Blencowe Settlement in Australia.
-------------------------Insert photo of Thomas.Thomas Blencowe, Stonemason, was born 14.2.1836 in Gawcott, Buckingham, England. In 1856 he married Eliza Bennett. They arrived at Botany Bay on the 22.1.1857, a total of 93 days at sea. They couple had 13 children including the first Blencowe to be registered in the state of NSW.
In 1862 Thomas took up a Conditional Purchase on 50 acres, Portion 3, at Wildes Meadow. Another block of 40 acres, Portion 56 was taken up in 1875 as freehold. After some time his holdings were reported to have increased to 500 acres and he named the place "Brookville". Thomas was recognised as a very progressive farmer.
The following letter by Thomas is an excellent insight to what was experienced by the early settlers to Australia, which had begun as a convict colony in 1788. NB a Free Selector refers to "free selection before survey" of crown land in Australia introduced in the 1880s.
Burrawang, April 21, 1866.
To The Editor of The Empire.
Sir, May I beg a favour, as a free selector, to trouble you with a few remarks respecting them in this part of the country. As I read your weekly paper, I was astonished in pursuing an article headed "The Present State of the Colony", in which you give some account of the evidence taken by the select committee appointed to inquire into the present state of the colony. Mr. J. N. Oxley says that, in the Wingecarribee district, there are 1500 free selectors, of which, thank Providence, I am one, all of whom are, more or less, in distressed circumstances. . Mr. Oxley afterwards politely says he knows nothing about them; and here, indeed, he speaks the truth.
He appears to know far more about the mode of letting leases, than the trouble or poverty of free selectors. I can tell you, Sir, for a fact, that most of the people in this district are glad they have erected their homes on this soil.
There was nothing very enticing for the free selector in its natural state at first, unless it was immense labour to clear the land; and we have spoiled no squatters' runs, for scarce a blade of grass was to be seen. A thick, dark brush, that almost excluded the rays of the sun, and gigantic forest trees, with an interminable jungle of under growth, were the leading characteristics of the country.
Although but four years have passed away, the free selector has made great inroads through the jungle, by liberally applying the axe, and where once the brush was predominant, the sun now shines without difficulty; artificial grasses cover the once bare earth, with their lovely greens, and our cattle graze and support themselves on the best grass pastures in the colony; and, more than this, our cottages peer through the openings, not bark huts or miserable gunyahs, as some would make you believe, but thorough substantial buildings, with good shingled roofs and boarded floors, and some even weather-boarded, that would do credit to some of our cities in the interior, a remarkable contrast to the miserable places built under the lease system.
Now, Sir, to facts, I say truthfully that, when I first came up here, three years ago, I was in as bad circumstances as any one I am aware of. My cattle had most of them died with the drought, and the little money I had was but sufficient to take me and my family to our new home. I began clearing my ground with a good will. My neighbours were kind enough to give me a bag of seed potatoes to plant my ground with, and with plying my hoe, and Providence; I raised about four tons of potatoes. Heavy brush, and this I sowed with artificial grass, which thrived and now, Sir, at the present time, I have in seven acres of artificial grasses, off which I have been making from 12 to 18 lbs. of butter per week. All through the dry summer, and with the hoe alone, by my own single labour, I have raised 21 bushels of wheat off an acre of ground, and 10 tons of potatoes, 20 dozen of pumpkins, besides sundry other vegetables.
And now, Sir, a glance at this by any unprejudiced person, will show that the free selector is not in such abject poverty as some would make you believe, but far otherwise; and if a man will but work on his land, whether with the hoe or plough, it will make him in a few years, by God's blessing, if not a rich a competent man.
I consider that the free selector is one of Australia's best sons she can yet boast of. Someone says the man that grows two blades of grass where only one grew before is a benefactor to his country. So much for free selection; it is the greatest blessing that ever happened to the community. Instead of making the people robbers and cattle stealers, as your contemporary asserts, it gives industry to hundreds, and settles them in a permanent home - he has no fears of his landlord coming to distrain him for rent, or sell his cattle and crops, for where he paid his pound he now pays his shilling.
Now, Sir, your contemporary asserts that free selection has been a great tendency to crime. This may be the case in some instances; and as well as free selectors being criminals, why not point to squatters, storekeepers, townsmen, or perhaps clergymen? Are the rest of the communities all exempt from crime?
Why single out a comparatively small portion of the community? The fact of it is, the greatest crime the free selector has committed is the settling himself down on the public lands, to secure for himself and family a comfortable home.
Amongst our fifteen hundred in this district I know of, none are accused of these crimes. If we are guilty of any crime it is the crime of selecting land under the laws which our champion, John, has granted us; that, instead of a roaming community, as heretofore, we may settle ourselves down comfortably with our cattle, our children, all smiling around us, sitting under our own vine and fig trees.
Yours truly,
THOMAS BLENCOWE.
Transcribed from Trove by Roger Davis, USA
By the 1830s and 1840s Australia was receiving an increasing number of free settlers (as opposed to convicts) but there was still a huge labour shortage. People on farms needed labourers. The expanding settlement meant that convict labour was not sufficient.
In Australian history, a squatter was typically a man, either a free settler or ex-convict, who occupied a large tract of Crown land in order to graze livestock. Initially often having no legal rights to the land, they gained its usage by being the first (and often the only) settlers in the area.
In the early years of the colony, very few settlers came to Australia. Free settlers had to fund their own transport and were usually quite wealthy. The few who made the journey to Australia did so mostly to make their fortune. They were often given large land grants and convicts to work for them.
In our May newsletter I mooted the idea of a mini reunion to be held at Blencowes Milk Bar in Melbourne. Due to the sale of this franchise we did not go ahead with the plans of a get together.
Co-incidentally the name of the caf was after Blencowe Street in Leederville, Western Australia. The street was originally named after Thomas Blencowe's son, Ernest, who was a mounted policeman. Ernest died after falling from his horse.
For more on this family Google: Immigrants who left their mark - Thomas and Eliza Blencowe or BFA Newsletter Vol 25 No. 4 Nov. 2010.