Dorrigo
?and the
?Carlist Wars Connection
?
?by
Dardo Arevalo
This book is dedicated with love and grateful thanks to my wife, Fayleen.? Without her help with research, typing and encouragement it would not have been possible.
About the Author?
?Dardo Arevalo was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, on 15 February 1931.? His father was of? Spanish descent and his mother, although born in Uruguay, was of? Italian descent.? Dardo went to primary and high school in Montevideo.? He studied German at the Goethe Institute for two years and then went to The College of Building Industries where he became a Professional Draughtsman in Architecture and Engineering.? When Dardo turned forty the economic situation in Uruguay took a turn for the worse and many businesses failed.? There were serious political problems in the country and the government was controlled by the military forces.? Dardo and his late wife, Gladys, decided to make a new life in Australia.? They arrived in Sydney in April 1971 and soon found work.? After 18 happy years of working in different departments of the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney, (during which time Dardo studied and achieved certificates as a Medical Records Officer and Supervisor in Health Care), Gladys and Dardo came to live in Dorrigo, where Dardo served for some years on the local Hospital Board.? Dardo is a talented craftsman and loves to work with timber.? He enjoys classical music and likes to sing German lieder. He is very enthusiastic about? Dorrigo, the town he loves,? where he now lives with his second wife, Fayleen.
"There can be no absolute certainty about the past."?
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Sir Anthony Mason.
?
?
"Every researcher into local or regional history is likely to meet problems concerning the deficiency or unreliability of sources."
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? From the Appendix of the book, Old New
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? England by R.B.Walker.????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Introduction
?
In 1975 I was travelling with my late wife, Gladys, from the coast towards Armidale.? We were quite thrilled, in those days, driving up to the hills along such a narrow road.? As soon as we reached the Dorrigo Plateau we were enraptured by the beautiful scenery, the contrast of the green paddocks with the rich, red soil and the tranquility of the Dorrigo town.
?At the beginning of the 1980s we became interested in fossicking and decided to try our luck looking for gemstones in the New England area, and particularly near Cathedral Rock National Park, at Snowy Creek.? The closest accommodation at that time was near Dorrigo town.? We were very successful with the gemstone findings and so happy with the place where we stayed on the Fernbrook Road, that we came back year after year.? The result was that we fell in love with the plateau and Dorrigo town, plus we made many friends in the area.?
?When we retired in 1989 from our jobs in Sydney we decided to live out our lives in Dorrigo.? In the same year we became members of the local historical museum and we spent a lot of our time there doing voluntary duties.
Over the years we had heard that the town was named in honour of a Spanish general and as a couple with Spanish ancestors my wife and I were very interested in the origin of the name.? The claim by some of the locals that Don Dorrigo was a Spanish name and had been given to the town by an English officer who settled around the Guy Fawkes River in the mid 1800s, triggered our curiosity to start a serious enquiry to find proper documentation to substantiate this.? The English officer, named Major Edward Parke, was reputed to have served under a Spanish general named Don Dorrigo and it should have been easy to find a record of him.
We wrote to the Spanish Embassy in Australia who directed us to the Historical War Museum in Segovia, Spain.? To our surprise we received a reply from Spain stating that they had no records of any general with the name Don Dorrigo or any similar name at any time in their historical records.
Sadly, Gladys passed away in 1993, but by this time I was gripped by the mystery and the controversy among the residents of the town as to the origin of the name and I decided to do much further research of historical records both locally and overseas to find the historical facts as far as possible.
The following is an extract from a letter published by me in the Don Dorrigo Gazette of? 23April 1997 which sets out some of my findings:
There is uncertainty regarding the identity of the first white man to explore the Dorrigo Plateau.? Eric Fahey, in his book, The Settlement of Guy Fawkes and Dorrigo, states that it was Major Parke.
The Don Dorrigo Gazette of 12 February 1910 states that a Spaniard called Don Diago was accredited with being the first white man to penetrate the forest from Bellingen to Guy Fawkes.? He is reputed to have tried to negotiate a deal with the New South Wales government for the cedar scrub but with no success.? No documentation of any deal in the file of the Colonial Secretary has been found. He is said to have explored a great deal of the Dorrigo Plateau but there is no documentation of where he walked etc., and one day he vanished without trace.?
The Don Dorrigo Gazette of 12 March 1910 contains an article written by P.T.Stenning which had been published in Town and Country on 16? September 1871.? P.T.Stenning lived in Dorrigo at that time.? He wrote that there are two different opinions among the residents of Dorrigo, one group asserting that a Spaniard lived in the vicinity in the early days of settlement and he named the area Don Dorrigo. Certainly the name does remind one of the noble sounding Spanish language and lends some colour to this opinion.
Several of the older residents of Dorrigo at that time believed that this Spaniard was a mythical individual.? They said the name was aboriginal and that the tribes here called the area "Dundurrigo" - one word, spoken quickly.? One elderly resident stated that the name was shortened to Dorrigo and was adopted in the last 25 years (1885-1905).? Prior to this the area was called "Bostobrick Cedar Scrub".
On 16 June 1920, an article appeared in the Don Dorrigo Gazette which categorically stated that Major Parke was, without doubt, the first white man to come through the district and that he really was the discoverer of Dorrigo.? Before coming to Dorrigo, Major Parke was said to have fought in the Napoleonic Wars (1808 -1814) under a General Don Dorrigo and to have been with him when he won the battle of Marengo in Italy in 1814.? (My research has revealed that Major Parke was born in England in 1812.)
He is also said to have fought in the first Carlist Wars which took place in Spain in the 1830s.? (This was, in fact, true as my research places him in Spain some time after 1833.)? Some people claim he settled in this area in 1839, others in the 1860s.? He was a very controversial man and I intend to research further and more fully his life in England and in Australia.
The Don Dorrigo Gazette of 18 February 1922 has an article called
'Origin of Don Dorrigo' and I quote,? "Several theories have been advanced for the naming of Don Dorrigo Plateau.? The most feasible seems to be that the aborigines gave to it the name, 'Dundurriga'.? In a recent Bulletin Mr Turner said the name was originally that of a Spanish member of a New South Wales north coast cedar party.? It is not likely.? The early cedar getters avoided such cedar scrubs as those of the Dorrigo and Comboyne, as it was impossible to get the timber out without teams, and these they did not possess.? They sought only that cedar which could be water carried.? During the last 50 years (back to 1872) or since teamsters have been hauling cedar out of the edges of these plateaux, there has been no local knowledge of such a Spaniard as Don Dorrigo.? On the other hand there is strong evidence of the name being of native origin.? There are many localities in the district with names, purely native, starting with Don like Dondingalong, not far from Kempsey."
The Don Dorrigo Gazette, 21 March 1923, quotes Thomas Keane, in writing to the Armidale Express who says 'that Major Parke did not name either Guy Fawkes or Dorrigo.? The first white child on the Clarence River was Thomas Bawden.? He came with his mother who was engaged as a housekeeper to Dr Dobie at Ramornie Station.? Dr Dobie equipped the first expedition which was led by Richard Craig from the tablelands to Grafton.'? Bawden later published his memoirs in the Clarence and Richmond Examiner.? He says,? 'In 1888 I
casually mentioned in the presence of Mr Tom Briggs the naming of Don Dorrigo.? Tom Briggs said, "That is not the correct name of that place."? The blacks told him the correct name was "Dundurrabin" meaning "you can go no further" or sort of "lands end" probably referring to the unscaleable cliff on the southern boundary of the plateau.'?
Tom Briggs' parents went to the Clarence in the second expedition under Cotts and his eldest sister was one of the first white children born on the Clarence.? Tom Briggs worked as a sawyer in the big cedar scrub.? He could speak the aboriginal language like a native."
On 27 September 1972, Don Dorrigo Gazette states that Coffs Harbour historian George England favours the theory that Don Dorrigo comes from the aboriginal word "Dundurriga".? He said that the Consul-General of Spain has stated that the name Dorrigo or Don Dorrigo is not a Spanish name nor is there any military officer in Spanish records whose name resembles Don Dorrigo.? Mr England also said that he noted on a map dated 1864 a footnote by a surveyor who had prepared the map:? quote, "I asked some aboriginals what the name of the stream was and they said 'Dundurriga'."
My late wife and I made enquiries of the Mitchell Library and were told that the name Don Dorrigo does not exist in their catalogues.
The General Reference Library checked several biographical indices and encyclopaedias including the Spanish Encyclopaedia for references to Don Dorrigo without success.? We were sent a quote from a publication by Mr George Marks in the Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales, April 1911 which basically stated the mythical Spaniard theory and also the aboriginal origin of the name as referred to earlier in the article in the Don Dorrigo Gazette of 12 March 1910.
Further we were told T.W.Comyns' Guide to the Dorrigo Shire1917 gives the same information.? On checking several aboriginal dictionaries for the meaning of the word "Dorrigo", they all agree that "Dorrigo" is the aboriginal word for stringy bark tree.? This information was supplied by Nuala Sharpe of the Mitchell Library Reading Room on 2 July 1990.
On 14 February 1991, we received a printout from the Geographical Names Register of New South Wales as follows:
Dorrigo:? A town on the Bielsdown River about 25 miles west of Coffs Harbour.? Population 1027 (1961 census).
Origin: ??? So named by A.Innes - A native word meaning "stringy bark tree".
Meaning:? Originally Don Dorrigo from Dun Durriga, a tallowood tree
On 18 June 1997 I published a further letter in the Don Dorrigo Gazette in reply to a reader who was convinced of the Spanish origin of the name as there had been a visit to the town by some Rotarians from Argentina.? They said there was a town in Argentina named Dorrego and the reader immediately related the name to the mythical Spanish General.? Part of my reply was as follows:
"That town was named after General Manuel Dorrego who was an important figure in Argentina between 1815 and 1828.? He was a pastoralist, businessman, politician and a soldier who reached the rank of Colonel and finally General.? In 1817 he was exiled to the USA because of his republican principles.? Six years later he returned to Argentina and became the Governor of Buenos Aires.? After a military insurrection against his constitutional government, General Dorrego was defeated on the battlefield, taken prisoner and executed on 13 December 1828.? (At this time Major Parke would have been 16 years old and just enlisted with the Royal Marines in England.)"
It takes much time, effort and persistence to uncover historical facts and one can only rely on the accuracy of past recordists but inaccuracies are often perpetuated and passed on from generation to generation, for example, Guy Fawkes of Gunpowder Plot infamy has featured in several Dorrigo publications, June 1945, October 1953 and September 1972.? In each of these publications it was stated that
Guy Fawkes was a Spanish officer, known as Guido Fawkes.? There can be no argument that Guy Fawkes was an Englishman, born in York in 1570 and executed in London in 1606.? He fought in the Netherlands as an English mercenary in the Spanish army in 1594 but he was not Spanish.?
There are several other stories of Spanish sailors on the Coffs Harbour shores, a Spanish surveyor sent out by the Governor of New South Wales etc., but most of these stories vanish into thin air and have nothing to substantiate them.?
In compiling this history it has been my desire to acquaint the reader with a condensed story of the Carlist Wars which is quite politically and militarily complicated, but which I found very interesting.? It provides a background to the key personalities in question in the Dorrigo story.
My main purpose in compiling this history was not to prove or disprove any theory about how Dorrigo was named but to present the people of Dorrigo with as much evidence about the lives and events surrounding Major Edward Parke and Maurice Charles O'Connell as research could substantiate and to clarify the dates when these events occurred.
Confusion has arisen in the past because Edward Parke's father (who fought in the Peninsular Wars) was also named Edward Parke and Maurice Charles O'Connell was the son of Maurice Charles Philip O'Connell who married Mary? Putland (nee Bligh) and was granted land in the New England Hillgrove area.
My writing is based on documentation and absolute facts but occasionally I have expressed my own opinion in which case I will state this to be the case.
CHAPTER 1
?
The Peninsular War and the Quadruple Alliance
?
The Napoleonic War was called the Peninsular War by the English and the War of Independence by the Spanish.
Wellington was helped by the Spanish guerillas in winning victories in the Peninsular War.
In the years of conflict from 1808 to 1814, Ferdinand VII and his younger brother the Infante Don Carlos were in captivity in France. At that time, Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother, was occupying the Spanish throne.
Joseph Bonaparte, at that time, drafted the Spanish liberal constitution which was ratified by the Spanish courts in 1812, but which was strongly opposed by the Basques. The idea of that constitution was to create a national sovereignty, or simply a Spanish nationalism.
When Wellington's army expelled the French from Spain, Napoleon decided to free Ferdinand VII and his brother Carlos and allow them to return to their own country.
The twenty-nine year old Ferdinand returned to Spain in March 1814. He ruled for almost six years in a cruel and tyrannical way, deceitfully, and with no mercy to his opponents. However, very intelligently, he attracted the liberals.
In January 1820 there was a revolt against the government in Cadiz, led by Colonel Rafael Del Riego. The uprising spread from barrack to barrack, causing the government to collapse and forcing Ferdinand to accept the liberal constitution of 1812.
The army abandoned Ferdinand for a couple of months until March 1820, when he was forced to take the vow accepting the constitution that he had rejected in 1814 but, in accepting it this time, he pretended to side with the liberals. His real intention was to forsake the constitutional course as soon as possible.
The administration of Colonel Riego that followed from March 1820, was made up of three years of anarchy, political assassinations and strong anti-clerical trends developing from the Spanish liberalism.
With the help of his conservative officers, Ferdinand ended abruptly the three years of liberal government under the 1812 constitution. Absolute monarchy was restored. Ferdinand had chosen his ministers from the elite that preferred the French. His return to full power was far more brutal than in 1814.
Ferdinand VII was three times a widower and childless. His popular and traditionalist brother, Don Carlos, was his probable heir. In 1829, Ferdinand married his Neapolitan cousin, Maria Cristina, 23 years old, daughter of King Francis of Naples.
On 10 October 1830, Cristina gave birth to a daughter, Isabella, and on 30 January 1832, her second daughter, the Infanta Luisa Fernanda, was born.
The Carlists, supporters of Don Carlos, were stirred up by the birth of Isabella, and they invoked the Salic Law, that was introduced to Spain by Philip V in 1713, which excluded females from the royal succession.
Ferdinand died on 27 September 1833 from an attack of apoplexy. His wife, Maria Cristina, became regent for their daughter, Isabella II. Don Carlos returned to Spain immediately after Ferdinand's death. His supporters proclaimed him King Charles V. He proclaimed himself, in July 1834, head of his partisans in the Basque provinces.
Maria Cristina, immediately after Ferdinand's death, declared that the three year old Isabella, in accordance with Ferdinand's Will, should become Queen of Spain with her mother as her guardian and regent until she came of age. For Maria Cristina it was a very difficult task to be a mother, regent queen and also to deal with different political factions.
The traditionalist Spanish provinces of Aragon and the Basque Navarre gave their fanatical support to Don Carlos after he contested Isabella's succession to the throne.
The Carlists were a political crusade with traditionalist characteristics. They originated in the Apostolica (extreme clerical party) in the 1820s. Mobilised in 1827 as paramilitary royalist volunteers, formed of agrarians, regionalists and catholics,
The Carlists essentially believed and maintained that legitimate succession was possible only through the male line. Spain's neighbours viewed Isabella II's right to the throne as absolute.?
France's king, Louis-Philippe recognised Isabella as queen and offered support to Maria Cristina. England also recognised Isabella's right despite some opposition from English Tories. Portugal was disturbed by civil war, but the queen, Maria II, also supported Isabella.
?
THE QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE
By the end of 1833, Maria Cristina's hold on political affairs was weakened and soon she found herself in a major political crisis. The Chief Minister, Cea Bermudez, was too weak and unable to maintain a strong and well-administered government.
Two very important Generals (Llauder and Quesada) protested seriously regarding:
- dilatory conduct of the war
- lack of appointment of a truthfully liberal minister
-
lack of popular election of the courts.
?The protests of those very influential Generals were not disregarded. A new Chief Minister, Martinez De La Rosa, took office in January 1834. Despite his good credentials the constitutional reforms that he introduced did not please the extremists. The reforms of 1834 took the form of a royal statute, and they were an intelligent attempt to create a compromise between the radical constitution of 1812 and the preservation of an absolute monarchy.
The courts were re-established. The power of convoking, suspending or dissolving the courts was left with the Crown. The Carlists were very upset by a constitution that gave to them little hope for a popular government. The queen regent Maria Cristina achieved a limited percentage of parliamentary democracy.
Due to this new development in Spanish government policy, Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary, began negotiations with France, Spain and Portugal with the object of clearing up the situation in the peninsula where the two pretenders, Don Miguel (Portugal) and Don Carlos (Spain) were still somewhere in the Portuguese countryside.
He also thought, because he never trusted the French government, that luring the French into a quadruple alliance would prevent them from taking any unilateral action in support of either Maria Cristina or Don Carlos.
Palmerston moved very fast and took the British cabinet by surprise with his plans. His treaty was to establish an alliance of England, France, Spain and Portugal, stipulating:
-
that all four countries should unite to expel Don Miguel and Don Carlos from Portugal
-
France should give moral support
-
Britain should assist with her navy.
The Quadruple Alliance was signed in London on 22 April 1834 by the French and Spanish ambassadors, the Portuguese envoy in London and Palmerston himself.
France was not very excited about joining the alliance.
?
Palmerston's plans were always to prevent the rise of either a French Spain or an Austrian Spain and rather to establish a Spain which would be exclusively Spanish. Maria Christina's shaky government was recognised as liberal and constitutional by England and France.
CHAPTER 2
?
The British Auxiliary Legion?
In the strictest sense of the word neither Britain nor France intervened in the Carlist Wars, since neither country committed its regular national army to service in Spain. However, when 10,000 officers and men of the voluntarily enlisted British Legion and 4,000 of the French Foreign Legion were serving on Maria Cristina's side, the Carlists had some grounds for thinking that Britain and France were going far beyond the terms of the Quadruple Alliance.
General Alava, the Spanish Ambassador in London, may be regarded as the founder and patron of the British Legion. He was a devoted servant of the queen regent and a fanatic opponent of Carlism. He approached Palmerston early in June 1835 and obtained permission to enlist a force of 10,000 British volunteers for service against the Carlists. He offered the command to Colonel George de Lacy Evans,?an Irishman, the radical member of parliament for Westminster, whom he had known as an officer on Wellington's staff during the Peninsular War. Evans accepted the invitation.
Once the King had consented, all that was necessary was an Order in Council authorising the enlistment of the force. Tory newspapers were disgusted at the prospect of a British mercenary force fighting against their beloved Don Carlos. Many Tory MPs were shocked and resentful.
To judge by the speed with which the British Legion was formed there must have been little difficulty in finding recruits for the ranks. Sanction for its formation was given in June and the first detachment arrived at San Sebastian, in northern Spain, in the second week of July 1835.
In 1835, the special force was denounced by some as consisting of "the scum of the earth", while others maintained that its members were ordinary though admittedly rough citizens. The Tory press sneered at the London recruits, but the fact that many of these men were destitute and in rags when they enlisted did not prove that they were necessarily scoundrels. The legion was a mercenary army. Some of the recruits may have mistakenly supposed that they would be fighting for Britain. The force as a whole was serving only for pay
While the Spanish recruiting agents found the "other ranks" for the legion, it was Evans' own job to get the officers. He began with high hopes of success, however, his hopes were soon dashed. The high military personages were decidedly adverse to the engagement of officers. This had the instantaneous effect of deterring great numbers of officers from engaging in the corps. The high military personages were the Duke of Wellington who was always opposed to intervention in the Carlist Wars, and Lord Hill, the Commander-in-Chief of the British army.
With the support of King William IV they effectively discouraged officers from gaining military experience in the mountains of Spain. By order of the Commander-in-Chief all officers who were granted long leave had to give a pledge that they would not go to the peninsula. Evans was thus gravely handicapped in finding officers for the legion. In spite of the Commander-in-Chief's disapproval he was able to fill his senior posts with capable field officers, such as Charles
Chichester and William Reid, who were his personal friends.
While recruiting was in progress the rights and wrongs of the legion's formation was vigorously debated in the House of Commons. Lord Mahon, a friend and admirer of the Duke of Wellington, claimed that the raising of mercenary armies in England for the service of a foreign power was "equally discreditable to the government and injurious to the country". The debate gave Lord Palmerston an opportunity to explain his own interpretation of non-intervention.?
He insisted that giving British subjects permission to enter the queen of Spain's service was quite distinct from sending a British Army to Spain, and in any case, "it was an English interest that the cause of the queen of Spain should be successful", since Spain would not be such an efficient ally if Don Carlos won the war. Sir John Elley, who had served in the Peninsular War, from his own acquaintance with the Spanish people asserted that they would promise anything and perform nothing and he advised Evans not to leave for Spain unless he was given sufficient money to defray the legion's expenses for at least six months.
Events were to show that Evans would have done well to take Sir John Elley's advice for the legion was soon in financial difficulties.
The expenses involved in raising and equipping it had been met only
The Carlists deeply resented the enlistment of 10,000 British troops to fight for the queen regent. On 20 June 1835 Don Carlos tried to discourage recruiting by announcing at Durango that the Elliot Convention did not apply to foreign troops and that any members of
the legion who were taken prisoner would be shot. This announcement, which became known as the Durango Decree, had no effect on recruitment, but it shocked the British government. In due course Palmerston ordered Colonel Wylde, the British Commissioner with the Cristino armies, to make a protest at Don Carlos' headquarters. The prince declined to rescind his decree.
The first difficulty which faced Evans as commander of the British Legion was that English law did not allow him to train his men in England. He was only entitled to get arms and accoutrements from the Tower of London where the British army obtained its supplies, and uniforms from the regular army tailors.
?
Evans arrived in August, while Palmerston claimed that the recruitment of British volunteers to fight in Spain was not intervention, because no regular troops were involved. Louis- Philippe, who was now committed to the support of Maria Cristina, drew an equally fine distinction between intervention and aid. No regular troops were sent from France to Spain, that would have been intervention. But it was quite permissible, he considered, for France to give aid by the enrolment of a voluntary force known as "the Volunteers of Paris" and by the transfer of the Foreign Legion from Algiers to the Spanish theatre of war. The Volunteers of Paris had a short life. They got no pay and little food and were disbanded within a few weeks of their arrival in Spain.??
The Foreign Legion stayed longer, and indeed the Carlist Wars gave it a new form which it was to retain ever afterward.?
They had French officers and surgeons and were well-organised in battalions according to nationalities, each battalion speaking its own language. The Foreign Legion that was fighting the Arabs in North Africa was transferred to Spain in the summer in 1835 to serve the queen regent. The legion consisted of one Italian, one Belgian, one Polish and three German battalions. On landing in Spain it was decided to reform them as mixed battalions, each containing legionaries drawn from various national groups, in the hope that they would thus become a more unified force.
Though the legion had a hard and unrewarding time in Spain the mixed battalion experiment was regarded as successful. It became the accepted pattern for the French Foreign Legion's organisation in future years. General Bernelle was the commanding officer of the 4,000 men of the French Legion who landed at Tarragona in August.
The British Legion had settled in at San Sebastian when Evans landed there in August, and was busily engaged in the training which he rightly regarded as its first task. They had their first experience of war on 30 August 1835, when part of the legion joined a body of Cristino troops (supporters of Maria Cristina) in an attack on Hernani (which was held by the Carlists) situated a few miles from San Sebastian.
The Carlists successfully held off the attack, and the Cristino General withdrew, leaving a number of prisoners in Carlist hands. In accordance with the Durango Decree the British prisoners were shot. The Cristinos retaliated by shooting a large number of Carlist prisoners.
The English Tory press, which had opposed the formation of the legion, hailed the Hernani skirmish as a great Carlist victory, but Evans was not perturbed by the Tory criticism. Since fighting had died down in the Basque provinces and Navarre after the death of the Carlist leader General Zumalacarregui, the Cristinos were showing no great fervour in pursuing the war.
At this time of crisis the Chief Minister had no backing from Maria Cristina. The disturbed state of the country and the lamentable conditions of the government's finances provided the opportunity for a brilliant figure to appear on the Spanish political scene. This was Juan Alvarez Mendizabal. He had radical views. He was a close friend of banker Nathan Rothschild. His reputation for financial wizardry made it likely that sooner or later he would be asked to return to Spain from his self imposed exile in London. His moment came in the summer of 1835. The Spanish treasury was virtually bankrupt, for the Rothschild assistance had provided only a temporary alleviation of the government's difficulties and it was now unable to raise sufficient funds for paying and clothing the queen regent's troops.
In despair Toreno appealed to Mendizabal to come back to Spain as Finance Minister, but when he actually returned in September, the country was still in the grip of revolution and he found himself regarded as the strong man who alone could save Spain from
CHAPTER 3
?
The Legion at War
The coming of spring put new heart into the British Legion, and by April 1836 Evans was able to assemble his force for the march back to the coast.
Deaths and desertions had drastically thinned its ranks. Two regiments - the 2nd (English) and 5th (Highland Light Infantry) - were broken up, and their surviving officers and men were transferred to other units. The rest were reorganised in three brigades - the 7th (Irish Light Infantry), 9th (Irish) and 10th (Munster Light Infantry) under General Charles Shaw, who had at last achieved his promotion from the rank of Colonel; the 1st (English), 4th (Queen's Own Fusiliers) and 8th (Highlanders) under General Charles Chichester; and the 3rd (Westminster Grenadiers) and 6th (Scotch Grenadiers), together with the Rifle Corps, under General William Reid. Most of the senior officers were now needed for staff duties, and the regimental officers who took their places knew little of military tactics.
Toughest of all were the 1800 Irish who made up Shaw's brigade. The legion's officers were proud of the smaller, hardier units they were now commanding.?
After a brief halt at Santander the legionaries were taken by sea to San Sebastian. During the winter the Carlists had built strong entrenchments only a few miles away. Though the approach by sea was still open San Sebastian was under siege on its landward side, and many of the inhabitants had fled to St Jean de Luz or Bayonne.?
The legionaries' return to San Sebastian was very different from their entry nine months previously. Evans' "mercenaries" now found themselves being given assistance by British regular forces.?
The idea of official military intervention in the Carlist War had been suggested by Britain to France in March, but had been firmly rejected
Such instruction evidently envisaged action on land as well as at sea. Lord John Hay, the British Commodore, was therefore ordered to land a Royal Marine battalion and some royal marine artillery in Spain. These were later supplemented by small detachments of royal artillery and royal engineers, and the whole combined force was placed under Lord John Hay's command.
The first marines were landed in April, and were instructed to garrison at Portugalete, at the mouth of the river leading to Bilbao. They thus had no share in Evans' offensive against the Carlist lines on 5 May 1836.
The British Legion had few large scale battles in the Carlist War, but the action of 5 May shows that it was a more effective force than its detractors in England believed. Evans' aim was to raise the siege of San Sebastian by destroying the Carlist lines.
General Evans was warmly cheered by officers and men as he rode along the lines after the battle. He had been in the thickest of the fight, and several members of his staff, including Colonel Woolridge and Lord William Paget, had been wounded.?
The Carlists were said to have lost 300 killed and wounded in this battle. The legion's casualties were not unduly high in view of the
English liberals professed to regard Evans' victory as greater than any of Wellington's but the Tories gave all the credit for his success to the shells fired by the Phoenix. In Madrid the effect was magical, and the public fully appreciated the value of British co-operation and the valour of the British Legion.
Despite the legion's success in San Sebastian, the Cristino cause was going so badly that a rout of the Carlists in any theatre of war was extremely welcome. Since the relief of Bilbao nearly a year earlier the Cristino generals had had few successes. They had not yet been able to take advantage of the weakness of the central Carlist command after the death of its leader general.
Unfortunately for the Cristinos, Evans' victory did not lead to any further action against the Carlists.?
Evans could win battles but could not plan a continuing campaign. Some of his officers, particularly General Duncan MacDougall, the Quartermaster-General, urged him to press on and capture Hernani, which had been his first objective in the previous summer.
General MacDougall was so exasperated at Evans' refusal to attack Hernani that he resigned from the legion soon afterwards.
Evans' victory would have had more important results if the Cristino army had made an effective attack before the Carlists had fully recovered from their reverse; but the Spanish General Cordoba, who was still in command in the north, was unable to make adequate use of his opportunity. On 20 May he led his troops out of Vitoria and advanced on the Carlist lines at Arlaban, which he and Evans had threatened earlier in the year.?
This time the Carlists were driven out of their positions, and the way lay open to Don Carlos's headquarters at Onate; but the affray had
Wounded men were one of the Cristinos' greatest burdens in the northern war. They had no ambulance corps, and no fewer than seventeen men were required to take a wounded man to the rear. This meant, as Cordoba explained to the British Ambassador Villiers, soon after the Arlaban action, that if 300 men were wounded about 5,000 were needed to carry them away and save them from being captured by the Carlists. In such circumstances even a moderate number of casualties was enough to hold up an entire army. (The British Legion had similar problems, for although it had a dozen carts, which could each take four wounded sitting upright, they were liable to break down and at the best of times could convey only some fifty men.
During Cordoba's visit to Madrid he approved the formation of a new army of the centre, and agreed that one of his ablest officers, Colonel Narvaez, be appointed brigade commander.
For the rest of the legion's stay in Spain it was mainly based on lines running from San Sebastian to the land-locked harbour of Pasajes, a few miles to the east and about halfway to the old walled town of Fuenterrabia. Some of the legionaries were stationed in the port of Santander, but Pasajes was garrisoned by the greater part of the royal marine battalion, which landed at Santander in May under the command of Major (later Lieutenant -Colonel) John Owen.
The arrival of the marines had interesting consequences at both Carlist and British headquarters. Don Carlos might have been expected to show indignation at the entry of British regular troops into the Spanish war, but either he or one of his advisers was astute enough to realise that it would be dangerous to make British regulars subject to the Durango Decree, which authorised the shooting of foreign soldiers who were taken prisoner.
Evans, too, recognised the distinction between British regulars and his own force, in which he and most of his officers held higher ranks than would have been their due in the British Army. He issued an order giving officers of the royal marines a superior rank to those of the legion. This order was naturally resented by his own officers, who felt that the value of their promotions was being reduced, but it was a timely act of appeasement towards the marines, who were very touchy about having to serve with the mercenary legion.
The association of marines and legionaries was not a happy one. The legionaries were irritated by the marines' excessive smartness. On the marines' side the officers thought that they were demeaning themselves by being linked with a force which still contained a number of disreputable characters. Personal antipathies did not prevent the marines from helping the legion when their services were needed.
If the legion had achieved little by the action of 5 May, it had certainly fought well on that day. It was less successful when Evans again took the offensive on 11 July.
Some 5,000 men, including royal marines, set off from Pasajes for Fuenterrabia, marching along a high ridge running along the coast. Evans had been wrongly informed that the Carlists were about to abandon the town, and therefore thought it unnecessary to take artillery with him. This was the first mistake, but thereafter the whole attack was bungled. The legion had intended to capture the bridge over the Bidassoa between Fuenterrabia and Irun, but by halting for three-quarters of an hour on the ridge it allowed the Carlists to get there first. The delay proved fatal. The bridge was taken, but the storming party was not supported until its ammunition was giving out, and no further advance was made. This time even the fire of the marines was not decisive. The battle dragged on inconclusively, and in the afternoon the legion was ordered to retreat. Some of the??
The legion was confined to a thin strip of land in the extreme north of Spain, and for the rest of the summer it was more concerned with its own problems than with fighting the Carlists. Pay was one trouble. The other was the contract of service. As servants of Queen Isabella II the legionaries were paid by the Spanish government but the Spanish treasury was nearly always empty, and even Mendizabal, for all his financial acumen, had not been able to fill it. He had again despoiled the Church's wealth by introducing the new principle of desamortizacion, defined as the seizure of property held in mortmain. As a good Catholic, Maria Cristina could not tolerate a progressive ministry which robbed the religious communities, and by intriguing among Mendizabal's own ministers she made it impossible for him to maintain his position. He resigned in May, and Maria Cristina was delighted to appoint Isturiz, a moderate, to succeed him as Chief Minister. The legion's difficulties were among the many troubles which Isturiz inherited from his predecessor.
These difficulties were of long standing. Villiers, who was never reluctant to take credit for his own considerable achievements as British ambassador, wrote ruefully to his brother in July 1836:
The Spanish government was not entirely to blame for the long arrears in the legion's pay. The legion was not the only sufferer in this matter, since the government was also in arrears in payments to its own army and its public officials. On the whole the Spanish government did not treat the Legion so badly over its pay as some of its officers asserted when they returned to England. By June 1836 the legion had been paid up to the end of March, and the government then arranged to transfer 12,000 pounds from Bayonne to San Sebastion to cover pay up to the end of May.
Morale was low in the legion this summer. Even the July payday had not caught up with all the arrears, which were still mounting, and the
Evans agreed with the government, but as the summer advanced a number of officers began to drift away and many of the other ranks demanded both their discharge and their back pay. Some regiments mutinied in support of their claims. However, after some weeks of unrest the bulk of the legion agreed to serve for a second year. Unhappily for Evans several of his senior officers resigned about this time. General MacDougall had already gone, General Reid (who was in the regular army) was recalled to duty by the War Office and General Shaw left after an absurd quarrel with Evans. Other officers went home after disagreements with Evans.
After a year of sickness, victory, defeat, riot and mutiny the legion lived to fight another day. But it must have been clear to any competent observer that the thin red line of legionaries guarding San Sebastian was unlikely to drive Don Carlos out of Spain.
CHAPTER 4
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The End of the Legion
Thanks to General Baldomero Espartero's relief of Bilbao, the year 1837 opened more hopefully for the Cristinos than would have been thought possible a few weeks earlier. It could now be expected that Espartero would win more victories over the Carlists in the Basque provinces.
The Carlists were depressed by their failure at Bilbao, and even such a loyal pro-Carlist as Edward Stephens, The Morning Post correspondent at Don Carlos' headquarters, wrote to a friend in January: "Don Carlos' game is up."?
The new year was a significant one for the British Legion, for the two years' contract of service was due to end in June, and there was little likelihood of its being renewed. The winter was passing uneventfully for the legionaries: rather surprisingly, Evans had made no attempt to co-operate with Espartero in relieving Bilbao, and after the small engagement of 1 October there had been only a number of even smaller skirmishes to show that the legion was still at war.
The Spanish high command realised that the Legion's service was drawing to a close and decided to make use of it while there was still time. An ambitious plan for a triple advance against the Carlists was suggested by the veteran General Saarsfield, who was then Captain-General of Navarre. He proposed that three columns - his own from Pamplona, Espartero's from Bilbao and Evans from San Sebastian - should make a concerted attack on Carlist positions in the centre of Guipuzcoa, so that Don Carlos' hold on the Basque provinces could be broken at last. Espartero and Evans agreed, and it was arranged that the operation should begin on 10 March.
Even if the three marches had been properly co-ordinated, they would still have met with resolute opposition.?
The Carlists had called for a levy of all men between eighteen and fifty in the Basque provinces and Navarre, and the Infante Sebastian (Don Carlos' nephew) was now commanding an army of some 32,000 men.
In fact, the triple attack was not synchronised and was a dismal failure. Saarsfield began his march a day late, ran into bad weather in the mountains between Guipuzcoa and Navarre and decided to return to Pamplona. Espartero duly moved out of Bilbao on 10 March and occupied Durango, but halted there instead of going on to attack Vergara and other Carlist positions, as had been arranged in the plan of operations.
Of the three Generals Evans was the only one who genuinely tried to put the plan into effect. He was not successful. For this operation Evans was commanding a mixed force of about 5,000 Spanish troops, 3,300 of the British Legion, including lancers and some 450 Royal Marines.
On the appointed day, Evans moved out of San Sebastian and attacked the Carlist lines in front of Hernani. At the beginning all went well for him. He took the first Carlist positions and then paused because, according to the plan of operations, Saarsfield was due to join him for a combined attack on Hernani itself, Tolosa and other Carlist strongholds. But though he waited for several days there was no sign of Saarsfield, who had, indeed, already returned to
The attack began on the afternoon of 15 March, when the legion captured the heights of Oriamendi, overlooking Hernani, and drove its defenders back to the town. On the next day the marines, the 5th and 6th Regiments of the legion and a Cristino regiment opened the assault on Hernani with heavy firing, but after some cavalry skirmishing, in which the legion's lancers had the advantage over the enemy, the attackers were thrown into confusion by the sudden emergence of four Carlist battalions from a gorge in the hills. These were part of the Infante Sebastian's flying column, and their effect on the battle was decisive. There is some doubt whether the Cristinos or the British gave way first, but before the end of the afternoon the Carlists had recaptured Oriamendi and both Cristino and British regiments were retreating rapidly to San Sebastian.
British chroniclers of the battle give differing accounts of the part played by the Royal Marines.
It was said in England that the marines had covered the legion's retreat to San Sebastian. This was hardly possible, since the marines were certainly withdrawn before the battle was finished. Probably the marines gave valiant service until Hay decided to extricate them from a losing battle and left Evans to conduct his retreat as best he could. By this time Evans was all the readier to accept defeat because he had just learnt that there was no hope of the arrival of reinforcements.
A message from Saarsfield, announcing that he had gone back to Pamplona, had arrived while the action was being fought. British and Cristinos suffered about 600 casualties in the battle of Oriamendi.
Evans' defeat at Oriamendi was quickly seized upon by his enemies in England, who called it "an unparallelled national disgrace", though the liberal Morning Chronicle declared that Espartero had betrayed the legion by making no move with his army of 20,000 men. Certainly
While British critics were upbraiding Evans for his defeat the Carlists were overjoyed at the skilful victory won by their new Commander-in-Chief, the Infante Sebastian. It must be said for Evans that he was not downcast by his misfortunes. Three days after his return to San Sebastian he addressed his men in well-turned phrases which must have reminded them that their general was also a member of parliament.
The House of Commons had the last word on the battle of Oriamendi, for there were many critics of Lord John Hay's use of the Royal Marines in an inland battle. It was one of the points raised by Sir Henry Hardinge in the Commons in April when he put forward a motion opposing the renewal of the Order in Council sanctioning the enlistment of Britons in Queen Isabella's service. He argued with much justice that the employment of marines seven miles inland could not be regarded as part of the naval co-operation provided for in the Quadruple Alliance. Sir Henry Hardinge's motion was defeated by
Numbers were overwhelming on the Cristino side when Espartero, with 14,000 men and Evans with 10,000 moved against Hernani on 14 May. It was easily captured after Espartero had courteously allowed the legion to take the lead in scaling the parapets.
Evans then advanced against Irun and Fuenterrabia, and there was no repetition of the blunders made in the previous year. Both these fortified towns were taken, and a dispatch from the commander of the Irun garrison to Don Carlos paid tribute to the legion's generosity in offering the Carlists quarter after the town had fallen. This was probably the legion's finest hour.
The legion was now approaching the crucial date of 10 June, on which its two years' service was due to end. Evans himself was anxious to get back to his constituency and the House of Commons, and on 3 June he left for England by way of Paris.?
In spite of his departure the Spanish government still hoped that the legion would stay in Spain. Colonel Wylde, the British Commissioner,
Wylde did his best. On 7 June he addressed the legionaries, announced that the British government had renewed the Order in Council for another year and invited them to re-enlist under a new commanding officer, Colonel Maurice Charles O'Connell, who was soon to be promoted Brigadier-General. Wylde tried hard to convince the soldiers to renew their contract. He told them that nearly one-half of the workers were out of employment and could not obtain jobs in England. Failures, stoppages and dismissal of workers were common in the manufacturing districts not only of England but also of Scotland, and Ireland and they would be much better off staying and re-enlisting. A few took Wylde's warnings about unemployment to heart. In the end about 120 sergeants and 1,500 men re-enlisted, and some 120 officers also agreed to continue their service, partly because their own pay was still in arrears and partly because they were genuinely anxious to go on fighting. The New Legion was formed and placed under the command of Maurice Charles O'Connell.
The history of the New Legion was not a happy one. Its pay was soon in arrears, and in September it was badly mauled by the Carlists in an attempt to advance beyond Hernani. Thereafter it was barely fit for further service, and after three months in which it received neither pay
O'Connell's last general order, issued from San Sebastian on 10 December, explained his reasons for disbanding the New Legion. He spoke warmly of his men's courage and patience under suffering, but condemned the "culpable neglect, or willful malevolence" of persons appointed by the Spanish government to supervise the legionaries' equipment. "To their eternal infamy," he said, "be it recorded that they allowed you to meet the inclement season exposed in the lines, most of you barefooted and many without covering to your nakedness other than your greatcoats."
After the New Legion's dissolution a small force of about 400 lancers and artillerymen remained in Spain to assist the Cristino armies until the end of the war. The Royal Marines stayed at their base at Pasajes until 1840, when Lord John Hay's squadron was withdrawn from the Spanish coast, and the marines went with it. There were no "conquering hero" receptions for the legionaries, either old or new, on their return to Britain. Most British people were relieved that this strange adventure, which had caused much controversy for two years, was over at last.
Evans was the only officer of the legion who was given a knighthood for the Spanish campaign, but in view of the bitter contemporary criticism of the legion it is worth noting that four of its Generals and one of its surgeons were later knighted for their services in other fields. The Generals were Charles Shaw, who became Chief Commissioner of Police at Manchester, Charles Chichester, who became Colonel of the 81st Regiment and was regarded as the best regimental officer in the British army, William Reid, who had a distinguished career as a colonial governor in Bermuda, the Windward Islands and Malta, and Duncan MacDougall, who played a big part in the formation of the first volunteer rifle corps in 1859. The surgeon was Rutherford Alcock, who served the legion devotedly as Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals and wrote a valuable study of its medical history.
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CHAPTER 5
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Aftermath
Maria Cristina allied with liberalism out of military necessity, not from conviction. She would have preferred to grant administrative reforms rather than consent that her daughter should become a constitutional monarch. A Carlist offensive against Madrid in 1837 failed, but in the mountains, the Basques continued to fight until a compromise peace was reached with the treaty of Bergara in 1839 that recognised the Basques' ancient rights.
In that year the Carlist commander staged a mutiny against the clerical court of Don Carlos and came to terms with Baldomero Espartero, the most successful of Isabella's Generals, who in December 1836 won one of the most important battles in the war for Maria Cristina's forces. He was the key figure in the opening negotiations of peace that led to the Convention of Vergara. This success earned Espartero the popular sobriquet "The Peacemaker of Spain". He had begun to dabble in politics in 1836; on his return to Madrid (1840) he became head of the government and selected a?
Espartero's regency revealed his faulty understanding of politics. The Progressive Party was not united and when Agustin Arguelles was appointed tutor to young Isabella II by the Cortes, Maria Cristina's protests from Paris (where she was living after she left the political turmoil of Spain), gained the support of the moderates. Generals Concha and Diego de Leon attempted to seize Isabella in September 1841, and the severity with which Espartero crushed the rebellion made his government unpopular.
A Republican revolt in 1842 was put down with equal harshness. In 1843 Generals Ramon Narvaez and Francisco Serrano rose against Espartero and obliged him to flee to England. Between 1844 and 1854, Narvaez and his fellow generals dominated domestic politics entirely as representatives of the moderates. The period was disturbed by a series of progressive military risings. There were attempts to dethrone Isabella who was declared of age to rule in 1843.
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Isabella II's rule failed completely because of political infighting among army Generals of different tendencies; a period that started when Maria Cristina decided to exile herself in Paris at the end of 1841 and continued until the dethroning of Isabella II in 1868 which resulted in yet another defeat for the Carlists. The full scale Second Carlist War raged between 1872 and 1876. In 1874 Isabella II's son Alfonso XII was restored to the throne. His reign brought the decline of Carlism.
CHAPTER 6
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Maurice Charles Philip O'Connell
Maurice Charles Philip O'Connell was born on 11 September 1766 at Riverstone in County Kerry, Ireland. He became a military officer and, after serving with the rank of Captain in the Emigrant Army under the Duke of Brunswick in the campaign of 1792, entered the British Army. He was sent to the Continent on the breaking out of the war in 1793. He was appointed Captain in the late 4th Regiment of the Irish Brigade on 1 October 1794, and on the reduction of that regiment was placed on half-pay.
He was appointed Captain in the First West India Regiment in May, 1800, and soon after joined the regiment at St Lucie. In February 1802 he was appointed Brigadier-Major to the forces at Surinam and served in that colony until its restoration to the Dutch in December of that year.
In May 1803 he went in command of five companies to Granada. He was ordered there with the whole of the regiment and then to Dominica in 1804. He commanded the Light Company at Roseau
Maurice C. P. O'Connell obtained the rank of Major on 1 January 1805. He was appointed Major of Brigade to the forces at Dominica in February and effective Major of the 5th West India Regiment in May of the same year, returning to England in September.
He received the thanks of the House of Assembly of Dominica in 1805. That body presented him with a sword valued at 100 guineas for his services to the colony. He also received a sword valued at 50 pounds sterling and a piece of plate valued at 100 pounds sterling from the Committee of the Patriotic Fund at Lloyds.
On 15 October 1806 he was appointed Major in the 73rd Regiment and on 6 May 1809 was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel of the same Regiment in New South Wales.
Maurice C. P. O'Connell arrived in Port Jackson from St Helens, England, via Madeira, Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town. He accompanied Governor Lachlan Macquarie and his wife, Elizabeth, on
Maurice married Mary, the daughter of the former Governor William Bligh and Elizabeth Betham. For Mary this was her second marriage, her first husband being Lieutenant John Putland of the HMS Porpoise, a naval officer who died in Sydney in January 1808. Mary was born in 1783 in Lambeth, London and baptised on 7 July 1784 in the same location. Maurice and Mary were married by the Reverend Samuel Marsden at Government House on 8 May 1810.
After the departure of William Bligh with excessive pomp and ceremony on the 28 April 1810 on board the Hindustan, Mary stayed behind and kept alive her father's wrongs. Mr Ellis Bent, who was to take up duty as Judge Advocate, began by being sympathetic to Bligh and his daughter. He soon found that both had violent and ungovernable tempers.
Mary was very small, had a nice figure and rather a sensible face. She dressed with some taste, if very thinly and compensated for the want
On Mary's marriage to Maurice Charles Philip O'Connell, her father, William Bligh gave him 3,000 acres of land. This land was in the area which today is known as Camperdown near the location of the Sydney University. It was called "O'Connell Town".
Mary O'Connell had a farm was called Frogmore, being Portion 109 in the Parish of Londonderry. It was a grant of 6,000 acres given to her on 1 January 1806. At that time she was still Mrs Mary Putland. The suburb of St Mary's is built in part on this grant. Maurice Charles Philip O'Connell was one of the first landholders in the district of Blacktown. He was granted 2,500 acres in 1810 by Governor Lachlan Macquarie. He called this property Riverstone Farm after his birthplace in Ireland and it covered the area from Garfield Road to Bandon Road, Vineyard and from Windsor Road to Eastern Creek.
Maurice received a further grant of 1,000 acres which stretched from Garfield Road to Kensington Park Road, Schofields. This property?
According to the Certificates and NSW Government Gazette, Index to Licensees 1837-1846 Page 106, Maurice C. P .O'Connell also held four big pastoral runs in the area of Hillgrove, New England, (NSW records Nos A1139, 5 Feb. 1840 Reg. No.570; A1377, 29 June 1840 Reg. No. 082; B0814, 5 April 1843, Reg. No.718; B1705, 25 March 1844, Reg. No. 738. There has always been confusion in local historical accounts as to which O'Connell actually owned the land in the New England district. The records state that the above land was owned by Sir Maurice O'Connell and this must refer to the father as the son at this stage had not been knighted.
In 1840 about 200 acres of the Riverstone farm were auctioned off and in 1856, after the death of O'Connell, his widow had the estate divided into 59 farms and auctioned. Most of the area was used for grazing cattle and horses and orchards and vineyards were planted (hence the suburb, "Vineyard"). The vineyards were ruined in 1892 by a phylloxera attack. Until 1928 Riverstone was part of Windsor Council, ceding to Blacktown Council in the hope of improving services to the townspeople. The town of Riverstone was established
Maurice C. P. O'Connell was a very prominent person in horse racing in the colony. Horse races at Parramatta were first recorded on 30 April 1810. In Sydney the first horse races took place on 14 October 1810 and were established principally by the officers of the 73rd Regiment. Maurice O'Connell was very successful with the two horses he owned, one called Carlo and the second a three year old colt called Little Pickles. Prize money was as much as 50 guineas plus a trophy presented by Mrs Macquarie.
Maurice and Mary had seven children. They were in order of birth, Maurice Charles, William Bligh, Robert Brownrigg, Alice Elizabeth, Carlo Philip, Richard and Mary Nano Godfrey.
Mary never forgave the members of the party that had deposed her father. Macquarie considered Maurice to be greatly influenced by his wife, especially in her views towards the colonists who were opposed to William Bligh. Maurice became involved, at one stage, in the quarrel.
Some time around early 1810 Governor Macquarie was losing the support of his own regiment. The officers' professional pride forbade them to mix with men who had been convicted felons. The presence of his regiment had given Macquarie an advantage no other governor
Three regiments served in New South Wales during Macquarie's governorship. The first was his own, the 73rd Highlanders, under Colonel O'Connell whose tour of duty lasted from 1810 to 1814. On 31 October 1812 Maurice was thanked by Governor Macquarie for his unremitting attention to the appearance and discipline of the First Battalion of 73rd Regiment, to be commended to the Commander in Chief.
Macquarie and O'Connell were later to disagree due to the interference of O'Connell's wife, Mary, and the rank and file were out of hand. The Governor and Colonel O'Connell had fallen out. The Colonel was now described as a man of "irritable temper and overbearing disposition" and of "illiberal prejudices". Macquarie writes of the regiment's "gross irregularity of behaviour and alarming degree of licentiousness ....exhibiting scenes of disgraceful riot and confusion to the dread and terror of peaceful inhabitants."
On the emancipist question the officers accepted socially the ex-convicts they met at the Governor's table, but their general attitude was made clear when they court-martialled a young officer for "conduct unbecoming to a gentleman" because he unknowingly sat down to a game of cards with an emancipist.
Late in 1813 arrangements were made for Lieutenant Colonel O'Connell, as commanding officer and his 73rd Regiment to transfer to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and the Headquarters of the
73rd Regiment together with O'Connell, Lady O'Connell and baby Maurice Charles O'Connell embarked for Ceylon on board HMS General Hewitt on 26 March 1814.
In January 1815 O'Connell marched in command of a division of the army under Lieutenant General Sir Robert Brownrigg into the territories of the King of Candy, the conquest of which was achieved in 40 days, and crowned by the capture of the reigning monarch who was deposed and brought a prisoner to Colombo.
In 1841 O'Connell was promoted to Lieutenant-General and from 12 July 1846 to 3 August 1846 he was Acting Governor of New South Wales between the departure of Gipps and the arrival of Fitzroy. He handed over his command to Major-General Wynyard in December 1847.
When Sir Maurice's land in O'Connell Town was subdivided around 1845 the Church of England bought an area of the land and established the Church of England Cemetery. People paid for private plots there for future family burials. Sir Maurice O'Connell was the first person to be buried there after his death at Darlinghurst on 25 May 1848. His widow returned to England where she died on 4 December 1864.
This is part of Maurice Charles Philip O'Connell's last Will and Testament dated 25 November 1840. ".......all estates of whatsoever sort to my dear wife Mary O'Connell as a mark of esteem, love and
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CHAPTER 7
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Maurice Charles O'Connell
Maurice Charles O'Connell - soldier, public servant and politician - was born on 13 January, 1812 in Sydney, Australia. He was the first born son of Sir Maurice Charles Philip O'Connell. His mother was Mary Putland formerly Mary Bligh, the daughter of William Bligh.
Maurice Charles O'Connell married Eliza Emiline Le Geyt (also known as Elizabeth Legeiyt) at Jersey, Channel Islands on 23 July 1835, just before embarking for Spain to join the British Auxiliary Legion. There were no children of the marriage.
Maurice had four brothers and two sisters. When he was just a baby he left with his parents for Ceylon on board the HMS General Hewitt which departed from Sydney on 26 March 1814. Governor Macquarie ordered the entire 73rd Regiment to be transferred to Ceylon including its commanding officer, Sir Maurice Charles Philip O'Connell.
In 1819, aged seven years, Maurice was sent to England for schooling where he began his education at Dr Pinkney's Academy,
The Times newspaper of 30 July 1835 published, a list of the British army officers who entered the British Auxiliary Legion under the title, "The Anglo-Spanish Expedition". Maurice Charles O'Connell is listed as "former Lieutenant of the 73rd Regiment and with the new Spanish rank of Lieutenant-Colonel".
Alexander Somerville's book, History of the British Legion and the War in Spain, states that the Munster Regiment was an Irish unit and was raised chiefly in the County of Cork. The character portrait of Maurice in this book states that he was good at drill but prone to favouritism.
On 7 June 1837 after the resignation of Colonel George de Lacy Evans from the British Auxiliary Legion, the British Commissioner, Colonel Wylde (in Spain), announced Colonel Maurice Charles O'Connell as the new Commanding Officer, who soon after was promoted to Brigadier-General.
????? Knight and Commander Cross of Queen Isabella the Catholic;
????? 2nd Class Cross of the Royal and Military Order of San Fernando;
????? Knight Extraordinary of Charles the Third.
In the Glorious Glosters Publication, Harts Army List 1840, O'Connell appears as the Captain of the 28th North Gloucestershire Regiment of Foot. Maurice purchased that Captaincy in June1838.
In that year his father was appointed to command the troops in New South Wales and Maurice Jnr departed from Plymouth on 31 July 1838 on the Fairlie, arriving in Australia as an assistant military secretary to his father on 6 December 1838. After the 28th Regiment sailed to India in 1842, he stayed in New South Wales and sold his commission in 1844. Maurice Jnr was a horse breeder by 1842.
Like his father, Maurice Charles O'Connell Jnr acquired runs in the Hillgrove area and Hernani as published on page 106, Index to
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??? 27/8/1844 No. B1976 - Hillgrove, New England, Reg. No. 198 - Possibly named Gara Station.
??? 24/2/1846 No. B4123 - Hernani, New England, Reg. No.1172 - known as Hernani Station.
In Squatting on Crown Lands in New South Wales by J.F.Campbell - State Records, New England Pastoral District? No.2, and Government Gazette of NSW, 1848, the above leases are mentioned as -
??? No. 99, O'Connell, Maurice C., Gara, 50,000 ac. app. Wallamumbi River.
??? No.100, O'Connell, Maurice C., Hernani 50,000 ac app.
Returns of Livestock 4/5499 - 1848/56 (AO Reel 1483):
??? O'Connell, M.C., Gara, 30 sq. miles, 86 horses, 486 cattle, 4p. 2s. 3d.
??? O'Connell, M.C., Hernani, 50 sq. miles, 8 horses, 905 cattle, 5p. 15s. 1/2d.
Accepted Tenders for Runs 1848 (AO Reel 1441):
??? M.C.O'Connell, Gara, 30 sq miles, 86 horses, 486 cattle, 10 pounds, 25th September, 1848.
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There is no evidence in any official archives or anywhere else that O'Connell gave his run at Hernani or any other land to Edward Parke. The Hernani run was officially transferred from M.C. O'Connell to Mr C.W.Hughes in August1848 as listed in the Colonial Secretary Letters, 14 August 1848, Claim to Leases of Crown Land, New England District, No. 99.
It has been claimed that Maurice Charles O'Connell Jnr was Chief Commander in Armidale 1842-1848. It was in fact his father, Sir Maurice Charles Philip O'Connell, who was the Chief Commander of the military forces in New South Wales and had been since 1838, stationed in Sydney. Confusion arose locally regarding land owned by father and son because Sir M.C.P O'Connell never used his third Christian name, Philip.
At that time Armidale is recorded as having 100 settlers but these were enough to keep five licensed pubs in business. The first settlement in Armidale was made in 1835 when William Dumaresq
Another proof that Maurice Charles O'Connell Jnr was not in Armidale in the 1840s is that he was the representative of Port Phillip from August 1845 to June 1848. Port Phillip was part of New South Wales, and the separate Colony of Victoria was not established until 1851. O'Connell failed in a first attempt to win a seat in the Legislative Council, but represented Port Phillip from August 1845 to June 1848 therefore it was impossible for him to be in Armidale at that time as Chief Commander of troops as claimed. Sometime after the death of his father in 1848, he moved to Queensland and became Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Burnett District.
By the time that Maurice Charles O'Connell moved north, and until 1859, Queensland was still part of New South Wales. He had a property at Mt Larcom. It is important to say at this point that the City of Gladstone, situated on Port Curtis, excised from the Colony of New
Early in 1854 O'Connell became leader of the second settlement of Gladstone and the Government Resident at the new Port Curtis settlement. In August 1855 this appointment was criticised in the Legislative Council and a select committee chaired by Henry Parkes decided that the office was unduly expensive, that a Police Magistrate would have done as well and that O'Connell was not particularly suited for such a post. The office was abolished and he again became Commissioner of Crown Lands. He financed a party which found gold near Port Curtis and was reappointed as Government Resident to cope with the rush, allegedly created by his own too optimistic reports.
While in Gladstone, Maurice Charles O'Connell acquired several squatting properties and developed a small copper mine, however, in February 1860 his office was again abolished. He refused reappointment as Commissioner of Crown Lands and for five years vainly pursued a campaign for compensation as far as the Colonial Office.
When the Colony of Queensland was created in 1859, O'Connell was given command of the volunteers. He was also one of the first
nominees to the Legislative Council and acted as Minister without Portfolio in the first Herbert ministry. He was a member of the Legislative Council for five years (1 May1860 to 23 March 1856) and reappointed for life 1 May 1865. He was Minister without Office from 21 May 1860 to 28 August 1860. He was President of Legislative Council from 27 August 1860 to 23 March1879 when Sir Charles Nicholson resigned. He also acted ex officio as deputy to the Governor four times: 4 January 1868 - 14 August 1868 Deputy Admin.; 2 January 1871 - 12 August 1871 Deputy Admin. Kt; 12 November 1874 - 23 January 1875 Deputy Admin. Kt ; 14 March 1877 - 10 April 1877 Deputy Admin. Kt.
He was also Member of the Legislative Council (NSW) Port Phillip from August 1845 to 1848. Maurice Charles O'Connell was the first Provincial Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge, Irish Constitution in Queensland. He was President of the Queensland Turf Club from 1865 to 1875 and Vice President of the National Turf Association.
Knighthood had been proposed for him in 1864 but was not granted until 1868 when, as Aministrator of the Government he was host to the Duke of Edinburgh.
Sir Maurice Charles O'Connell died of cancer in Parliament House on 23 March 1879 leaving no children. He was aged 67 years. His widow received a government pension.
CHAPTER 8
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Edward Parke Senior
The information supplied by the Army List from Britain reads as follows:
Born 1761.
23 October 1780, Commissioned 2nd Lieutenant Royal Marines;
18 April 1793, Lieutenant;
30 August 1797, Captain, served in the Peninsular War under Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington;
8 May 1804, appointed Divisional Paymaster and, according to the 1819 edition of the Army List he was placed on half-pay;
In 1833 he is mentioned in the Seniority List (ADM 118) as being on half pay.
Edward Parke Snr married twice. His first marriage was to Anne Lucas on 19 November 1795 at St Mary's Portsea, Hampshire,
Edward Parke Snr was married for a second time, probably between 1821 and 1823, to Charlotte Margaret Bourchier at St Thomas's Church, Portsmouth, Hampshire. No official records of the marriage were found. They had five children: Richard, Caroline Mary, Charlotte Ann, Mary and Frederick all of whom were baptised at St Thomas's Church, Portsmouth.
Edward Parke Jnr, during his army career, had to face court martial and at this time his father, Captain Edward Parke Snr, was Paymaster at Portsmouth Division, Royal Marines. He lodged a petition to the court pleading for the re-instatement of his son. An account of the father's services prior to this time are mentioned in his petition which provides details of his part in repelling the mutiny of 1797 amongst other things.
Certainly Edward Jnr did not profit by his father's death. Edward Parke Snr died on 16 November 1835 at Portsmouth as recorded in The Gentleman Magazine for January-June 1836.
His Will was made on 4 March 1835. The Death Duties Register for 1835 (IR26/1398) established that the estate was just under 7,000
Edward Parke Snr's legacy is mainly to his widow and three daughters. The two sons, Richard and Frederick were both left 500 pounds each.
The following is a transcription of the Will:
"This is the last Will and Testament of me Edward Parke of Portsmouth in the County of Southampton, Esquire, late Paymaster of the Portsmouth Division of Royal Marines. I give unto my dear wife Charlotte Margaret Parke all my household goods and furniture, plate, linen, china, wines and spirituous liquors of every description and all my other effects in my dwelling house at the time of my decease not consisting of monies or security for money to and for her own use and benefit absolutely. I give devise and bequeath all and singular such freehold, copyhold, leasehold and other messuages, lands, tenements and hereditaments which I shall be possessed of or entitled unto at the time of my decease unto my said wife for her life if she shall so long continue my widow and I give the dividends, interest and yearly proceeds of all my monies or share in the public stocks or funds of this kingdom, monies payable on a policy of insurance on my
In witness whereof I have to each sheet of this my Will contained in this and the previous sheet of paper subscribe my name and to this sheet set my seal also this fourth day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty five. Edward Parke Esq. Signed, sealed, published and declared by the abovenamed Edward Parke as and for his last Will and Testament in the presence of us who in his presence at his request and in the presence of each other have hereunto subscribed our names as witnesses.
Proved at London 17 December 1835 before the Judge by the Oaths of Charlotte Margaret Parke, widow, the relict and Caroline Bourchier, spinster, two of the executors to whom administration was granted having been first sworn by (illegible) only to administer power reserved of making the like grant to Caroline Mary Parke, spinster the
Extracted from the Registry of the Exchequer, Court of York.
Chapter 9
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Edward Parke Junior
It is presumed that Edward Parke Jnr was born at Southampton, England in 1812, probably baptised thereafter at St Michael's Church. His father Edward, as I mentioned before, was in the Royal Marines. His mother was Anne Lucas, Edward's first wife. I researched in England the transcripts of the Parish registers for Southampton at the Society of Genealogist's Library for the baptism of Edward Jnr. They cover all the parishes and are indexed, which made it easier, but some of them only go up to 1812. No traces of Edward were found. The parishes checked were, All Saints (goes up to 1812), Holy Rood (to 1837), St Mary's (to 1837) St Mary's Extra (to 1812), St Michael's to 1837, and St Laurence and St. John (to 1836).
Most of the information gathered in England is related to his military career. He was appointed Second Lieutenant in the Royal Marines on 3 March 1828, and served on HMS Briton as Second Lieutenant, Marines, from 1 May 1830. The ship was based in Portsmouth and one of its destinations was Lisbon. Edward was suspended from.
Court Martial Register File ADM 13/103 showed that Edward Parke was Court Martialled on 4 February 1833 at Portsmouth Royal Marines Barracks. He was serving on HMS Briton and was cashiered for "breach of discipline, unofficer-like and ungentlemanly conduct". The log of the Briton, (ADM 51/3080) wasn't at all revealing for it only mentioned that a court martial had taken place and the subject of it removed from the service without any mention of a name. When examined, the ADM 12 Index to Admiralty papers for 1833 (ADM12/288) revealed a number of references to Edward Parke. The most important of these was in the court martial papers found in ADM 1/5479.
The charges were:
First Charge: Brought by Frederick Patten, Senior Lieutenant on board the Briton,
for being the bearer of a challenge to him, Lieutenant Patten from Lieutenant Lamont,
Royal Marines on or about 21 January, 1833".
Second Charge: "For making use of most disgusting, indecent and ungentlemanly
Ship, Briton, on or about 21 January 1833."
Third Charge: "For speaking of him, Lieutenant Patten, in a most disrespectful, ungentlemanly and unofficer-like manner, tending to defame his character on or about 24 January 1833 in the Starboard Berth of HMS Briton".
Pleaded "not guilty". There followed minutes of the case. Found guilty of first and second charge and cashiered.
ADM 1/3719 refers to solicitors and law officers of the Admiralty Papers. Those pertaining to the case reveal that Edward's defence was largely based on a petition that the Court was not competent to try the case and these papers relate to this defence and address the point in question. Edward Parke's trial is over fifty pages in all.
In the Admiralty Papers, ADM 1/3333, concerning Captains of Marines papers, there was a superb petition by Edward Parke Snr pleading for the reinstatement of his son. Captain Edward Parke Snr was Paymaster of the Royal Marines at Portsmouth Division at that time.
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From the trial of Edward Parke Jnr it can be ascertained that he was quite temperamental and very possibly a violent man. There was a reference in the court martial minutes that he allegedly made a threat to give one of the parties "a good kicking"
After the dismissal there follows a period of two years and ten months during which time nothing is known of Edward Parke's whereabouts. There is in existence a shipping document which shows an "Edward Parke" departing from Sydney on 13 July 1834 aboard the Duckenfield, bound for Hobart Town. After about three months in Tasmania, we have Edward Parke again, no profession or trade established, boarding the vessel Medora at Hobart Town, departing on 25 October 1834 to sail to Port Jackson, Sydney, arriving there on 2 November 1834. Upon request the Archives Office of Tasmania searched all their indices but were unable to find any reference to Edward Parke residing in Tasmania. If this is the same Edward Parke whom we have been researching, he must have travelled to Australia some time during the two years and ten months after the dismissal. There is no trace of him after his arrival in Port Jackson in November
If the Edward Parke who travelled on the Duckenfield and the Medora is one and the same Edward Parke that I investigated he had enough time to travel from Plymouth to Australia after his dismissal from the Royal Marines, spend some time here and then go back to England to join the British Auxiliary Legion. There is no record of him living in Sydney around this time.
Other sources speculate that during the period between March 1833 and June 1835, perhaps Edward Parke joined the Irish Regiment at Cork in Ireland, which regiment was commanded by Maurice Charles O'Connell. I believe this is unlikely because of his dismissal from the Royal Marines and that he is more likely to have come to Australia. In any case he would have wanted to get out of England for a time.
The next recorded event is his enrollment in the British Auxiliary Legion, the precise date of which is uncertain. This comes about because the task of enlisting recruits was carried out by the Spanish authorities, who also conferred the ranks, probably on the recommendation of the English officers in charge. The appendix from Alexander Somerville's History of the British Legion and War in Spain, has a list of officers taken from the Army List of the British Auxiliary
At the end of service with the British Auxiliary Legion it has been said that he received the R.I. decoration which stands for the Royal Irish. Most B.A.L. officers receive Royal and Military Order of St Ferdinand, but I could not find Edward Parke as a recipient in any list. Most certainly he received decorations. The decorations were given by the Spanish authorities. The Spanish files of the Military General Archives of Segovia were not able to be consulted because they suffered damage by fire at the end of the 19th century and the files are in a very fragile condition and unable to be handled.
No documents were found to prove that he ever received any French decoration as has been claimed. The French were not very keen on giving decorations, particularly to an officer who had been dismissed so disgracefully.
After the end of Edward Parke's military career in June 1837, there is no knowledge of when he came to Australia. There is no reference to him in Pastkey's Sydney Morning Herald Shipping Intelligence Columns- Passengers and Crew 1842-1855. No reference is made to Lieutenant Park(e) or Edward Park(e) in State Records, Unassisted Immigrants Index 1826-1853. Some people arrived in the colony in "steerage" and were not mentioned on the passenger lists. After his court martial, Edward Parke would have lost his right to be called Lieutenant or Major and this may be one of the reasons why he is not on the shipping lists and the decorations given to him by Spain were not taken into account.
He is officially listed as being a landholder in the New England area in 1848. This is recorded in the State Archives - Information on Leases for Crown Land in the year 1848, page 1051, Colonial Secretary Letters Claims to Leases of Crown Lands, New England
"No. 104, Parke Edward. Name of Run: Guy Faux River, 25,600 acres. Estimated grazing: 1300 cattle. Bounded on the North by Gulfs, on the South by Heads, on the East by Hernani River (today's Blicks River?) and on the West by Guy Faux River."
A further verification is recorded in Squatting on Crown Lands in New South Wales by J.F. Campbell (State Records), Government Gazette of NSW 1848.
New England Pastoral District No. 2 also records No. 104 Parke Edward - Guy Faux 25,600 acres.
Also Index to Licensees 1837 - 1846, 1851, (page 109), Certificates & NSW Government Gazette 18 January to 13 February 1837: B2810 14 August 1845 - Guy Fawks Creek New England, Reg. No. 29.
Accepted Tenders for Runs 1848 (AO Reel 1441) records Guy Fawkes, 40 sq. miles, 29 horses, 600 cattle, 10 pounds, 29 August 1848.
Register of Licensed Runs 1857 - 66, 4/5472 pt. (AO Reel 1482) No. 53, Guy Fawkes, Edward Parke, Estimated acreage 25,600 - General Assessment Return January 1857; 30 horses, 1,600 cattle, amount of assessment 20p. 7s. 6d.
Parke was in the district for some years prior to 1848 as there is on record a Licence to Depasture Crown Lands beyond the Limits of Location, No.29 for the period from 1 July 1845 to 30 June 1846 granted to Edwin Park of Guy Fawks Creek Station, New England. Amount ten pounds. I believe this to be in fact a lease to Edward Parke. He later acknowledged a daughter, Charlotte Ann White, born in Gara in 1842 to be his child.
Regarding the Lease Reg. No. 29, the boundaries were the ones described by Edward and the Commissioner. There did not seem to be any earlier maps.
Parke's land was bounded on the North-East by Maurice Charles O'Connell's run. For many decades it has been said locally that O'Connell gave his land holding totally or partially to Parke, but that was not true. Searches at the Land Titles Office revealed that no documents existed in the Old Titles Vendors' Books relating to the passing of a title from O'Connell to Edward Parke. The said O'Connell's run passed, late in 1848 to C. W. Hughes (Hernani Run).
His 14 year lease of the 23,000 acres of Crown Land had commenced in 1852 and finished in 1865 when changes could be
Parliament Papers 1865/66 Vol. III, p. 205 to 275.
Crown Lands No. 110, Guy Fawkes River, 23,000 ac.: Annual rent 12p. 10s. Assessment 44p.10s. 8d. Commencement of tenure 1 January 1852. Term of present tenure 31 December 1865. Appraised rental 45 pounds.
The 1885 Pastoral Possessions of New South Wales, Page 73, (State Records) states Edward Parke as being the holder of a lease and licensed to depasture on Crown Land on Guy Fawkes River, Pastoral Holding No. 20. It comprised the Guy Fawkes River Run.
Leasehold Area. Land District of Armidale: Counties of Clarke and Fitzroy. The Crown Lands within the boundaries of that part of Guy Faux River Run lying to the east of the dividing line, as notified in Gazette, 11 July 1885.
Resumed Area. Land District of Armidale: County of Clarke. The Crown Lands within the boundaries of that part of Guy Faux River Run lying to the west of the dividing line, as notified in Gazette, 11 July1885. The area, annual rent and rate per acre; the area, license fee and rate per section are as follows:
The Runs Lease in the Armidale District in 1885 shows that the land held by Edward Parke at that time was only 2,500 acres. 30 horses, 1,500 cattle.
The old Guy Fawkes Homestead was located near the foot of the Station Hill about half kilometre on the Armidale side of Major's Creek. The original buildings were destroyed by fire around the year 1930.
Edward Parke married Mary Ealinor ( also described as Eleanor/Ellinor/Helenor) Shannon, spinster, on 12 August 1858 at Geergorow or Geergarow, the residence of his bride, in the Clarence River district of Grafton, New South Wales. The witnesses were J.C.Shannon and Richard Bligh and the officiating Minister was Arthur E. Selwyn. The residence of the groom was recorded as Guy Fawkes. Edward Parke was described as a bachelor and his occupation as a grazier. He was 46years old. On her marriage the bride stated her age as 35 years, but in reality, she was 40 because she was born on 6 March 1818 at the Isle of Arran, in the District of Argyllshire and Bute, Scotland. Mary's parents were Charles McAlister Shannon (Officer in the Army) and Elizabeth Campbell.
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John Shannon arrived in Sydney on the Duncan on 30 June 1838, having acted as dispenser to Dr Dobie on the voyage from England. In early 1840 they travelled through the New England en route to the Clarence, where they arrived on 16 June 1840. Dr Dobie had taken a Lease on Ramornie on 15 November 1839 and this was their destination.
The Crown Lands Commissioner, Oliver Fry, visited Ramornie on 1 December 1844 and noted that John Shannon was superintendent of the property. That same year Dr Dobie sold Ramornie and took up Gordonbrook with J. Shannon as overseer.
A run known as Stanwell was taken up by John Ginger in the early 1840s, and he became insolvent due to drought. William Macquarie Molle purchased Stanwell on 30 October 1843, and renamed it Molle Ville, later known as Molleville and also Moleville.
Oliver Fry noted on 28 July 1845 that Charles McAlister Shannon, father of John and Mary was the superintendent of Molle Ville. Mary E.
The property was later taken up by the Mylne brothers, who whimsically named it Eatonswill (now Eatsonville). They were great eaters and drinkers, at least by reputation.
In 1848 William Foster sold the Purgatory run to John Shannon, who renamed it Geergarrow. Probably, his sister and widowed mother moved there, as Mary was married there to Edward Parke and her mother died there in 1864. Geergarrow is also in the Grafton District. John, himself, died in Casino in 1881.
Mary E.Parke died on 20 July 1865 at Wellingrove, Glen Innes District. The cause of death was atrophy, duration six months. The informant, medical attendant and witness was Alexander Skinner and Mary was buried on 21 July 1865 at Glen Innes. The officiating minister was A. Cameron, Presbyterian, the undertaker was Louis Schwenke.
In the New South Wales Death Registration transcription, Mary Parke appears as Mary Helenor Shannon, alias Parke. I believe by this entry that Edward and Mary had been separated for some time. Mary was certainly entitled to the surname Parke as she was married to Edward, however, if they separated she might have been living under her maiden name of Shannon, hence the "alias". The other
There were no children of the marriage, but Edward Parke had a daughter (reputed and acknowledged), Charlotte Ann White. She was born at Gara on 30 January 1842 and baptised on 12 April 1846 by Rev. H. Tingcombe in St Peter's Church of England, Armidale. Her parents are described as Thomas Trotter White of Gara, labourer and Margaret White, mother. Charlotte would have been 16 years old when Edward and Mary married, but I do not know where she was living. Perhaps she was still with her mother at Gara. As previously stated Edward and Mary's marriage took place in 1858 and terminated seven years later when Mary died.
Charlotte married Frederick Hamilton from Guy Fawkes, who had been teaching school at Cavanaghs at Bell Flat. They were married on 16 February 1889 at St Peter's Cathedral, Armidale, ten months after the death of her father, Edward Parke. The address of the bride was Guy Fawkes. The witnesses were Fred W. Ludlow and John James Anstey. The minister was Rev. James Ross. No age was
Charlotte died on 20 July 1908 at Armidale Municipality, New South Wales. Her age was 65. The informant on the death certificate was Mary Griffith, not related, and from Armidale. The cause of death was chronic nephritis (two years) and pneumonia (eight days). The medical attendant was Charles Henry Scott. She was buried on 21st July, 1908 at the Church of England Cemetery, Armidale. The minister at her funeral was Rev. J. Lewis, the undertaker Mr George Piddington and the witnesses Mr James Jones and Mr J.A.Glass. No mention of Frederick Hamilton is made on the death certificate. Her conjugal status was left blank which may mean that Charlotte and Frederick were separated at the time of her death or it is possible that Frederick predeceased her. There were no children of the marriage recorded.
It is said locally that Edward Parke also fostered a boy named Tommy Layton whose father Edward Layton was drowned in the flooded Nymboida River while swimming at night when Tommy was only four years old. Edward Parke took care of Tommy and treated him as his own son. After Parke's death his property passed under his Will, to his daughter, Charlotte, however Tommy Layton is said to have managed Guy Fawkes Station until it was sold to Waugh Bros.
Edward Parke died on 2 April 1888 at Guy Fawkes Station, Armidale District, New South Wales at the age of 76. His death certificate records his time in the colony as 50 years which would mean that he arrived in Australia in 1838 (for the second time?) after the Carlist Wars. The cause of death was bronchitis and gentle decay and the length of his illness was four months. He was attended by Dr Murray. He was last seen by the doctor on 3 March 1888. Thomas Layton, no relation, was the informant on his death certificate. It is said locally that during Edward Parke's terminal illness he asked his close friend Mr J.D. Turnbull to convey his body to Armidale after his death. Mr Turnbull duly carried out his friend's request and Edward Parke was buried by F.W.Adams, in the Church of England Cemetery, Armidale on 3 April 1888. This cemetery was located where the DEM School now stands but Edward Parke's headstone was relocated to the present cemetery.
Probate No. 16383 Ser.3 of Edward Parke's Will was granted to Charlotte Ann White, his executor and sole beneficiary, on 27 April 1888. The Will is as follows:
Signed Edward Parke Witnessed: Solicitor, Armidale, Articled Law Clerk, Armidale
The bulk of the acreage originally held by Edward Parke was leasehold land and the lease was due to expire within some two years and three months of his death. However he also held 3,240 acres of freehold which was part of the Guy Fawkes River Station Run. He owned 2000 head of cattle valued at 2p. 10s. per head and 40 horses valued at 5 pounds per head. Land at that time was valued between one and two pounds per acre so livestock was comparatively valued very highly. Times were hard however and there was a considerable amount owed to the bank at Armidale at the time
Looking back to Edward's early life, after his dismissal from the Royal Marines he had no career and no profession. His enrollment in the British Auxilliary Legion after nearly three years provided him with an income and military rank, even if it was given by a foreign country. His British rank of Lieutenant was lost to him after his dismissal from the Royal Marines. He entered the Legion as Captain.
We must not forget that his father disinherited him and he might have been very short of money so undoubtedly the wages earned in the British Legion helped him to settle in Australia. Local historical legend says that Maurice Charles O'Connell and Edward Parke were close friends and that O'Connell brought him to Gara and Hillgrove as his superintendent, in charge of the running of his properties there. I would like to point out that the runs at Gara and Hillgrove were held by the father M. C. P. O'Connell and not Maurice Charles. Later the son took up Hernani.
The first time that Edward and Maurice (Jnr) got together was when Maurice joined the British Auxilliary Legion; Edward was already serving with them. There was no possibility of any previous relationship because, from 1828 to 1834, Maurice Charles was at
After the end of Edward's service he possibly came to the New England District on the recommendation of M.C.O'Connell Jnr to superintend his father's runs. Edward finished his service with the B.A.L in June, 1837, six months before Maurice Charles Jnr (who departed from England on 31 July 1838).
By February 1840 (or before) Edward was already working as superintendent for Sir M. C.P.O'Connell which was documented in May 1840 when Commissioner George James MacDonald arrived at the Hillgrove run, took down some details in his register, as follows: "Station visited, Hillgrove; Name of the Person Holding Licenses, Sir M.C.O'Connell; Name of the Person Superintending, Edward Parke; Buildings, 1 cottage and 3 huts; 616 cattle, 3 horses, 3,000 sheep. Estimated extent of run, 12 miles."
The lack of the "P" for Philip always brought confusion between father and son's names among historians, however the reference to "Sir" confirms that it was the father who had already been knighted. The son was not knighted until 1868.
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At that time Maurice Charles O'Connell Jnr did not have any runs at Hillgrove or Hernani.
At this stage I would like to express my thoughts about the personality of Edward Parke. His legend has grown over the years, some people were right but many were wrong. He lived a fairly isolated life after coming to live in New England because of its geographic location. The O'Connells did not settle here as they considered the area too isolated and the land sour. O'Connell Senior was based mainly in Sydney (in 1846 he was acting Governor of New South Wales) and O'Connell Jnr served as secretary for his father for a time, then representative of Port Phillip from 1845 to 1848 and later Governor of Queensland.
Parke's life was not a very happy one. He was born into privilege but lost his mother when he was very young. His father remarried when he was nine or ten and when he was 16 he joined the Royal Marines and his life at sea was hard. It seems that he did not take easily to obeying his superiors which resulted in his displaying anger and lack of respect. No doubt his father was very disappointed in his failure to?
His intimate relationship with Margaret White resulted in her pregnancy but she was married to Thomas Trotter White and the child was registered as a child of the marriage. Margaret and Thomas White were also employed at Gara.
Edward did not marry until he was 46 years old and then his marriage only lasted 7 years before his wife died and as previously stated there were no children of the marriage. At the time of her death his wife was living apart from him. His life was a lonely one until his daughter Charlotte came to live with him. The hardships and unhappiness in his life could have made him a bitter man.
From the record of his court martial I have deduced that at 21 years of age Edward had a fiery personality and he later showed this temperament in his dealing with the local Aborigines. The Don Dorrigo Gazette of 27 September 1972 published an article about the Meldrum Massacre compiled by the late Mr L.F.Lewis as follows, ".... It was a midsummer morning in the year 1880....manhunt....among
"The leaders of the Aboriginal hunt that resulted after the Meldrum massacre included Major Parke who was noted by Campbell (1978) as also having particularly poor relations with the aborigines. Several men from Bostobrick area are also mentioned as having participated."
The squatters were evidently responsible for the ultimate decline of the aborigines in the Dorrigo area. Despite many stories of violent action against them, little substantial evidence exists.
Parke's attitude towards the aborigines and the above account of savage, indiscriminate killing by way of revenge against them, is not unusual of the thinking of the times when the aborigines were regarded as worthless and subhuman.
In the Don Dorrigo Gazette of 20th March 1996 it was stated by a correspondent, among other inaccuracies, that Maurice O'Connell Jnr won Guy Fawkes Station in a land ballot. There is no record of any land described as Guy Fawkes Station registered in the name of Maurice O'Connell, rather, it is recorded that Guy Fawkes River Run vested in Edward Parke in 1848. In the same article it was claimed that Edward Parke was a deserter from the British Regiment. Parke was dismissed from the Royal Marines after court martial, as stated earlier, and he never deserted from any regiment. The said article claimed that Parke was acquainted with the district of Aragon in Spain. He only fought in the area known as Guipuzcoa (Basque Country). It was the French Legion that fought in Aragon.
Imagination is a long traveller and Verdi's opera Ernani is described as being the inspiration for Edward Parke (as a lover of opera) calling?
the O'Connell Station Hernani. The first performance of this opera was in Venice in the Theatre La Fenice on 9 March 1844 by which time Parke was in the New England District. Parke and O'Connell both fought near Hernani in Spain and this is the more likely source of the name.
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Conclusion
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?After reading all the preceding chapters, everybody will realise how much misinformation has circulated over the Dorrigo Plateau throughout the past 150 years regarding the myth of a General Don Dorrigo and his relationship with Edward Parke. Some locals, even if they had doubts about the authenticity of the story preferred it because, as they said, it was a "more colourful story" than the aboriginal name of Dundurriga.
I went a long way with my research in Australia and overseas, taking me quite some time. I am satisfied with the result, in particular with the accuracy of the gathered information based mostly on the material collected from governmental records, research carried out by professional researchers in Australia, Great Britain and Spain, history books, encyclopaedias etc as well as material from some local historians.
It is now finally established that Edward Parke of Guy Fawkes was not involved in the Peninsular War against Napoleon, but his father. He was never part of General Keystone's English army as stated in the
It has been claimed that Edward Parke was exploring the tablelands in 1830. At this time he was in the Royal Marines and afterwards with the British Auxiliary Legion until June 1837. Although there is no record of his arrival in Australia, he definitely appears in Hillgrove between February 1838 and April 1840 as superintendent on the runs of Sir Maurice Charles Philip O'Connell.
Parke was credited by some locals as being the very first person to explore the plateau. Squatters' runs on the Plateau in the vicinity of Dorrigo were recorded as early as 1840 ("Mr G. Blaxland, Nymboida Run" and "Mr H. Nowland, Guy Fawkes Run.").
Regarding the naming of Guy Fawkes, I quote from David Freeman's book, The Armidale to Grafton Road, Sesquicentennial History, 1846-1996:
"One of the ways Guy Fawkes was so named is because it was discovered on the 5 November - Guy Fawkes Day by Major Parke on initial foray.?
Legend has it that when the party pitched camp someone asked the date - so they decided to call the place Guy Fawkes. Surveyor Dewhurst in 1862 in his map notes says, 'Guy Fawkes was named by
Major Parke is recorded as being the holder of the Guy Fawkes River Run in 1848. He lived there until his death in 1888 when the property passed under his Will to his daughter, Charlotte, who then sold it to William Alexander Harvey Waugh.
In Notes and Reminiscences of the History of Dorrigo, written by Mr Kidday (Delightful Dorrigo) Sir Maurice O'Connell is described as, " an Irish gentleman, who had been exiled from his native land for taking part in a rebellion". This description is repeated in the Don Dorrigo Gazette in May 1953 and goes on to say, "Sir Maurice thought the country was sour and handed over his share (?) to the Major". In September 1972 the Don Dorrigo Gazette states, "On arrival here he
I would like to point out that, as I have stated earlier, Maurice O'Connell Snr became the Lieutenant-Colonel of the 73rd Regiment in NSW in 1809 and later acted as Lieutenant-Governor of NSW between 1810 and 1814. I could find no reference to his banishment from Ireland. His son, Maurice O'Connell, born in Australia in 1812 (the same year as Parke) later was Lieutenant-Colonel with the 10th Munster Light Infantry Regiment which was an Irish Regiment of the British Auxiliary Legion, based in Cork so he was not banished from Ireland.
No partnership ever existed between Parke and either of the O'Connells. Parke was superintendent for O'Connell Snr and it may be that he also supervised Hernani in O'Connell Jnr's absence until this run was transferred to C.W.Hughes in 1848.
R.B.Walker in Old New England stated, "Major Parke, as he was always known, came to New England as the friend and superintendent of O'Connell who took up runs at Gara, Hillgrove and later at Hernani."
Later confusion arose with respect to their knighthoods. The father was knighted in 1835 and the son in 1868, at which time the son was living in Queensland.
The naming of Marengo is quite a mystery because neither of the O'Connells nor Parke was involved in that battle which was fought in the area of Piedmonte, in north-western Italy, where Napoleon's army defeated the Austrians in 1814. O'Connell Snr was in Australia and O'Connell Jnr and Edward Parke were just infants. The name "Marengo" was probably adopted around 1840, which is 26 years after the battle occurred. At present it is not possible to establish the real origin of the name and it will probably remain a mystery. Coincidentally, Napoleon's white horse was named Marengo and it was the one he was riding in that battle.
Regarding Hernani, there is a strong possibility that it was named by Edward Parke or M. C. O'Connell Jnr as they fought, during the Carlist Wars, in the area of Guipuzcoa (Basque country) near San Sebastian,
In the 1840-50s inaccuracies regarding boundaries of the runs were abundant. Survey points were non-existent due to the roughness of the terrain and reference points were often geological features such as gullies, cliffs, or rocky outcrops. These natural features were used in the maps to describe the boundaries of the land. A lot of bush, thick forest, large areas and also the possibility of unfriendly aborigines hampered the surveyors. In the1860s the areas of the runs were greatly reduced, small holdings went on the market and surveying became much more precise.
Finally:
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General Don Dorrigo never existed in the history of the First Carlist Wars. Alexander Somerville, in his book about the British Auxiliary Legion points out that the British troops were all commanded by British officers only.
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Accordingly, Edward Parke was never under the command of a Spanish officer. He fought only under the command of Maurice Charles O'Connell.
To conclude this book, I could not find a better way to put it than this small part of the article published in The Sydney Morning Herald,
News Review, page 33, 30-31 August 2003. The reviewer quotes Sir Anthony Mason (former Chief Justice of the High Court) as saying, "There can be no absolute certainty about the past." In the same article, in an extract from Stuart Macintyre and Ann Clarke's book, The History Wars, he quotes Macintyre as saying that he "welcomes the rewriting of history" and that, "History is not revealed to us in tablets of stone. It has to be created from remains of the past. It is ...a form of knowledge that is constantly being supplemented and reworked."
Addendum?
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According to Dr Krimhilde Trescher Henderson, Doctor of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley, 1980, Farm and Forest on the Dorrigo, A Historical-Ecological Study of Land: "The term 'Squatter' has taken on an unique meaning in Australia. Evidently originating in the United States, the term was applied in the first decades of the 19th century to persons who illicitly occupied small tracts of Crown Land and helped stock their herds or flocks with the nearby landowners' animals or engaged in other questionable activities. As more and more people took their livestock beyond the boundaries of legal settlement, the term quickly began to acquire a new meaning with the official recognition of the phenomenon in 1836.
'Squatter' increasingly came to refer to a person of wealth, respectability and standing; eventually the term 'squattocracy' came to be used to imply what was almost a country nobility. Thus, while the original North American meaning had been that of unauthorised occupation on a small scale, the Australian usage came to signify a man of vast holdings and wealth.
The Australian concept as it was described in the New South Wales Squatting Act, 22 March, 1827 (passed the Legislature of NSW on 22 March 1839). The term 'squatter' is now used to describe one of the most useful and important classes of the community, principally the large pastoral tenants, who rent the land from the Crown for grazing purposes. The present signification was first applied in 1842."
From The Pattern of Contact on the New England Tableland, 1832-1860, by I.C.Campbell, I extracted some very interesting comments, "That New England has traditionally had an 'aristocratic' population which is relevant to race relations. There were indeed names of the minor aristocracy among those holding the pasturing licences for New England - such as Dumaresq and O'Connell - but, equally, many of these never lived on their properties and O'Connell was one of them."
Unfortunately, I do not know if the author is referring to O'Connell Senior or Junior. In any case, neither of the O'Connells ever lived on their runs.
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Acknowledgments
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Many thanks to the following people and organisations for assistance with research for this book:
Roger Barrington, Researcher, Middlesex, UK
Robyn M. Condliffe, Researcher, Northern NSW
Pamela Sheldon, Researcher, Sydney, NSW
Anglican Diocese of Grafton, NSW, Records Centre
Blacktown City Council, NSW, Records
Clarence Regional Library Service, NSW
Dorrigo Historical Society, NSW
Geographical Names Register, NSW
Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW
Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, NSW
Spanish Embassy, Canberra
State Records, NSW
Archives Office, Tasmania?
Ministry of Defence, Institute of History and Military Culture, General Military Archives, Segovia, Spain
Louise Bravery, Librarian, Dorrigo Branch of Clarence Regional Library
Christine Mackinnon, Editor, Dorrigo NSW for her invaluable work in editing the first draft.
Bibliography
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Australian Dictionary of Biography, Melbourne University Press, Vol. 5
Australian Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Terrey Hills, NSW, Australian Geographic, 1996.
Australian Masonry, A Brief Australian Masonic History - The Irish Connection www.members.net_tech.com.au/roncook
Campbell, I.C. The Pattern of Contact on the New England Tableland 1832-1860. Private Pubn, 1978.
Clark, C.M.H., A History of Australia, Melbourne University Press, 1968, 1973.
Vol. 2. 1822-1838; Vol.3. 1824-1851.
Don Dorrigo Gazette.
Encyclopedia Britannica - 2000 Edition.
Freeman, David, The Armidale to Grafton Road: Sesquicentennial
History 1846-1996, Taree, NSW, David Freeman, 1996.
The Glorious Glosters. www.members.tripod.com
Government Gazette, NSW, Index to Licensees, 1837-1846.
Heaton, J.H., The Bedside Book of Colonial Doings.
Henderson, K.T. Farm and Forest on the Dorrigo: a Historical-Ecological Study of Land, Ph.D. Dissertation, Berkeley, University of California, 1980.
Holt, Edgar,The Carlist Wars in Spain: extracts from The Carlist Wars in Spain by Edgar Holt, published by Putnam & Co. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd.
Macquarie, Lachlan, Journals of His Tours in NSW and Van Dieman's Land 1810-1823.
NRMA, Dorrigo District Map.
Queensland, Its History in Brief. www.qld.gov.au
Reader's Digest Book of Historic Australian Towns, Sydney, Reader's Digest, 1982.
Somerville, Alexander,History of the British Legion and War in Spain, London, James Pattie, 1839.
Walker, R.B., Old New England, London, Sydney University Press, 1966.
Waterson, D.B., A Biographical Register of the Queensland Parliament 1860-1929, Canberra, A.N.U. Press, 1972.
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