Sale of Historic Manuscripts

Hordern House, the Sydney-based antiquarian book sellers, recently announced the sale of an outstanding collection of books, manuscripts and artefacts covering the first three decades of European Australia.

The books include first editions of some of the earliest publications about the colony – the 1st and the expanded 3rd editions of Watkin Tench’s A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay (both 1789); two copies of the 1st edition of the semi-official Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay (1789), one of them hand-coloured; two copies of the 1st edition of John White’s Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales (1790), one hand coloured; a 1st edition of John Hunter’s An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island (1793); and 1st editions of the two volumes of David Collins An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales (1798 and 1802).

Among the manuscripts are several highly important (and valuable) historical documents, which will have attracted the attention of public institutions and private collectors. Of particular interest to Botany Baymen are:

• The original of a letter written by Newton Fowell, a young midshipman on the Sirius, to his father on 10 May 1787, three days before the First Fleet sailed from the Solent. For some reason, this was not included in the collection of Fowell’s letters held by the State Library of NSW and published by Nance Irvine in 1988, but it was not unknown to First Fleet historians. The late Professor Alan Frost included the text in his series of First Fleet documents, taken from a copy held by the Portsmouth History Centre.

• A title deed for land at Parramatta granted to Robert Webb, a former seaman of the Sirius, on 22 February 1792, reportedly the second land grant issued in the colony. This block of land is of particular interest because it was sold to Captain Thomas Melvill, master of the Third Fleet whaler, Britannia, when he returned to NSW in 1794 (one of his descendants holds the indenture). Melvill’s daughter and son-in-law, Jenette and George Evans, took possession when they relocated from the Cape in 1802, and Evans sold the land to another whaling captain in 1805 (a record of which can be found in the Old Register).

• Another early title deed for land at the Eastern Farms near Parramatta, granted to John Bazely (also on 22 February 1792). Bazely had not long completed his sentence, but he had served as deputy provost marshal since shortly after coming ashore in January 1788 and occupied a position of high trust in First Fleet society.

  This grant is of interest because of the reverse – Bazely’s assignment of this block of land to James Squire for twenty pounds and a passage from Port Jackson to the next port of call (not England as the catalogue wrongly states). Bazely was an experienced mariner and could have worked his way home but evidently chose to sail from NSW as a passenger.

  Also of interest is that this transfer was witnessed by at least two other convict overseers, Charles Peat and Henry Kable. A third signature has (thus far) not been deciphered. This is further evidence of the stratification of convict society, with overseers and tradesmen socialising with one another, and drawing on one another in witnessing documents such as wills and property transfers.

  Bazely left on the Indispensable three months later, bound for India. The ship was diverted to China, and what happened to Bazely is presently unknown.

Other historically significant manuscripts in the collection include several original wills by John Hunter, second captain of the Sirius on the First Fleet, and second Governor of the colony; a letter by Secretary to the Colony and Judge Advocate, David Collins, to his agent in London, dated 22 December 1795, expressing his desire to return home (which he was finally able to do seven months later); a letter by Governor Bligh in October 1807, directing the abandonment of the settlement on Norfolk Island and the evacuation of the settlers there; the original warrant for the arrest of George Johnston over his role in the so-called Rum Rebellion; and a printed copy of the verdict and sentence of Johnston’s court-martial.

There are three artefacts in the collection, one of which is of particular interest to Botany Baymen:

• The Borrowdale seal commissioned by Hobson Reed, master of the First Fleet storeship of that name, shortly before sailing. It is a silver fob seal, decorated with an (accurate) image of the ship and the words ‘Success to the Borrowdale’ on one side and Reed’s initials in reverse on the other. It was discovered in an antique jewellery shop in Wareham in Dorset in 1999 and sold at auction in 2010 for $35,000. It is now on offer for almost twice that amount.

  I published a biography of Hobson Reed in The Great Circle in 2019 (see Success to the Borrowdale).

It is to be hoped that most of these items are acquired by public institutions, so they are accessible to historians studying the early colony.

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Botany Baymen acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and respects their connection to land, water and community.

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