Macquarie Field House is a heritage-listed former farm, private school and homestead and now residence at Quarter Sessions Road, Macquarie Fields, City of Campbelltown, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by James Meehan (first house, barn), James Hume (attrib: second and current house) and built from 1810 to 1843 by James Meehan (first house); Mr Burns (woodwork in second, current house). It is also known as Macquarie Field House and the Meehan remains; Macquariefield, Macquarie Fields and Macquarie Field. The property is privately owned. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
History An initial 1809 grant of to James Meehan had expanded to ( of which were cleared) by 1820, in 1826, in 1877, approximately were in NSW Government ownership by 1944, the remaining area of open space today is not stated nor analysed. The current SHR curtilage area, plus land proposed in the application to be community open space, totals approximately .Devine, 2011
Meehan (1774–1826) was a middle-class Catholic Irishman whose flirtation with the Society of United Irishmen in 1796–98 led to his conviction as a member of a proscribed organisation, although he did not take part in the actual uprising (the 'Irish Rebellion') of 1798. As a result, the 25-year-old school teacher and surveyor arrived in Sydney in February 1800 on the convict ship "Friendship" to serve a life sentence. Because of his valuable experience as a surveyor in Ireland, Meehan was soon assigned to the Surveyor-General of the colony, at first Augustus Alt, but after 1801, Charles Grimes. Meehan was the only one of four assistant surveyors with qualifications, so from the start his competence and diligence earned him uncommon freedoms and by 1803 he had done survey work not only on Sydney's Cumberland Plain but as far afield as the Hunter, Port Phillip and Van Diemen's Land. In 1805 he received a conditional pardon and was acting as chief surveyor of NSW in Grimes' absence. Meehan had, while still a convict, received a land grant of 100 acres in the Field of Mars in 1803.Jack, 2015, 1
By 1802 he had been on two major expeditions and, by 1806, had been conditionally pardoned. He continued to work on departmental duties, and, from difficult beginnings, had a remarkable rise to be an important colonial surveyor, explorer and settler, surveying and mapping large areas of the country. The early towns of Sydney, Parramatta, Bathurst, Port Macquarie and Hobart were all explored, laid out and measured by Meehan. A statue of him was commissioned by the Land & Property Management Authority to commemorate Meehan's close collaboration with NSW Public Works Heritage Services and the Government Architect's Office. This new statue of Meehan was placed on the south-east corner of the former Lands Department Building in November 2010 to commemorate Meehan's achievements.
In 1806 Meehan began living with English convict, Ruth Goodaire, in a leased town house. Their son Thomas was born in 1808 and daughter Mary in 1810. While senior surveyor, Meehan received in Bankstown in 1808 and in June and August 1809 two grants in Minto totalling straddling Bunbury Curran Creek. He gave up his Field of Mars grant, but when Governor Macquarie arrived in 1810 and regularised most of the grants made in the difficult preceding years, Meehan's Minto holdings were increased by the addition of several adjacent farms, surrendered by their previous grantees, making an integrated estate of in 1810. It was a provision of Macquarie's grant and regrant of 1810 that Meehan must cultivate at Minto by 1815 and, although there are few details, there is no doubt that Meehan developed the estate while continuing as a busy government surveyor until 1822. He acquired more adjacent land and in October 1816 Macquarie issued a further consolidating grant for a "Macquariefield" which now embraced .Jack, 2015, 2
It is not known how soon (after 1809) Meehan began to erect substantial buildings. Huts would, however, have been required for stockmen from the beginning and certainly by 1814 when he was supplying the government with of meat, the same as his neighbours Charles Throsby and William Redfern. In the first years much of the acreage remained uncleared and uncultivated. There was certainly some kind of accommodation on the estate by 1811, when the Governor directed people with promises of land in Airds to 'attend at Mr Meehan's Farm on the Bunbury Curran Creek' to meet the surveyor. The brick barn is plausibly dated to between 1814 and 1816. The question is open whether the main house was built before or after the barn and whether the house was built in stages. At all events, it was complete when Rev. Thomas Reddell converted it into a school in 1821.Jack, 2015, 5
There was more consistent direct oversight in 1818 and 1819 when Meehan was spending more time there than at his Sydney house. But Macquarie then insisted that his senior surveyor be resident in Sydney. Meehan complied and at the end of 1820 agreed to lease the house and garden to the governor for use by the Rev. Thomas Reddall as a private school for 18 months. During this time Governor Macquarie's son Lachlan attended this school.Jack, 2015, 5 When Meehan returned to Macquariefield in 1822 land cleared for crops amounted to only , most of which was used for wheat, the remaining for maize. Grazing land supported 16 horses, 450 cattle, 1200 sheep and 25 pigs. He immediately sought the help of convict clearing gangs and between June 1822 and June 1823 were cleared. Meehan used Macquariefield primarily for stock and only secondarily for cropping.Jack, 2015, 3
The first house built on this site, 'Meehan's Castle', built but possibly not completed until 1818,Jack, 2015 was a two-storey structure of even greater prominence on the then bare hill than the later (and remaining) house which was built in the 1840s. Meehan chose its site because it was the only strategic outcrop in the region, effectively being a naturally fortified rampart with panoramic views. This was important for both security and observation, in Sydney's first expansion to the southwest in a time of Aboriginal attacks and general unrest. The siting shows Meehan's skill in planning the settlement of New South Wales.Devine, 2011
Meehan built a second complex, including an 11-room farmhouse, dairy and an eight-stall stable, at some distance to the north of his own house, more accessible to Bunbury Curran Creek. This ancillary farmhouse is probably the two-storey building shown by artist Frederick Terry (1850s-60s watercolour panorama) on the extreme right of his painting.Jack, 2015, 4 Although the barn on the main site has been claimed as a convict barracks, the labourers on Meehan's estate are much more likely to have been accommodated in the 11-room farmhouse. The buildings of this second group do not seem to have survived and their archaeological potential is unknown.Jack, 2015, 4
In 1822 Meehan retired from his position as Deputy Surveyor-General and for the first time became a full-time farmer. He was in some financial stress, partly because the government had paid only the first installment of rent for Reddall's use of Macquariefield as a school and there were arrears in salary payments for his last months in office. Accordingly, in 1823 he mortgaged the property to Samuel Terry for over £1300. Terry was the classic instance of a successful convict. By hard work, shrewdness and ruthless determination he had become a merchant and land dealer of heroic proportions. He is known as "the Botany Bay Rothschild".Jack, 2015, 6
Meehan died in April 1826.Jack, 2015, 3 On his death, all his real estate passed to his only son, Thomas. In 1829, two years after probate had been granted, Terry complained that no payment had yet been made to him and that Thomas was "dispensing and otherwise making away with the personal property of his late Father... to the great injury of the Creditors". Terry was successful in obtaining letters of administration and appointed William Charles Wentworth as proctor to protect his interests. Terry then sued Thomas Meehan for £5,000 and on 25 January 1831 Thomas transferred the of Macquariefield to the mortgagee. The normal spelling (of its name) then changed to "Macquarie Field". Terry himself never lived at Macquarie Field: it was only one of a string of major pastoral properties he acquired. His preferred residence was Box Hill House on the Windsor Road. When Samuel died in 1838, his huge estate was divided among his children and step-children.Jack, 2015, 6
The five or six buildings on the estate advertised for sale in April 1829 were substantial. Only one (the barn) now survives above ground, but the precise location of the principal residence can be fixed because of historic images and material remains, while the general location of others is known from an abortive subdivision in July 1829.Jack, 2015, 3
Under Samuel Terry's will, his youngest child, Martha Foxlowe Hosking, born in 1811, received Macquarie Field, town houses in Pitt Street and 10,000 pounds. She also inherited a share in the residual estate; and when her brother Edward died childless in 1838, she inherited much of his wealth also. Her father was very careful to ensure that Martha held Macquarie Field in her own right and that the profit from the estate remained for "her sole and separate use". She had married John Hosking in 1829, son of a prominent school teacher. After six years in Britain, Hosking returned to Sydney in 1825 as an ambitious businessman. In partnership with John Terry Hughes, Martha's cousin, he had a flamboyant career as a merchant, land dealer and pastoralist. He was elected Sydney's first Lord Mayor in 1842 and considered standing for the Legislative Council.Jack, 2015, 6
The firm of Hughes and Hosking however, over-reached itself and went insolvent in 1843-45. The 1845 Insolvency Court proceedings reveal much about the building of the second Macquarie Field house. 'A cottage was commenced about 2 years before my sequestration (1841) - and I think it was not finally completed until after my sequestration (1843). In consideration of my receiving 10,000 pounds in cash from Mr Terry's will - a legacy to Mrs Hosking, and other moneys which came to my hands in consequence of the death of her brother, I agreed with Mrs Hosking that I should build the cottage, which has cost, with other improvements, about 2000 ponds - it may be more'. Hosking goes out of his way (in giving evidence) to declare that 'No portion of the sum due to Mr Hume (is) for building or for any work at "Macquarie Field".' This is a reference to documents elsewhere in the legal exhibits. James Hume had designed and built three houses in Cumberland Street in The Rocks for Hosking in 1843 and two years later was still owed 250 pounds for those services. Hosking's disclaimer in 1845 shows that Hume had also designed Macquarie Field House (the second homestead) in 1841 and had supervised its construction over the next two years. Hume had come to Sydney from Scotland in 1835 at the invitation of Alexander Macleay to assist John Verge in constructing the Elizabeth Bay House, while simultaneously supervising works at St. Andrew's Cathedral. He first appears as an independent architect in 1839 designing the Gothic Presbyterian church in Wollongong. More significant commissions in the early 1840s included Sir Thomas Mitchell's Carthona (Darling Point) and Parkhall (St. Mary's Towers, at Douglas Park), the new Jewish Synagogue and Presbyterian Church in Pitt Street, while Hume was also supervising construction of Burdekin House in Macquarie Street.Jack, 2015, 6-7