· 1832 GOVERNOR BOURKE
Governor Bourke made his first visit to the Lachlan River, which had been discovered by Evans in 1815. (It appears from the maps that Evans came to the Lachlan west of what is now Cowra and proceeded further westwards.)
· 1833 BRIDGET SLATTERY BEFORE 1836
Edmund Markham’s future wife, Bridget Slattery, 15, daughter of convict Timothy Slattery, Co. Limerick, who obtained approval to bring his family at public expense to NSW, arrived Sydney on the ‘Surrey” on 9 March, 1833. (See shipping record ‘Mangles (4) of 1826’, re Timothy Slattery; Roslyn Castle 1833 re son James, 20 free settler; and ‘Surrey” 1833 re Bridget, her Mother and siblings.)
“The 1828 Census shows Henry Perrier as having come free to the Colony on the William Penn in 1823. He was then 26, and described himself as a grazier, of Winslow, Bathurst
It is possible that Timothy Slattery went to the Bathurst area as early as 1829 to work for Henry Perrier. Perhaps the rest of the family, including Bridget, joined him there after they arrived in 1833.”
· 1834 N S W GUIDE AND DIRECTORY
“There are many cattle and sheep stations much lower down the Lachlan; the whole of the banks in this neighbourhood being of the richest description of pasturage.”
· 1835 O’ SHAUGHNESSY DIARY
Thomas O’Shaughnessy Snr, who travelled with Edmund Markham on the Mangles, and received Ticket of Freedom in 1829, was employed at Spring Vale from a date unknown until 1835. Thomas O’Shaughnessy born ‘in Milburn Creek area’ on 1 January 1835.“Sometime in 1835 [Shaughnessy family] left Edmund Markham’s place on Milburn Creek and went down the Lachlan River….” (O’Shaughnessy Diary.)
· 1836 COWRA NEWSPAPER
I noted on 6.10.1971 that John Cooke has seen a book of the district (apparently extracts from old Cowra newspapers and published in 1836 dealing with the period l835-1836) which refers to an application (dated ?) by E. Markham for permission to graze cattle on the western side of the Lachlan River i.e. outside the limits of the 19 counties.
I think he said there are no further references as to whether this was approved or not. See 1839, by which time he had permission. This is a key source, if it can be found, in establishing Ed’s time and activities at Milburn Creek in the mid eighties.FCM.
· 1836 N S W GAZETTE
15.9.1836 – auction of yearly leases 1050 acres bounded on the west by Milburn Creek at Davis’ Downfall., at the head of MilburnCreek, well away from Markham land.
Population of NSW and Port Phillip in 1836: 77,096
· 1836 ARCHIVES OFFICE
AO2/5073 N.456 Richards
1836 – 1842 – Survey of Farms in parishes of Somers, Walli, Cowra…..Milburn Creek, Co. Bathurst…
Saturday, 22 October, 1836 – continued on the road to Lachlan farms- camped – hot winds from W all day.
Sunday 23 October, 1836 on to Milburn Creek and camped at Mr Neville’s station – light showers in the evening.
Monday 24 October, 1836 – measured off portion for Higgins.
Map drawing shows “Edmund Markham 1002” (acres) on what is marked on all later maps as section 4.
[Note: Higgins’ land is the 990 acres adjacent, to the NE of Edmund’s 1002 acres, which is marked ‘Edmund Markham’ in his related drawing). This 990, now 960 ac. has Thomas Markham as the landholder on early twentieth century Lands Dept maps.]
· 1836 BIRTH OF JAMES MARKHAM
Birth on 14 July, 1836 of James Markham, son of Edmund Markham/Bridget Slattery. (Married Ellen Walsh 1859. Ten children. Died 1913.) His Death Certificate states he was born at Darbys Falls. The birth certificate of his twins, Edmund/Bridget, states he was born at “Milburn Creek”. A Cowra Guardian Obit. on 17.2.1933 re his son Thomas states that James was “born on Milburn Creek, 2 miles from Darbys Falls.”
(Original Darbys Falls was at junction of Lachlan River and Milburn Creek. By 1836 it had moved to present location, two miles from the River towards Cowra, in late 1800s.)
At the time Edmund Markham and Bridget Slattery were not married.
”This kind of union (living as man and wife, having children), was frequently arranged in those early years as there was either no priest or no contact with one, and Church law allowed that if a priest was not available within a given time the marriage was regarded as lawful. Many Catholics refused to go to other than a Catholic priest as the other Ministers represented some of the very enemies they had resisted in Ireland.” [G M Cashman: ‘Avoca – The Faith of the Pioneers.’]
“In the Colonies, the scarcity of clergy often meant that couples might live as man and wife for years before being bound in Holy matrimony.” [Push For The Bush Vol 16 Oct 1983.]
· 1837 – 1839 PROSPERITY, THEN DROUGHT.
“Following hard on the heels of the unexampled prosperity of the thirties, vast quantities of English capital poured into the Colony. A land boom followed… The boom continued throughout 1838 and 1839, despite the worsening of the prolonged drought and a weakening of the English wool market.” (‘Some Came Free’ by E G Hazell.) “The expansion and prosperity of the district was due to the success of the wool growing industry. By 1841, however drought had contributed to check its expansion in the Bathurst district. The hardest years were 1837-39. (C M Templeton in The History of Bathurst.)
The country is in a dreadful state for want of rain – a sufficient quantity has not fallen for three years – the [ponds and creeks are dried up. Water is selling in Sydney at 4d a bucket and if this weather continues, it will become still dearer. [ Bishop Polding 14.3.1839]
· 1837 DIXON MAP OF N S W
Shows settlements in present day Cowra area. Shows Milburn Creek, but, despite our certain knowledge that Markham, Neville etc had acquired land there at the time of the publication of the Map, no settlements. Note, however, that the map, published in 1837 in London, is compiled predominately from his 1829 observations. Shows a McHenry (Edmund’s employer) settlement in Brisbane Valley, closer to Bathurst.
· 1837 N S W GAZETTE
Page 155 9 March, 1837 – following portions will be auctioned in the George St Market building for one year from 1 April, 1837.
Lot 51 – 900 acres parish unnamed – bounded on the west by Milburn Creek.
Lot 52 – 1020 acres parish unnamed – bounded on the north by the second section line north of the junction of Milburn Creek with Lachlan River.
· 1837
Colonial Secretary Office 31 January 1837 . Leases for One Year fron 1 April 1837.
51. Bathurst 1020 acres, parish unnamed, Milburn Creek, bounded on the North by the second section line north of the junction of Milburn Creek with the Lachlan River; on the east by Milburn Creek, and on the South and West by section lines.
52. Bathurst 900 acres; parish unnamed, Miburn Creek, immediately opposite Lot 51; bounded on the West by and on the North, East, and South by section lines.
· 1837 NSW Gazette
Sale of Land.
Formerly advertised but not sold, on account of not being measured.
228 Bathurst. 996 acres parish unnamed at Milburn Creek bounded on the north by a line west 114 chains, commencing at Milburn Creek; on the west by a line south 80 chains; on the south by a line east 129 chains to Milburn Creek; and on the east by Milburn Creek to the north east corner. Price 5s per acre.
· 1837
Colonial Secretary Office 8 February 1837 Sale of Land.
2130. Bathurst 900 acres more or less, parish unnamed. \Head of Milburn Creek, two miles east of Waugoola, bounded on the south east by thre road leading to the Lachlan River; and on the east, north, west by section lines. Price 5s per acre.
· N. S. W GAZETTE
Sale of leases on 15/3/1838 for 1 year, 2 lots on Milburn Creek.
1020 acres £1/11/11 900 acres £1/8/2
Former lessee and present lessee – Edmund Markham in both cases.
· 1838 DEED for the 1002 Acres.
Deed prepared in favour of Edmund Markham.
Lot 10. Notice of 3 January, 1838.
Description: Ten Hundred and Two acres, County of Bathurst, parish unnamed at Milburn. Bounded on the East by a line bearing North one hundred and thirty five chains, commencing at the South East corner on the Lachlan River opposite the North East corner of the measured portion 990 acres, on the North by a line bearing west ninety one chains on the Lachlan River and on the West and South by that river, upwards to the South East corner aforesaid. [Reel 1156]
“The ‘ lottery’ of the convict system meant that those who behaved themselves and had the good luck of assignment to a decent master, quickly gained Tickets of Leave (enabling them to become self employed). Some few with at least minimal education, or ability to act as overseer for a squatter were well placed to acquire their own station. Two outstanding examples from West Limerick were John Hurley and Edmund Markham. Many others were shown to have prospered on a smaller scale.” [West Limerick Families Abroad, Valerie Thompson pub. 2001.]
· 1838 COL. TREASURER LETTER to COL. SEC.
Markham, Edmund Bathurst 1002ac.
[Being the land sold on 9 May, 1838 described as lot no. 10 (But later maps have it a lot 4) in pursuance of the advertisement of 2 April 1838.]
[Register of Purchase of lands No 45 page 371.]
£250/10/0 (£25/1/0 paid 9 May, 1838; £225/9/0 paid 9 June, 1838.
[We need to examine the advertisement of 2.4.1838 to clarify the lot numbers in this and the next item.]
· 1838 COL. SEC. – REGISTER OF LAND GRANTS & LEASES
Vol II (7/458 –464 Reel 2549 page 76.)
Counties of Georgiana and Bathurst 1829 – 1853.
Original located at 7/462. Col Secy Register No 45 Folio 371
Grantee : Edmund Markham of Milburn Creek Quantity: 1002 acres more or less.
Tenure: Land Purchase. County/Parish: Bathurst at Milburn
By whom granted: Sir George Gipps. When granted: 23 August, 1838. Annual quit rent: one peppercorn.
Description:
· Being land sold as Lot 9 in pursuance of advertisement of 2 April 1838. Purchase money £250.10.0
Conditions: Reserving a right of way or ways, all stone gravel,and indigenous timber, all mines of gold, silver and coals, and all land within 110 ft of high water mark.
{This terminology appears to be a standard insertion, hence the reference to the coastal term ‘high water mark’.]
· 1838. THE AUSTRALIAN
Supplement 3 July 1838 p. 4. Edmund Markham buys land in Bathurst. (County)
Reel 1156 Deed prepared in favour of Edmund Markham. Description:County of Bathurst, Parish of Errol, Village of Carcoar.
Crown Allotment No 4 of Section 15 consisting of 2 roods 16 perches.
“Commencing on the Belubula river at the South west Corner of Allotment 5, and bounded on the North by a line East six chains eighty links dividing it from that allotment on the East by a line South one chain dividing it from Jones Street on the South by a line west five chains seventy links to the Belubula River and dividing it from Allotment No 3 and South Westerly by that river downwards to the South West Corner of Allotment No 5 as aforesaid.
Proposed upset price Pounds 8 per acre.
· 1838 Register of Land Grants and Leases.
LAND PURCHASE. (Handwritten parts highlighted.)
Victoria, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom etc
Whereas at a Public Auction held in conformity with the Government Regulations made for the Sale of Crown Lands in Our Colony of New South Wales, Edmund Markham of Milburn Creek has become the purchaser of the Land hereinafter described, for the sum of Two Hundred and Fifty pounds Ten Shillings Sterling, by the said Edmund Markham to the Honourable the Colonial Treasurer of our said Colony on Our behalf, well and truly paid before these Presents are issued, WE HAVE GRANTED , and in further consideration of the Quit Rent hereinafter Reserved, do hereby grant unto the said Edmund Markham at Milburn in the County of Bathurst in our said Colony, containing by admeasurement One Thousand and Two Acres, be the same more or less, bounded in the East by a line bearing North one hundred and thirty five Chains, commencing at the South East corner on the Lachlan River opposite the North East corner of a measured portion of 990 acres, on the North by a line bearing West ninety one chains to the Lachlan River, and on the West and South by that river upwards to the South East corner aforesaid. Being the Land sold as Lot 9 in pursuance of the Advertisement of 2nd April 1838 with the appurtenances thereto belonging; TO HOLD unto the said Edmund Markham, his Heirs and Assigns for ever, yielding and paying therefore …the Quit Rent of One Peppercorn, if demanded…..(then some 150 words of various standard conditions re use of the land.)
IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, We have caused this our (Grace?) to be sealed, with the Seal of Our said Territory. Given under the hand of Sir George Gipps, Knight, Our Captain general and Governor in Chief of our said Territory and its Dependencies, at Government House Sydney in New South Wales.
Signed Geo Gipps
· 1838 REGISTRAR OF MARRIAGES
15 September, 1838. Edmund Markham (whose address is shown on the Certificate as Lachlan River) marries Bridget Slattery, address shown as Sydney (sic) at St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney.
– Witnesses were Edmund and Bridget Fitzgibbons of Sydney.
– Celebrant was Father Charles Lovat who arrived in NSW in 1837 from England and took up his appointment at St Mary’s on 17.12.1837 on a stipend, paid by the Colonial Government, of £200 per annum.
· 1838. MARKHAM LETTER TO SURVEYOR GENERAL
Application “of Edmund Markham of Milburn Creek, Bathurst to purchase land.” Dated 21.9.1838.
“1050 acres, more or less, in the County of Bathurst, one mile north of Edmund Markham’s 1002 acres, bounded on the West by Milburn Creek and on all other sides by section lines”..
[Note: further lease bounded on the west by Milburn Creek, on the south by J T Hughes 1000 acres. 1841??]
· 1838 BIRTH OF CATHERINE MARY MARKHAM
Catherine Mary (Kate) born on ???? at ???? (Married John Nowlan 1861. Four children. Died 1872.)
· 1839 THOMAS HIGGINS WILL
“I appoint to this my last will my wife Sophia Higgins Executrix, Edward Markham and John Neville of Milburn Creek and Timothy Maher of George Street, Sydney, executors” 25 July, 1839
- 1839
Henry Cosby told a Select Committee of the NSW Legislative Council that there were not above 50 or 60 women in his (Lachlan) District out of a total population of nearly 2000. [NSW LC Select Cttee on Police and Gaols 1839. minutes of Evidence.] In 1840/41, there were 84 squatters in the Lachlan district, beyond the Limits of Location. [Roberts: The Squatting Age in Australia.]
· 1839 ASSIGNMENT OF MALE CONVICTS.
List of Assignment of Male Convicts made from 17.11.1838 to 3. 1.1839.
Markham, E. Bathurst. 1 Labourer. [NSW Gazette p.110 of 19.1. 1839.]
Ca. 1839 MEN WORKING IN SPRING VALE
[Notes by Francis Aubrey Murray Ca 1970]
Mr Burns (Irish)
Jimmy Doolan (Irish)
Barney Bluff – Bullocky
P Dewar Snr Carpenter
P Dewar Jnr Labourer
Mickey Halpin – Tailor – Irish
Dan Hourigan – Blacksmith – Irish
Dave Howard – Butcher
Dave Howard – great granpa of present Mrs Ned Siddley
Mick Halpin – great granpa of Mrs P J Whitty – one son John
Pat King – Labourer
School teachers – Hanley and Winters – private school teachers lured by Edmund Markham to teach his own and his workmen’s children.
Howard worked at Vale for 12 years till his wife and kids arrived from England. Started for himself in Biggs Mountain with cattle given him by Edmund Markham.
The majority of these men were convicts signed over to Edmund Markham by the Government.
· 1839 ASSIGNEE HENRY CARVILL
Henry Carvill, ship Hercules 1830 signed with his mark a petition to the Colonial Secretary for restoration of his Ticket of Leave, taken from him in 1837. Described as assigned servant to Edward Markham, Lachlan River. [Colonial Secretary Petition R.591.]
Irish boot maker Henry Carvill, nicknamed Bumble, transported to Australia in 1830, and who arrived at Cowra Rocks as a convict assigned to squatter Edmund Markham, served his sentence by the late 1840s and opened a small one-room building, where he set about his trade as shoemaker. To this business he soon added general supplies to become a storekeeper as well. In 1861 Carvill bought a boat in Sydney to ferry people across the Lachlan River.
While they waited in Ireland for their husband and father to send for them, Carvilll’s wife and child suffered great hardship and were destined not see him again. When Carvill sent word that he was able to pay for their passage to Australia, he was advised his wife had already died. His search for his son proved unsuccessful. [Cowra on the Lachlan.]
· 1839 N.S.W. STATE ARCHIVES
Applications for Assigned Servants
Magistrates Bench Reports – Bathurst District. 3 September 1839
Markham, Edward. Milburn Creek Holds 1002acres. 60 acres under Hoe –
Land acquired by Grant and Purchase
William H Suttor Agent
Applied for 13 (assigned servants) – holds 30.
AO 4/7554 (Reel 593)
[Presumably rejected, as 1841 Census has no figure this high – see 1841 below which suggests that he did not have 30 servants. Note also that he did not apply for any in the years 1836, 37 or 38, so he may have had servants assigned to him earlier.]
· 1839 N.S.W GAZETTE
Sale of leases of Crown Lands on 21/3/1839 for 1 year from 1.4.39 to 31.3.1840.
Sale Lot 440. Bathurst County.
Parish or situation: Milburn Creek.
Former Lessee: Edmund Markham.
Present lessee: Edmund Markham.
Number of acres: 1020.
Yearly rent: £1.11.11.
· 1839 MAPS – COUNTY of BATHURST
From Catalogue Maps and Plans of the Surveyor General:
Milburn Creek
B4.99 Edmund Markham 1000acres Surveyor Davidson 7 June, 1839.
Lot 440 on Milburn Creek 1020 acres £1/11/11 yearly rent.
Former Lessee and present lessee is Edmund Markham
(also Thomas West – nine 640 acre blocks Milburn Creek).
- 1839
“The boom continued throughout 1838 and 1839, despite the worsening of the prolonged drought and a weakening of the English wool market.” (‘Some Came Free’ by E G Hazell.)
“The expansion and prosperity of the district was due to the success of the wool growing industry. By 1841, however drought had contributed to check its expansion in the Bathurst district. The hardest years were 1837-39. (C M Templeton in The History of Bathurst.)
· 1839 LANDS BEYOND THE LIMITS OF LOCATION
On 21 May, 1839, the Crown Lands “beyond the limits of location” were divided into nine districts, including the Lachlan District. The Commissioner appointed for Lachlan was Henry Cosby. He visited Edmund Markham’s “Bald Hill” Run on 10 October, 1839. (See below.)
That summer of 1839-40 was one of the hottest and driest in our history. Not for the next hundred years did that part of Australia – the present Sydney Catchment Area and far beyond it – experience a more devastating drought than that which began in 1836 and did not break till 1843. The rivers trending east had ceased to flow, while the Murrumbidgee and the Murray were only a chain of water holes for hundreds of miles. The land everywhere was as dry and as parched as a desert and looked as if it would never grow grass again. So high was the temperature that the level of waterholes dropped nine inches in twenty-four hours. “[The Men of Thirty Eight by John O’Brien.]
· 1839 N S W GAZETTE
Treasury Certificate of Depasturing LICENSE to depasture Crown Lands beyond the Limits of Location.
No 39/175
Date 19 July, 1839
Name: Edmund Markham
Residence: Milburn Creek
Situation: The Bald Hill or Bringang* Creek [*Spelt on the maps as Biringan].
District: of the Lachlan
Period from 19 July, 1839 to 30 June, 1840. Amount £10.0.0. [Reel AO 5068].
[No record in 1837/38 or next few years.]
· 1839 N S W GAZETTE
NSW Gazette of 19 February, 1840 Page 171 List of individuals who have obtained licences for depasturing stock beyond the boundaries of location, to 30 June next:
Markham, Edmund Lachlan.
(This is a schedule of the first list of squatters who occupied the unsettled lands of the Colony under the Act of 1839. John Neville is on this list with a notation including him among those who had been on the 1836 list.)
[Note: To date, all of the Markham land activity has been within the (settled) Bathurst County. The boundaries of location stopped at the Lachlan, so this licence allowed him to cross the Lachlan. Had he been running stock therefore before this ’paperwork’? FCM]
· 1839 COMMISSIONER OF CROWN LANDS REPORT.
AO Reel 2748
Cosby – Commissioner of Crown Lands Report 1839 – 1840
Counties of King and Murray. Date: 10 October, 1839
From: Warraderry To: The Bald Hill No of Miles: 3
Name of Station Visited: The Bald Hill
Name of person holding Licence: Edmund Markham Name of person superintending: Connor Daly.
No of persons as per census return accompanying: 3
Nature of Buildings: Bark Hut and Slab stockyard. No of acres in cultivation and culture: 1ac wheat.
Stock: Cattle 330. Horses 1. Sheep –
[Connor (Cornelius) Daly later married Edmund’s sister in law, Catherine Slattery]
If a dairy: Nil. Estimated extent of Run commanded by station: 8 sq. miles.
General quality of soil and herbiage: ….stone, herbiage good.
How watered: By springs. Distance from nearest adjoining station: 3 miles
How wooded: G…., Box, stringybark, Pine. Other remarks: Timber good. The land generally rugged and barren.
[ Source: AO Reel 2748.]
NOTE: Cattle only. “Prior to 1860 there were very few sheep in (the Lachlan) District, owing to the erroneous idea that part of the country was unsuitable for wool growing. ‘Benjamin Morgan. Memoirs’
COMMENT: It seems Ed let it all go after one year. The land was not particularly good, though in a time without drought, he might have retained it.
Note: Handwritten notation (Margaret Wilkinson?) “From Cowra Historical Association. ‘From Walter Newham. Ed Markham Bald Hills 1839 lease till 1849 County Forbes.“ . Licence 708 of 16.3.1843 issued to Thomas Boland for the run at “Bryangang” in the District of Lachlan for period 1.1.1843 to 30.6.1843. This was probably Bald Hills as later maps show no separate ‘Bryangang or Biringan. Thus Boland appears to be the successor landholder. Thomas Boland and his brother Peter owned Bald Hills from 1848. [“Pioneers of the Lachlan, Murrumbidgee and County King.” Young FHS. The above suggests 1843 as the correct date, but it rules out Ed as having a continuing interest in the land.
Later records list Boland Thomas as having control of ‘Bald Hills’ (sic). [History of Grenfell and Weddin Shire 1998:
Handwritten notation (Margaret Wilkinson?) “From Cowra Historical Association. ‘From Walter Newham. Ed Markham Bald Hills 1839 lease till 1849 County Forbes’ “ [Doubtful. Follow up.]
- 1839
Between 1834 and 1840 a flood of capital had poured into New South Wales, causing a tremendous boom in land and stock values. In 1834 there were two banks with a total paid capital of about £85,000; in 1843 there were seven banks with a capital of more than £2,000,000, and interest rates had soared as high as 15 per cent. As soon as the banks restricted credit a crash was inevitable. Flocks of ewes which sold for £3 a head in 1837 could be had for 5/- a head, Wool prices tumbled from 3/6 to 1/- a pound. Only the discovery by Henry O’Brien of Yass that small but regular profits could be made by boiling the sheep down for tallow saved the squatters from utter ruin. Yet 600 traders and farmers went bankrupt in a single year. [SYDNEY’S HIGHWAYS OF HISTORY , by Geoffrey Scott.]
· 1839 POLICE GAZETTE
Mr E. Markham, of Spring Vale, near Cowra, was the successful tenderer for the supply of forage for the police horses at Bathurst. The contract price for hay was £105 per ton; corn 30/- per bushel. (In a later undated newspaper cutting, Don Elliott, who owned Spring Vale at the turn of the century, stated that “Mr Markham had grown the forage at Spring Vale and carted it per bullock dray, a distance of 100 miles, to Bathurst.)
· 1839 N S W GAZETTE
18 December, 1839. Colonial Secretary’s Office. Notice “Contracts for the Colonial Service”. His Excellency the Governor directs it to be notified for the information of the Departments and others concerned that the Tenders of the following parties have been accepted for furnishing Supplies for the Colonial Service, in the undermentioned Districts during the year 1840, under the conditions of the Notice from this office, dated 19 November, 1839: inc
……Mr. Edward Markham, Carcor (sic), or Lachlan River……
The prices of the Rations will be published for the guidance of the Departments concerned, in the next Gazette.
25 December, 1839. Tenders for furnishing Supplies for the Colonial Service, during the year 1840:
Districts and Contractors:
Lachlan River or Carcor (sic) Mr E Markham