William Charles Wentworth (August 179020 March 1872) was an Australian statesman, author, explorer, lawyer, newspaper editor and pastoralist, who became one of the wealthiest and most powerful figures in colonial New South Wales. He was among the first colonists to articulate a nascent Australian identity.
Wentworth was the leading advocate for the rights of emancipists, trial by jury and representative self-government. The establishment of Australia's first independent newspaper by Wentworth and Robert Wardell led to the introduction of press freedom in Australia. A proponent of secular and universal education, he participated in the creation of the state education system and legislated to establish Australia's first university, the University of Sydney. During the 1840s, Wentworth ended his previous support for free-settler migration and expressed more restrictive views on voting rights, though he later reversed course on both. He led the drafting of New South Wales' first self-governing constitution establishing the Parliament of New South Wales, Australia's first. Wentworth consistently advocated for Australian nationhood both in Australia and Britain, and gained credit from Sir Henry Parkes for his advocacy of self-government. A key figure in Australian and New South Wales history, he is widely commemorated.
Before his career advancing these causes, Wentworth, Gregory Blaxland and William Lawson led the 1813 expedition across the Blue Mountains, the first successful British traversal of the region.
Birth William Charles Wentworth was born on the HMS Surprize off the coast of Norfolk Island in August 1790, to D'Arcy Wentworth and Catherine Crowley. Catherine was a convict while his father, D'Arcy, was a member of the aristocratic Anglo-Irish Wentworth family, who had avoided prosecution for highway robbery by accepting the position of assistant surgeon in the colony of New South Wales.
Due to his mother being a felon and his conception being out of wedlock, confusion has existed around the exact date of William's birth. His father, however, acknowledged him as a legitimate son and he became a part of colonial society as a Wentworth family member.
Early life William Crowley, as he was then known, commenced his formal education at the age of five on Norfolk Island, "a woman of good character" being his teacher. As a young boy, he moved from Norfolk Island to Sydney with his parents and younger brothers in 1796. The family lived at Parramatta, where his father became a prosperous landowner. His mother died in 1800. In 1803, William and his brothers Dorset and Matthew were sent to England to be educated at an exclusive school run by Alexander Crombie in Greenwich.
Wentworth failed to gain entry into both the East India Company College and the Royal Military Academy. With his career prospects blunted, he returned to Sydney in 1810. He rode his father's horse Gig to victory at Hyde Park in the first official horse races on Australian soil.
In 1811, Wentworth was appointed acting Provost Marshal by Governor Lachlan Macquarie, and given a grant of of prime land along the Nepean River which he named Vermont.
Crossing the Blue Mountains
In 1813, Wentworth, along with Gregory Blaxland and William Lawson, led the expedition which found a route across the Blue Mountains west of Sydney and opened up the grazing lands of inland New South Wales. Wentworth kept a journal of the exploration which begins by describing the first day of the journey:
On the Eleventh of May our party consisting of Mr. Gregory Blaxland, Lieutenant Lawson and Myself with four servants quitted Mr. Gregory Blaxland's farm on the South Creek and on the 29th of the June Month descended from the Mountain into forest land having travelled as nearly as I can compute about 60 Miles.
In the journal, Wentworth describes the landscapes they were exploring:
A country of so singular a description could in my opinion only have been produced by some Mighty convulsion in Nature.In his 1823 epic Australasia, Wentworth once again references what he saw on the expedition: Hail mighty ridge! That from thy azure brow Survey'st these fertile plains, that stretch below
The town of Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains commemorates his role in the expedition. As a reward he was granted .
In 1814, Wentworth continued his adventurous lifestyle by joining a sandalwood-getting voyage to the South Pacific aboard the Cumberland under Captain Philip Goodenough. This vessel reached Rarotonga, where conflict with the local people resulted in five of the crew being killed. Wentworth himself was nearly killed, but with the aid of a pistol, he was able to flee to the Cumberland which sailed back to Sydney.
Studying in England Wentworth returned to England in 1816, where he studied law at the Magdalene and Peterhouse colleges at Cambridge University. He became a barrister and was admitted to the bar in 1822.
In between studying and writing, Wentworth also travelled to Europe, spending much of his time in Paris. He formulated an idea of establishing himself as a leader of a pastoral aristocracy in New South Wales and attempted to arrange his marriage with Elizabeth Macarthur, the daughter of the highly influential colonist John Macarthur. Wentworth however failed in this attempt after arguing with the Macarthur patriarch over his convict heritage and a loan.
Writings Wentworth became involved in literary pursuits, and by 1824 had published a number of notable works. He had created a minor stir in 1816 by anonymously publishing a satirical verse attacking the Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales, George Molle. In 1819, he published a book entitled A Statistical, Historical, and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and Its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land. In this book, Wentworth advocated for an elected assembly for New South Wales, free press, trial by jury and settlement of Australia by free emigrants rather than convicts. It served as the source material for the first theatrical play set in Van Diemen's Land (modern-day Tasmania), the bushranging melodrama Michael Howe the Terror! of Van Diemen's Land, which premiered in London in 1821."Two forgotten bushranger plays", Libraries Tasmania. Retrieved on 23 August 2022.
In 1823, he also published an epic poem Australasia, the first book of verse by a native-born Australian poet, which contains the lines:Frank Welsh, Great Southern Land: A New History of Australia, Penguin Books, 2005, p.27 ()
And, O Britannia!... may this—thy last-born infant—then arise, To glad thy heart, and greet thy parent eyes; And Australasia float, with flag unfurl'd, A new Britannia in another world! As well as describing the scenery Wentworth saw in the Blue Mountains, the poem featured a romanticised portrayal of the lifestyle of Aboriginal Australians.
Influential colonist in New South Wales
Advocate for reform Wentworth returned to Sydney in 1824, accompanied by fellow barrister Robert Wardell, both of whom were admitted to the New South Wales Bar later that year on 10 September. They actively campaigned for self-government and trial by jury by establishing The Australian (not to be confused with the present-day paper of the same name), the colony's first privately owned paper. Governor Sir Thomas Brisbane realised there was little point in continuing to censor The Sydney Gazette when the former was uncensored, and so government censorship of newspapers was abandoned in 1824, and the freedom of the press began in Australia.Keneally, p. 363. With an editorial leaning toward the rights of ex-convicts (known as emancipists), the paper was in frequent conflict with Governor Ralph Darling, who attempted unsuccessfully to have it banned in 1826. Wentworth became a director of the Bank of New South Wales in 1825.200 The Westpac Story: 200 years supporting Australia published 2017 by Westpac Banking Corporation 2017 p.296 Ritchie, p.209.
That year, Wentworth declared his disinterest in holding public office. "As a mere private person I might lead the colony, but as a servant of the Governor I could only conform to his whims, which would neither suit my tastes nor principles," he reasoned.
One contemporary, commenting on flogging and other harsh punishments administered to convicts, recorded the change brought by the liberal-minded Australian:An Emigrant Mechanic (Alexander Harris) (1847, 1977 reprint), Settlers and Convicts, or, Recollections of sixteen years’ labour in the Australian backwoods, Melbourne University Press, p. 10.
Wentworth's support for the rights of emancipists pitted him against the opposing "exclusive" faction. During a public meeting to commemorate the outgoing Governor Brisbane, Wentworth pined to deprive them "of their venom and their fangs”. He moved a successful motion requesting that Brisbane lobby Westminster for “the immediate establishment” of trial by jury and “Taxation by Representation.” He called for an elected legislature, saying that “there are colonists of … very great influence at home who are inimical to the establishment in New South Wales of the British Constitution.” Wentworth and Wardell opined in The Australian:Public meetings open the eyes of the people—shew them their own strength—moral as well as physical and convey to their reasoning faculties truths, to which, but for them, they might remain strangers. Public meetings expose the irresistibility of the people, if they firmly and legally claim their political due.In 1826, Privates Joseph Sudds and Patrick Thompson committed an act of theft, hoping to be discharged. Governor Darling sought to make an example of the two, sentencing Thompson and an ill Sudds to seven years' hard labour, with the unusual addition of being chained from the neck for the duration. The subsequent death of Sudds inflamed Wentworth, and he demanded that Darling be recalled. He declared Darling guilty of "murder, or at least a high misdemeanour" for Sudds' death.
In 1827, Wentworth's father died and William inherited much from his highly valuable assets, becoming one of the wealthiest individuals in the colony and growing his land holdings to over 7,000 acres. He purchased land at Vaucluse and rebuilt the existing house on the site into a mansion named Vaucluse House, which he moved into from Petersham. Wentworth also acquired property in Homebush.
On 26 October 1829, Wentworth married Sarah Cox, a convict-descended currency lass whom he had represented in her successful 1825 breach of promise suit. The proceeding had been the first such case in Australia. William and Sarah had already named their first daughter Thomasine, in honour of Governor Sir Thomas Brisbane. A love poem from William to Sarah appeared in The Australian three days prior to their marriage.
Darling's reassignment of The Monitor's foreman printer — a convict — to a road gang furthered conflict between himself and the reformists. Wentworth made the legal argument that convicts could only be removed from assignments if such was to their benefit. Subsequently, in 1830, the same was incorporated in legislation by the Imperial Parliament. The Governor was thereafter required to consult the Executive Council before any reassignment.
Powerful squatter Wentworth expanded his property holdings, obtaining large pastoral grazing licenses throughout New South Wales. In 1832, he acquired land at Gammon Plains, and in 1836 he bought the Windermere estate, expanding his Hunter River holdings. In the 1830s he formed partnerships with Captain Thomas Raine and John Christie in taking up land along the Macquarie River from Narromine to Haddon Rig. In the 1840s with John Charles Lloyd, he acquired further massive landholdings along the Namoi River and at Manilla. In the Murrumbidgee River region, Wentworth employed Augustus Morris to establish huge squatting licenses in his name.