paul’s Church-yard, 1794), p. 440. See also George Thompson, “A PRIVATE JOURNAL. [Extracts], The Journal of George Thompson, who sailed in the Royal Admiral, May, 1792,” in F. M. Bladen (ed.), Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. II.—Grose and Paterson, 1793–1795, (Sydney: Charles Potter, Government Printer, 1893), p. 795. Doris A. Sargeant, The Toongabbie Story: A Concise History of the Settlement from its Establishment until 1991, (Toongabbie N.S.W: Parents and Citizens Association, Toongabbie Public School, 1991), pp. 12–13.

[53] Grace Karskens, The Colony: A History of Early Sydney, (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2009), p. 93.

[54] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), p. 402.

[55] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), p. 244.

[56] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), p. 244; “Barrington, George (1755–1804),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/barrington-george-1746/text1935, published first in hardcopy 1966, accessed online 8 July 2019.

[57] B. H. Fletcher, “Grose, Francis (1758–1814),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/grose-francis-2130/text2701, published first in hardcopy 1966, accessed online 8 July 2019.

[58] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), p. 288.

[59] Francis Grose, “Lieutenant-Governor Grose to the Right Hon. Henry Dundas, Sydney, New South Wales, 30 April 1794, [Enclosure. Return of Lands granted in New South Wales since the date of the last Return per Kitty],” in F. M. Bladen (ed.), Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. II.—Grose and Paterson, 1793–1795, (Sydney, Charles Potter, Government Printer, 1893), p. 213.

[60] Thomas Daveney, “Thomas Daveney to a friend at Wycombe, Toongabbe, 1 July 1794,” in F. M. Bladen (ed.), Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. II.—Grose and Paterson, 1793–1795, (Sydney, Charles Potter, Government Printer, 1893), p. 814. The letter was reprinted in the Dublin newspaper Saunders’s News-Letter of Friday 21 August 1795.

[61] Thomas Daveney, “Thomas Daveney to a friend at Wycombe, Toongabbe, 1 July 1794,” in F. M. Bladen (ed.), Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. II.—Grose and Paterson, 1793–1795, (Sydney, Charles Potter, Government Printer, 1893), p. 814. The letter was reprinted in the Dublin newspaper Saunders’s News-Letter of Friday 21 August 1795.

[62] Thomas Daveney, “Thomas Daveney to a friend at Wycombe, Toongabbe, 1 July 1794,” in F. M. Bladen (ed.), Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. II.—Grose and Paterson, 1793–1795, (Sydney, Charles Potter, Government Printer, 1893), p. 814. The letter was reprinted in the Dublin newspaper Saunders’s News-Letter of Friday 21 August 1795.

[63] Thomas Daveney, “Thomas Daveney to a friend at Wycombe, Toongabbe, 1 July 1794,” in F. M. Bladen (ed.), Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. II.—Grose and Paterson, 1793–1795, (Sydney, Charles Potter, Government Printer, 1893), p. 815. The letter was reprinted in the Dublin newspaper Saunders’s News-Letter of Friday 21 August 1795.

[64] Thomas Daveney, “Thomas Daveney to a friend at Wycombe, Toongabbe, 1 July 1794,” in F. M. Bladen (ed.), Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. II.—Grose and Paterson, 1793–1795, (Sydney, Charles Potter, Government Printer, 1893), pp. 814-15. The letter was reprinted in the Dublin newspaper Saunders’s News-Letter of Friday 21 August 1795.

[65] Thomas Daveney, “Thomas Daveney to a friend at Wycombe, Toongabbe, 1 July 1794,” in F. M. Bladen (ed.), Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. II.—Grose and Paterson, 1793–1795, (Sydney, Charles Potter, Government Printer, 1893), pp. 815. The letter was reprinted in the Dublin newspaper Saunders’s News-Letter of Friday 21 August 1795.

[66] Richard Atkins, journal entry dated 16 April 1794 in Richard Atkins, Journal of Richard Atkins during his Residence in New South Wales, 1791–1810, (n.d.); see also Bruce Kercher (ed.), The New South Wales Journal of Richard Atkins, (North Ryde: Division of Law, Macquarie University Library, 1999), https://www.law.mq.edu.au/research/colonial_case_law/nsw/other_features/music_letters_poetry/atkins_introduction/atkins_diary_1794/, accessed 10 July 2019. This copy of the journal was reproduced from a typescript version of the manuscript which is kept in the Macquarie University library. This version has been proofread against the typescript but not against the original manuscript. The original manuscript is held by the National Library of Australia at MS 40.

[67] Richard Atkins, journal entry dated 16 April 1794 in Richard Atkins, Journal of Richard Atkins during his Residence in New South Wales, 1791–1810, (n.d.); see also Bruce Kercher (ed.), The New South Wales Journal of Richard Atkins, (North Ryde: Division of Law, Macquarie University Library, 1999), https://www.law.mq.edu.au/research/colonial_case_law/nsw/other_features/music_letters_poetry/atkins_introduction/atkins_diary_1794/, accessed 10 July 2019.

[68] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), p. 364.

[69] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), p. 364.

[70] Richard Atkins, journal entry dated 16 April 1794 in Richard Atkins, Journal of Richard Atkins during his Residence in New South Wales, 1791–1810, (n.d.); see also Bruce Kercher (ed.), The New South Wales Journal of Richard Atkins, (North Ryde: Division of Law, Macquarie University Library, 1999), https://www.law.mq.edu.au/research/colonial_case_law/nsw/other_features/music_letters_poetry/atkins_introduction/atkins_diary_1794/, accessed 10 July 2019.

[71] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), pp. 364–65.

[72] Richard Atkins, journal entry dated 16 April 1794 in Richard Atkins, Journal of Richard Atkins during his Residence in New South Wales, 1791–1810, (n.d.); see also Bruce Kercher (ed.), The New South Wales Journal of Richard Atkins, (North Ryde: Division of Law, Macquarie University Library, 1999), https://www.law.mq.edu.au/research/colonial_case_law/nsw/other_features/music_letters_poetry/atkins_introduction/atkins_diary_1794/, accessed 10 July 2019. See also Stephen Gapps, The Sydney Wars: Conflict in the Early Colony 1788–1817, (NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, 2018), pp. 105–7.

[73] Historians differ on the significance of this “Battle of Toongabbie.” Grace Karskens describes it as the first “non-military reprisal party” by a ‘posse’ since an incident in 1789, but Stephen Gapps finds these terms “inappropriate,” stating, “While they may have overextended their roles in pursuing the raiders, the watchmen were in fact sanctioned and specifically tasked with guarding the cornfields.” Grace Karskens, The Colony: A History of Early Sydney, (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2009), pp. 459–60; Stephen Gapps, The Sydney Wars: Conflict in the Early Colony 1788–1817, (NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, 2018), pp. 105–7.

[74] Francis Grose, “Return of Superintendants of Convicts, Storekeepers, and others, necessarily employed in his Majesty’s Settlements in New South Wales and its Dependencies. Sydney, New South Wales, 20th of August, 1794,” in F. M. Bladen (ed.), Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. II.—Grose and Paterson, 1793–1795, (Sydney, Charles Potter, Government Printer, 1893), p. 250. A note about Daveney’s removal, and the reasons for it, was added to the manuscript after the return was drawn up.

[75] Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet, (Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1989), p. 95; David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), p. 394. Collins reports that Daveney, ‘availing himself of a mistake in his christian name [in the summons], pleaded the misnomer. His plea being admitted, the business was for that time got over[.]’

[76] Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet, (Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1989), p. 95.

[77] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), p. 423.

[78] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), p. 423.

[79] Robert J. Spinner, Michael B. Poliakoff, Robert L. Tiel, David G. Kline, Michel Kliot, “The Origin of “Saturday Night Palsy”?” Neurosurgery, Vol. 51, No. 3, (Sept., 2002): 737–741.

[80] Catherine C. Goodman, Kenda S. Fuller and Robert Kuchler O’Shea (eds.), Pathology for the Physical Therapist Assistant, (St. Louis: Elsevier Saunders, 2012), p. 890, p. E49.

[81] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), p. 423.

[82] Richard Atkins, journal entry dated 11 July 1795 in Richard Atkins, Journal of Richard Atkins during his Residence in New South Wales, 1791–1810, (n.d.); see also Bruce Kercher (ed.), The New South Wales Journal of Richard Atkins, (North Ryde: Division of Law, Macquarie University Library, 1999), https://www.law.mq.edu.au/research/colonial_case_law/nsw/other_features/music_letters_poetry/atkins_introduction/atkins_diary_1794/atkins_diary_1794_part_2/, accessed 11 July 2019. See also St. John’s Online (stjohnsonline.org), “Burial of THOMAS DAVENEY,” https://stjohnsonline.org/burials/year-1795/bur17950711/, accessed 5 July 2019.

[83] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), p. 423.

[84] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), p. 423.

[85] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), p. 423.

[86] Michael Flynn, The Second Fleet: Britain’s Grim Convict Armada of 1790, (Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1993), p. 341.

[87] Michael Flynn, The Second Fleet: Britain’s Grim Convict Armada of 1790, (Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1993), p. 341.

[88] Regarding Dodd and Daveney, see David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, (London: printed for T. Cadell Jun., and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798), pp. 148 and 423 respectively.

[89] William Freame, “Our Old Towns and Institutions: No. V.—PROSPECT, SHERWOOD, AND TOONGABBIE,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Saturday 15 April 1905, p. 7.

[90] Grace Karskens, The Colony: A History of Early Sydney, (Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 2009), p. 97.

© Copyright 2019 David Morgan and Michaela Ann Cameron for St. John’s Online