EARLY SYDNEY

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6410, 3 November 1923, Page 3

EARLY SYDNEY

The “discovery” by Dr. Earle Page of Nelson relics in the historic home of the Ogilvies at Yulgilbar has brought a reminder from Mr Henry Rawes Whittell, of Pennant Hills, that relatives of the great admiral, were among the early settlers of Australia, and that he used his influence with Governor King to secure them appropriate grants of land (says the (Sydney Daily Telegraph”). In 1801 Mrs Robert Pitt came to Australia with four daughters and one son. Her maiden name was Mary Matcham, and she was a cousin of George Matcham, who married Lord Nelson’s youngest sister, Catherine, in 1785. Mary Matcham was the ancestress of the Wiltshire, Faithful, Jenkins, Woods, and Whittell families, and her descendents in this country now number considerably over one thousand.

Two of George Matcham’s children came to Australia at a later period. The grant of 2560 acres at Gosford to Charles Horatio Nelson Matcham is still known as Matcham’s Grant. As settlement developed young Matcham moved further out and took up sheep farming near Yass. He died unmarried jin that locality. Elizabeth settled v/ith her husband at New Norfolk in what was then known as Van Dieman’s Land. A second grant of land was made to her which she named Bronte, after the title conferred on Nelson by the Spanish Crown. A Tasmanian township perpetuates the name. Lieutenant Arthur Davies, R.N., was Elizabeth’s. husband.

The Davies family subsequently removed to the mainland, and, so far as Mr Whittell has been able to trace them, they ultimately returned to England.

An interesting sidelight on life in Sydney and the back country in the thirties is furnished in the subjoined letter, written by Nelson’s nephew, Charles Horation Nelson Matcham, to his brother in England:— The country has for some time past been in a very disturbed state; gangs of armed felons have been roving about robbing and murdering wherever they went. My station has been sacked (to use a cant word), as well as the rest, and property (valuable at this distance from Sydney) to a considerable amount destroyed. We are now pretty quiet here, but in some parts they are disturbed as ever. You will now see from this what difficulties we have to contend with, independent of the ordinary routine of affairs. You ask me about New Zealand. I very much fear our taking that country under our protection, as we call it, will ...involve us before long in a war with America, and above all with France. Our position in the country is very anomalous, and if, as they seem determined to do, these two nations form settlements on the island, they will come •so nearly in contact with us as to make it almost impossible to avoid a collision. They have both' squadrons already here and seem perfectly prepared to obtain their ends either by fair or foul means. The fact is we have delayed to long to assert a claim on the country; the time has now evidently gone by. IWe are miserably off for naval protection here; a well-armed privateer could any day raze Sydney to the ground, There is a good story told of our present blustering Governor on this very point. He was asked in Council what he would do in case a French frigate entered our harbor, and conducted herself in the same maner the French are said to have done in some of the neighbouring islands? “Oh!” quoth he. “I could easily get a thousand men to burn her.” A few weeks after this five American ships of war were found one fine morning anchored under the town, not a soul having known of their having come in during; the night and without a pilot. They really ought to think at Home of protecting this place, as they easily could do so by fortifying the mouth of the harbor, which is a very narrow channel.