At the western end of the main street a gentle slope called Rose Hill led up to the governor’s country residence and its accompanying experimental indigenous gardens, intended to supply plants for the royal gardens of Kew. The eastern end of the street culminated in brick barracks capable of housing 300 infantrymen. The paddocks of Elizabeth Farm abutted the barracks, and the homestead was only five minutes brisk walk away. Unconsciously or not, Elizabeth had very nearly replicated the site and situation of the farm where she’d been born. Just like Lodgeworthy farm in Bridgerule, the homestead at Elizabeth Farm sat on a gentle rise, overlooking the fields that reached to the river a mile or so away. The situation of the farm meant that Elizabeth and her family were never isolated. They could enjoy the social benefits of town while maintaining the privacy afforded by the hundreds of acres that Elizabeth Farm now encompassed. With the additional vast properties at Toongabbie, Cow Pastures and elsewhere, Elizabeth Farm was at this point the heart of the agricultural Macarthur enterprises. It was always Elizabeth’s favourite home.
Elizabeth’s neighbour Betsy Marsden wrote to an acquaintance in England about how cut off she felt from all connection with the world. ‘Old England is no more than like a pleasing dream. When I think of it it appears to have no existence except in my imagination.’6 But England was far more than a dream to Elizabeth. With all four of her sons now there or en route there, as well as her husband, it was a place very much at the forefront of her mind. Eldest son Edward, in early 1809, visited his mother’s friends and relations in Bridgerule. His letters to Elizabeth, which probably arrived a few months after John’s departure, are full of affectionate details and the many names of old friends wishing his mother well. They contained everything Elizabeth could wish for to take her mind from the cares of her work. She read and re-read them, especially in that first year, 1809, when heavy rains constantly threatened floods. And she kept them for the rest of her life.
Elizabeth’s dear friend Bridget had died in 1802, and by the time of Edward’s visit in 1809, Bridget’s parents, who had stood up for Elizabeth in the face of disapproval of her marriage to John, had also died. But Bridget’s younger brothers and sisters, now with families of their own, remembered Elizabeth fondly and showered Edward with friendly hospitality. Edward stayed at the vicarage where Bridget’s brother was now the reverend, and where Elizabeth had spent so many happy hours with her friend. Indeed, the vicarage was inhabited by one Reverend Kingdon or another right up until the 1950s.
Edward, confined to the sofa after hurting his knee in a fall from his horse, received as his first visitor his grandmother—Elizabeth’s mother. Edward told his mother that he had expected a ‘decrepit old woman’ but was pleasantly surprised by his grandmother’s upright posture and her ‘countenance bespeaking the happy contentment which dwelled within. Since you have seen her dearest Mother, time must have materially changed her, but for a woman of sixty years of age she is a prodigy.’7 A few days later, Edward, accompanied by the reverend’s wife, returned the visit. The journey to his grandmother’s cottage was only a very short one but it was undertaken in the old-fashioned way still common in that area, with two people on the one horse, the woman sitting sideways behind the man riding astride. ‘The old Mare was led out. I mounted before Mrs. K on the pillion behind—and thus mounted the subject of our conversation was Mrs. McArthur. Could she but see us—and the like.’8 Edward’s grandmother showed him her cottage and asked him wistfully if he thought his mother would find the bed comfortable. Over tea Edward was told all the local news and Elizabeth’s half-sister Isabella Hacker dropped in to pay her respects. It is perhaps indicative of the cool relationship between the sisters that Edward wrote only a single sentence about his aunt, noting ‘she has three Children, expects a fourth—and both she, and her husband are well, and doing well’.9
Edward enjoyed his stay with the Kingdons and their large family. ‘They live hospitably but without splendour and are wise enough not to be at all corrupted by the prevailing taste of the day. Surely when you come home—you can think of spending the remainder of your days in no other part. Their ways are so consonant to your own.’10 Home—such a simple word to carry so much complex emotional weight. Even after she had lived nearly twenty years in New South Wales it was still a matter of when Elizabeth would come home, not if.
Edward’s letters to his mother also provide a glimpse of Elizabeth’s life in Parramatta, and everyone’s fears for his sister Elizabeth, who remained gravely ill. ‘Now, my dear Mother, my thoughts turn seriously towards your distant quarter. My dear Elizabeth—must I mention the name! I fear what I dare not write, poor dear Girl her last embrace made a strong impression on my mind.’ Edward does not forget his other siblings: ‘To my dearest Mary, my most affectionate love—& to James & little Billy the very same.’ And in a final flourish of homesickness he begs to be remembered to his mother’s friends. ‘Remember me particularly & affectionately to Miss Lucas, and give my regards to Mrs Abbot, Mrs Minchin, &c &c &c.’
As much as Elizabeth loved receiving Edward’s letters, she may have been concerned that he consistently seemed unsettled. In a letter from later in 1809, when Edward was reunited with his father and youngest brothers, he wrote, ‘I am very comfortable here, and was it not for that restless, roaming disposition of mine, I should be content to remain where I am.’11 That restless, roaming disposition would take Edward, as an officer in His Majesty’s Army, across the European continent, briefly to Canada and back to France with the army of occupation. His service record was solid, if not glittering, but in time he rose through the ranks to receive a knighthood and become a lieutenant-general. He was well liked by his fellow officers, one of whom remarked ‘who can help liking him, wherever he is known he becomes a Favourite’.12
In 1809 Elizabeth’s second son, John, was still excelling in his studies at Grove Hall Academy, where the following year younger brothers James and William would begin their schooling. With all the hauteur of the older brother for his five years younger sibling, Edward wrote without irony that ‘John is a very fine lad, and improves wonderfully’.13 He also noted that John was ‘almost as tall as myself, and at the same time remarkably stout’.14 John’s teachers were highly impressed with him, and John himself was keen to become a lawyer. Edward, no scholar himself, trailed around England after his new regiment which was not, in his opinion, ‘considered the most crack’.15 Later in 1809, when he was based in Hereford, the younger boys stayed with Edward while their father took care of business in London. Edward seemed to surprise himself with how much he enjoyed his brothers’ company. ‘I am quite a family man,’ wrote Edward to his father, ‘and if you were to see us our mirth would please you I am sure not a little.’16
Edward was careful to pass on to his mother all the little boys’ best wishes for their family at home:
James and William desire their loves to Mamma and they hope that ‘she is well and that Elizabeth is better’ and that Mary is well, & their little Sister. Tell them, they say, we say our prayers for them when we go to bed, and drink their healths every day after dinner. They unite with me in kindest remembrances to Miss Lucas, and desire their remembrances to Lewis, & his family, and all their old friends. They do not forget Condion & his Wife, nor any of our domestics.17
In fact, Edward paints some delightful word pictures of his little brothers, who seemed to charm all with whom they came in contact. Thanks to the boys’ French tutor in Parramatta they both spoke the language with great fluency, and while staying with Edward they continued their language, mathematics and writing studies under a variety of tutors for six hours a day:
I am sure you would be particularly delighted if you knew how diligent and good even William is. He makes the most astonishing progress…James has learned his multiplication table & in my next, I shall send a specimen of his improvement in writing. I have got a book and pencil for him and all the leisure time he has he spends in drawing.18
The little boys were very
close to one another and would remain so for the rest of their lives.
By the time these loving letters arrived in New South Wales, Elizabeth was dealing with yet another government regime. Governor Lachlan Macquarie and his wife, Elizabeth, had sailed from England in May 1809 to replace Paterson’s interim position. Edward managed to pay the Macquaries a quick visit before they left. During a stopover in Rio, Macquarie heard the news that John Macarthur and Major Johnston had just passed through on their way to London. Macquarie, carrying orders to arrest Johnston, for leading the overthrow, and Macarthur, for high treason, was pleased at the news—now he wouldn’t have to deal with them on his arrival in New South Wales. Fortunately for Johnston and Macarthur, a jurisdictional technicality meant they were not arrested on arrival in London.
The Macquaries disembarked in Sydney in late December and Governor Macquarie was sworn in on 1 January 1810. Elizabeth quickly joined their social circle—to do so was both expedient and enjoyable. She soon discovered that Mrs Macquarie was a relatively new wife and that she had previously been living in Holsworthy, a mere five miles east of Bridgerule. The two women no doubt spent quite some time enjoyably discovering their mutual acquaintances. Elizabeth was also able to introduce her new friend Elizabeth Macquarie to her old friend Betsy Marsden, who had arrived back from England with her husband in February 1810.
Over the next few years the friendship between these three women was cemented by sorrow. While Elizabeth missed her husband and sons, Elizabeth Macquarie was grieving for her ‘dear angelic Daughter’ who had died at twelve weeks of age two years earlier.19 Since then she had endured one miscarriage and, over the next four years, would suffer six more before successfully giving birth to a son in 1814. In 1811 Betsy Marsden suffered a stroke while giving birth to a daughter (who survived to live into old age). For the rest of her life Betsy, whose husband had previously boasted of her horse-riding prowess, was paralysed on her left side and could only leave home in a specially constructed carriage.20 Although the Marsdens were longstanding family friends of the Blighs,21 the esteem in which Elizabeth Macarthur was held helped her to overcome the inevitable social awkwardness occasioned by any mention of her absent husband.
In 1810, two years since the rebellion, Bligh still refused to leave for England. When the Porpoise had sailed from Port Jackson, it had gone only as far as Van Diemen’s Land. Bligh spent a year establishing a blockade of sorts on the Derwent, harassing the people of Hobart Town and annoying its governor by stopping every vessel arriving and leaving. Dispatches were seized and supplies commandeered. Months passed with no reprieve—some wondered if Bligh was waiting for reinforcements from England to avenge his overthrow. Finally, in January 1810, he sailed back up the coast to Sydney, only to find that Macquarie was now governor. It was a crushing blow, only slightly mitigated by the news that the disgraced New South Wales Corps was being recalled to Britain to be replaced by Macquarie’s 73rd Regiment. HMS Porpoise, with a reluctantly acquiescing Bligh aboard, would accompany HMS Hindostan and the storeship Dromedary home to England with the rank and file members of the New South Wales Corps and many of the officers, including Paterson and his wife.
In early April 1810, a month before the convoy sailed, a grand farewell ball was held aboard the Porpoise. It was one of many farewell dinners and entertainments held during Bligh’s sojourn in Sydney, where his presence continued to be both divisive and abrasive. Although the Macquaries privately agreed that Bligh’s government should never have been overthrown, they found the man himself to be very difficult. Governor Macquarie wrote to his brother that Bligh was ‘a most disagreeable person to have any dealings or public business to transact with’.22 But everyone who was anyone in Sydney was still happy to attend Bligh’s ball—even Elizabeth Macarthur.
It might seem odd that Elizabeth would go, but Bligh’s argument was with her husband, not with her; she was expressly invited; and all the other ladies would be there. Besides, she might find out something useful she could pass along to John. At six in the evening the guests began to assemble aboard the decorated ship and ‘the atmosphere resounded with loyal airs from a large Band’.23 The ship’s huge lanterns cast a magical glow. The quarterdeck was covered with a large awning and between the gunports were sideboards groaning with wines, fruits and delicacies. At eight o’clock the dancing began, ‘supported with great vivacity’, until the company paused at eleven for an elegant supper. Elizabeth, always a regimental favourite, could not have lacked for dance partners. After supper the dancing continued until three in the morning, at which point the guests left the ship ‘very much delighted with the hospitality of the Entertainment’.24
Did Bligh and Elizabeth engage in any polite chat that evening? It seems unlikely. Months later, in Rio on his way home to England, Bligh refused to dine with newly widowed Elizabeth Paterson. Her husband—shot by John Macarthur in a duel, beleaguered by the cares of governing, and a heavy drinker—died at sea off Cape Horn. Bligh’s snubbing of Mrs Paterson was recorded by another officer in his diary, commenting that the incivility ‘tended not a little to confirm the low estimation in which [Bligh] is already held’.25
In England, John Macarthur travelled to Portsmouth to meet the incoming convoy, and was told of Paterson’s death. He subsequently wrote to Elizabeth to let her know, adding in a wry aside that he ‘returned to town bringing under my escort Mrs Paterson, who appears grateful for this mark of attention. You know sometimes I like to return disobliging acts this way.’26 John went on to note that Elizabeth Paterson was in good health and excellent spirits. She was indeed. In a surprise manoeuvre, Elizabeth Paterson married Major Grose in March 1814, himself a widower by then, and they took up residence in Bath. Her new husband, the former acting governor of New South Wales, died two months later and Elizabeth Grose lived on quietly in England, staying in friendly contact with the Macarthurs until her death in 1839.
Importantly, Elizabeth’s presence at Bligh’s farewell ball is perhaps a sign that her daughter was beginning to recover, that she no longer needed her mother in constant attendance. A further clue is a receipt still among the Macarthur family papers for a pianoforte bought at auction for £85, in 1810.27 This was approximately four times the London price of a new square piano.28 The Macarthur’s original (and now unfashionable) table piano, which First Fleet surgeon George Worgan had presented to Elizabeth as a gift, had probably warped over time and became unplayable.29 Yet someone—or perhaps everyone—in the house loved music enough to warrant the extravagance of a new one, and it seems young Elizabeth was well enough to enjoy the entertainment too.
Her recovery is confirmed in a letter from John to Elizabeth in May 1810. John expresses his immense gratitude to Doctor Redfern for ‘discovering and applying an efficacious remedy to her extraordinary disease’.30 But for the next year and more young Elizabeth’s health was precarious enough that she spent several months living in Sydney with her mother so that she could receive treatment.31 Although Redfern, an ex-convict, was widely held to be an excellent doctor, there was little he could prescribe that would have done more for Elizabeth than did the constant care of her mother, the household servants and the governess, Penelope Lucas.
As her daughter’s health improved, Elizabeth turned her energies and focus to the farms. That is not to say, with John away, she hadn’t already been working. Apart from a handful of aristocrats, Elizabeth and the other women of her era never stopped working. They worked every day of their lives and worked extraordinarily hard. The so-called ‘farmer and his wife’ were, in reality, both farmers and then, as now, the wife’s labour inside and outside the home was crucial to the running of the farm and the economic wellbeing of the family. Elizabeth Macarthur was no exception. She was, at that time, again, merely one of a number of women who had sole responsibility for their families’ farms.
In November 1810 Governor Macquarie set out on a lengthy tour of the outlying districts of Sydney. Within his diaries of the excursions, Governor Macquar
ie’s writing style is crisp and to the point. He describes the landscape, his horses, and his servants. Mrs M, as he calls his wife, often accompanies him in the carriage or on horseback and he lovingly admires her pluck and her stamina.32 Macquarie also describes the various farms and outposts he inspects along the way. Some of them, already overgrazed and poorly maintained, did not meet his high standards. But others clearly met with his approval, including several that were managed by women.
‘We rode up the Hill to call on Mrs. Bell (the Wife of Lieut. Bell of the 102d Regt.) who resides on her Farm on the summit of this beautiful Hill,’33 wrote the governor in his diary. And again, a week or so later, ‘We found Mrs. Laycock and her two Daughters at home, in a very neat comfortable well built Farm House and well furnished; the good old Lady’s Farm being also in a forward state of improvement in other respects.’34 That women are farming does not seem in any way remarkable to Macquarie; he merely notes the names and makes some comments in the same way he does for the men’s farms he visits.
One morning during Macquarie’s tour of inspection, Elizabeth Macarthur arrived just as the governor and his wife were completing their camp breakfast near Elizabeth’s Cow Pastures property. Elizabeth asked if she might ‘ride about the Country’ with the pair that day, which was ‘of course readily assented to’.35 The party set out at eleven o’clock, with a number of Aboriginal people. At the time and for many years afterwards, colonists on exploratory trips were often accompanied by one or more Aboriginal guides. The benefits for the colonists were obvious, but the guides’ own reasons for helping the touring parties are more complex. They usually received some recompense, in the form of food, or goods, or a small payment, but the act of guiding also gave them a modicum of power. The guides could lead parties to a place but perhaps they also ensured that parties did not encroach on sacred places, family campsites, or the choicest hunting grounds. The guides were also able to listen—colonists often commented on Aboriginal people’s abilities with mimicry and language—and so perhaps gathered valuable intelligence that could be relayed to their families, friends and allies.
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