Walter Butler (c.1807-1870)- the life of a 'currency' lad born in the colony of NSW: Walter Butler- Ch. 3: Working life to 1832

Early Sydney 1823

engraving by R. Havell & Son

Walter began his working life as a carpenter, and was working at Port Aiken in 1825. On Thursday 10 November 1825 the following incident was reported in ‘The Australian’:

“ On Thursday evening last (ie.3/11/1825) as Mr Dunn, the chief constable, was proceeding through Kent Street he received a bite from a snake.......It is very singular, that Walter Butler, son-in-law of Dunn, no longer than the Saturday preceding, received a similar injury. He was bit by a snake while working at Port Aiken. An incision was instantly made, and a bandage applied above the wound. The knife was not used with sufficient dexterity, and on applying for medical aid, he had to undergo a second incision. He is also now doing well.”

A further report on the medical treatment used on the snake bites was reported the following year in the “Sydney Gazette” Dec 2, 1826:

“We are authorised to state, relative to Dr. Bland’s letter on the subject of poisoned wounds, that the first case of snake bite treated by him with cupping, happened in December, 1824; the second, in September 1825; the third, in October; the fourth in November, the same year; and the fifth, in March 1826; exclusively of others of which he has made no memorandum. The names of the persons are as follow:- __ Yardley, of Castlereagh Street; Hannah Hathaway, of Castlereagh Street; Mr Walter Butler of Pitt Street; Mr Dunn, Chief Constable, Cumberland street; and Owen Cutis, a servant of the late Attorney General. Of which cases the first was unfortunately fatal (in consequence of the cupping not having been proceeded with to a sufficient extent). The latter four were completely successful.”

Notably, the two reports on the method of treatment used, differs markedly.

The initial report states Walter’s snake bite occurred at Port Aiken. Port Aiken, also called Port Hacking, was an inlet to a river south of the Botany Bay inlet. The first development of this area involved close associates of Walter’s father, Laurence. The following information comes from the website on the Sutherland Shire:[i]

Port Aiken:

“The first landowner in the Sutherland Shire was Captain James Birnie, a mercantile trader who arrived in Sydney in 1806 and settled in Pitt Street.

(NB. Birnie endorsed Laurence Butler’s first petition for a pardon.)

Birnie was ‘promised’ Portion 1 of 700 acres at Kurnell in 1815. He named this ‘Alpha’ (First) Farm, building there a small three roomed cottage. Birnie worked the farm with a manager and convict labour. The farm was sold in 1828 to John Connell Senior (Laurence Butler’s close friend and neighbour who witnessed his will and acted as executor for Laurence’s estate and children after the death of Laurence’s wife Ann). His son John Connell Junior was granted Portions 2 and 3 at Kurnell in 1821 and apparently resided there. As well as these free grants, John Connell Junior also bought 1790 acres most of it in the Kurnell area. Although Alpha Farm continued, John Connell Junior engaged mainly in timber cutting. Over a period of twenty-five years he had cleared practically all the large timber from both Kurnell and Woolooware.”

Connell was transporting ironbark, turpentine, blackbut, mahogany and red cedar to the Sydney market.[ii]

As their fathers had a close personal association (John Connell witnessing Laurence’s will), and had lived as neighbours in Pitt Street for many years, no doubt Walter and John Connell Junior would have known each other. It is highly likely therefore that Walter was engaged in some way with Connell’s tree felling enterprise at the time of his snake-bite. He may have been procuring timber for the cabinet-making business now being run by Leary, as at that time Walter was still living at the Pitt Street property.

At the time of his marriage to Margaret Dunn in 1825, Walter was living in the Pitt Street residence left to him by his father, however, this property was probably being leased by Miles Leary. Leary was assigned two bonded mechanics in 1822, a convict in August 1823 and a bonded mechanic at his Pitt Street cabinet- making business in 1824.[iii] In the 1828 Census, Leary was still at Pitt Street. His household return showed four carpenters and a labourer also living at the address. Notably they were all ex-convicts and Catholic. Leary continued living there until his death in 1834, as he was listed in the 1834 Directory as a carpenter at Pitt street.

On 4 December 1824, Walter wrote a Memorial to Governor Brisbane for a land grant:[iv]

To His Excellency Sir Thomas Brisbane etc

The Humble Memorial of WALTER BUTLER native of this colony. Praying for a Grant of Land

Most Respectfully Shewith

That Your Excellency’s Memorialist having a brother and sister (Lawrence and Ann Butler) to support on account of the Decease of his Father and Mother which has been lately, and Memorialist’s having upwards of 50 heads of Cattle left him by his Father’s Will and having no grounds of his own to graze them upon.

That your Memorialist likewise begs leave most respectfully to intimate to your Excellency that he has upwards of £2000 worth of value in property and 3 houses in Sydney which has likewise been left him by his Father’s Will and Testament bearing date 31^st July 1821, he has ordered that the property should be distributed in equal shares alike, and for the benefit of Memorialist and his Brother and Sister deems it expedient to Memorial Your Excellency for a Grant of Land to keep his Cattle on and likewise to commence cultivating the same for future exigencies therefore trusting that Your Excellency will be pleased to encourage his laudable design.

That Your Memorialist begs further to state to Your Excellency, having observed the Government Notice of the 11^th Nov 1824, relative to the extension of Grants of Land, begs leave to point out to Your Excellency that the Memorialist pledges himself to maintain one, two or three Prisoners of the Crown for the complete year and free of any expense to Government and shall enter into a Bond for the same, that should Your Memorialist be so fortunate as to obtain Your Excellency’s sanction for such portion of land as Your Excellency may deem proper and your Memorialist having never received any indulgence from Your Excellency which therefore induces your Memorialist to present Your Excellency this his Memorial Supplicating Your Excellency’s compliance with the same. And for marks of Your Excellency’s favour.

Memorialist will be ever

Bound to Pray

Walter Butler

No 7 Pitt Street

(endorsements)

It comes within my knowledge that the Memorialist by industry and good conduct supports his orphan Brother and Sister with much credit to Himself. Signed .......

The Memorialist is distinguished for his application to business and propriety of conduct 14^th Dec 1824 signed- John Joseph Therry (Rev)

Memorialist is willing to enter into an engagement to clear and cultivate a considerable portion of whatever land may be granted him, but cannot conscientiously promise personally to reside on it. 7^th June 1825 John Joseph Therry (Rev)

Memorialist assures me that it is his intention exactly to conform to the Government regulations that are now or may hereafter be established with regard to any land which His Excellency the Governor may be pleased to order him. 5^th July 1825 John Joseph Therry

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WALTER BUTLER

I return to you herewith your late Memorial because by a reference to the Gazette of the 26^th... you will perceive that all correspondence with the local Government respective of Grants of Land must be placed there with the Office of the Surveyor General

By His Excellency’s Command

J. Goulburn

13^th June (1825)

Colonial Secretary’s Office

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To His Excellency Sir Thomas Brisbane

Captain G.... Governor and Commander in Chief in .... New South Wales and it’s Dependencies

The Humble Memorial of WALTER BUTLER

Most Humbly Shewith

That Your Excellency’s Memorialist having Memorialised Your Excellency on the 6^th December through the Office of the Colonial Secretary whom after keeping it for the space of six months, Memorialist is now referred to the Office of the Surveyor General.

That Your Excellency’s Memorialist begs leave with every ... of respect to lay it before Your Excellency again and as other Individuals have received land since my Memorial has been sent in, now trusting that Your Excellency will be most kindly pleased to make unto Your Excellency’s Memorialist a Grant of Land equal to the Capital that your Memorialist possesses and which would be a m..... ...... loss to Your Excellency’s Memorialist were he to wait for any longer time.

Your Memorialist is obliged to pay the Departuige (?) of his Cattle and since Your Excellency’s Memorialist presented it, he has been married.

Humbly hoping that Your Excellency will be pleased to take Memorialist’s appeal into Your Excellency’s Consideration

And Memorialist as in duty bound

Shall ever be....

Walter Butler

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WALTER BUTLER Date of Order: August 15 1825

Number of acres: 80

Memorial 1

Memorial 2

Fr Therry's endorsement on the back

Following his second Memorial to Governor Brisbane in June 1825, Walter was granted 80 acres of land on which he kept the cattle he inherited from his father, however he stated he would not live on this property, which was the usual requirement for receiving a grant.[v] As this stage, the whereabouts of this property is unknown. As it doesn’t appear in the Registers for Cumberland in 1824-25, it would indicate that his grant may have been outside this county.

In the 1828 Census, Walter was a carpenter working in Sydney and living in Cumberland Street in the household of a William French.[vi] French, a 32 year old ex-convict labourer (arrived in 1818) and his wife, both Protestants, had several people living with them: a shoemaker and his wife, a nailer, two lodgers aged six and four who were unrelated to the other householders, and Walter and his wife. Notably, Walter and his wife were no longer living with Leary as Walter’s relationship with Leary was becoming acrimonious by this time.

Lawrence Junior, 16 years of age, was working as a printer, possibly for Catherine Clarkson (a free settler who arrived from England on the ‘Alexander’ in 1806; on the same ship were two convicts named Richard and Thomas Clarkson from Warwick who both received 14 year sentences) with whom he was living as a lodger in Hunter Street Sydney. Clarkson was listed as a publican and a printer. However, in the same year Lawrence, as an apprentice, was named in the newspaper “The Sydney Monitor” charged with absconding from his master Anthony Hill, the printer for “The Monitor”. [vii] He was still apprenticed to the editor of “The Monitor”, Edward Smith Hall, in 1831, although he had absconded again in 1830 and in 1832.[viii]

Eleven year old Ann/Mary Ann was boarding with David Greville in Pitt Street. Greville, an emancipated convict, was an English schoolmaster who set up a boarding school in the colony. Greville was convicted at the Old Bailey in London in April 1790 of pick pocketing, sentenced to seven years transportation and arrived on the ‘Active’ in 1791. (He had been found not guilty of another incident of pick pocketing in January the same year.) He completed his sentence and returned to England, and was once more arrested and convicted in 1805, once again for pick pocketing, given another seven years and arrived on the ‘Fortune’ in 1806. This time, he remained in the colony and opened the boarding school in Pitt Street. In the 1828 Census, Greville listed as ‘school master’, and his wife, had three boarders, Ann Butler (viz. Mary Ann) 11, Hannah Fowler 12, and John Laycock 10, and a 13 year old lodger and a 16 year old servant. John Laycock was the orphan grandson of John Connell, the Butler’s Pitt Street neighbour.

In January 1829, Walter and Margaret’s first son, Francis George, was born. [ix] His baptism record states their “abode” was Parramatta. Their second son, Thomas Lawrence was born in January 1831, abode Sydney. [x] Walter’s brother Lawrence was named as Thomas’s sponsor.

In the 1832 Sydney Directory Walter was listed as a cabinetmaker living in Castlereagh Street, the same street as his father-in-law Thomas Dunn. However, this family was not destined to remain as a happy family. Walter left Margaret and his two infant sons for another woman in 1832- a young married woman by the name of Eliza Bodecin nee Dwyer, the mother of two very young infant children. At the age of 15 Eliza was married to a Catholic Frenchman by whom she had a daughter Mary Ann b.1828 and a son Mark Henry b. November 1829. Eliza was the daughter of the infamous Irish 1798 rebel known as the “Wicklow Chief”, Michael Dwyer.

On 11 February 1832 (p3), Walter placed an advertisement in the Sydney Monitor- it signalled the end of their marriage:

The following nine years or so have been rather difficult to unravel, as Walter and Eliza appear to have relocated several times between Tasmania, New South Wales, and Victoria.

contact butler1802 @hotmail.com (no spaces)

Link back to Introduction chapter:http://butlerfamilyhistoryaus.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/walter-butler-introduction.html

[i] www.ourshire.com.au/suburbs Sutherland Shire- Port Aiken

[ii] Daphne F. Salt, Kurnell- Birthplace of Modern Australia- Earliest Settlers- Birnie, Connell, Laycock, www.ssec.org.au , 2007

[iii] SRNSW: Colonial Secretary; [5/3821.1, P8] Assigned bonded mechanics, Fiche 3293;

[53X, pp5, 6, 18, 31, 46, 62, 76], Assigned bonded mechanics, Fiche 3296.

[iv] SRNSW; Colonial Secretary; [4/1836B, no.148, p681-90]; Walter Butler’s Memorials, 6 Dec 1824, 13 June 1825; Fiche 3081. [4/3514, p478]; Reply; Reel 6014.

[v] SRNSW: Colonial Secretary; [9/2652, p85]; Land Grant, 15 August 1825, fiche 3266, and [9/2740, p4], Fiche 3269; SRNSW; Indexes to Land Grants, 1788-1865; [7/497, Reg. No 71, p463];

[vi] M. Sainty & K. Johnson, Census of NSW 1828, rev. ed. CD, Library of Australian History, Nth Sydney 2008.

[vii] The Monitor, 8 & 10 November 1828.

[viii] SRNSW: Index to Quarter Session Cases 1824-1837; [4/8453, no 32], Laurence Butler, July 1831.

[ix] NSW Registry of BDM, V1829/125 1308- birth- Francis George Butler

[x] NSW Registry of BDM, V1831/127 1978- birth- Thomas Lawrence Butler

Sunday 19 August 2012

Walter Butler- Ch. 3: Working life to 1832

[iii] SRNSW: Colonial Secretary; [5/3821.1, P8] Assigned bonded mechanics, Fiche 3293;

[53X, pp5, 6, 18, 31, 46, 62, 76], Assigned bonded mechanics, Fiche 3296.