The Watnall in Australia, its wild-west Aboriginal wars of the 1840s under "Sheriff" Rolleston and his link to Sydney Harbour Bridge
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| 1844 - "Country entirely unexplored". Christopher Rolleston was District Commissioner at the frontier settlement of Darling Downs |
Today's "Tale from Watnall Hall" takes us Down Under to colonial Australia, specifically northern New South Wales in the 1840's, a wild and unexplored frontier land very much like the American wild-west at the same time. The maps just said "country entirely unexplored". The man trying to keep peace between the Aborigines, the land-grabbing, cattle-running "squatters" and the rag-tag border police force nominally under his control was young Christopher Rolleston who's cousin, Lancelot, had inherited Watnall Hall.
Christopher's father had been born at Watnall Hall but as a younger son had no chance of inheriting so instead became a minister in Burton Joyce where he raised a brood of 9 children. Christopher, born in 1817, was the second of an eventual seven brothers who's diverse worldwide exploits we can save for other tales.
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| Christopher Rolleston in later life |
In 1831, aged 21, Christopher set sail to seek his fortune in Australia. He'd been working in the port of Liverpool in a mercantile house so the tempting opportunities of a new life overseas would have been constantly in the air. He went to Sydney and bought land on the Allyn River 100 miles to the north where he farmed with his younger brother Philip.
Lack of success though led him to apply, through his father, for a government post and in December 1842 the New South Wales Governor George Gipps posted an advert seeking...
"persons of very active habits… single men without encumbrance of any sort" as "Commissioners of Crown Lands".
He appointed Rolleston to the frontier district of Darling Downs. As you can see from this map of the area, inland from Darling Downs the map simply said "Country entirely unexplored."
The role required immense stamina, as these commissioners were responsible for managing vast, often uncharted, pastoral districts on horseback. The requirement for "single men without encumbrance of any sort" meant they needed individuals who were unencumbered by wives or families, allowing them to focus entirely on their demanding, itinerant duties on the frontier. They were also lawmen in the style of an American wild-west sheriff enforcing the law with a posse of troopers.
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| 1844 - the New South Wales districts including Darling Downs at the top and the "country entirely unexplored" alongside |
Watnall, Australia - it didn't last long
It was here that Rolleston registered some land of his own on the western border of Darling Downs and called it Watnall after his ancestral home. However a few years later another settler contested the registration as commissioners were not supposed to own land in their own district. In 1853 it was officially renamed from Watnall to Cobblegum Creek.
Like an American sheriff, a district commissioner's main duty was running the local police force and each commissioner had about 10 troopers. In order to reduce the cost of the force as much as possible, the troopers were taken from the population of convicts that existed in the colony at that time. The convicts assigned were usually ex-soldiers who had been transported to Australia due to crimes of military indiscipline. They were supplied with horses, equipment and rations, but were otherwise unpaid and had to construct their own barracks. The force was funded by a levy imposed on the "squatters" who were grazing their livestock on the Crown Lands in the frontier regions. In 1836, the "Squatting Act" was passed to allow pastoralists or "squatters", as they were colloquially known, to run their sheep and cattle on New South Wales Crown Lands beyond the limits of white settlement for a small fee. However, the act failed to address the subsequent settler-Aboriginal conflict that the act would inevitable lead to.
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| A roving Australian district commissioner not unlike Christopher Rolleston |
Rolleston was on very amicable terms with the prominent squatters in the district. Rolleston let Arthur Hodgson be acting commissioner while he was on leave, and he later married the sister of the famous squatter Patrick Leslie. Hodgson and Leslie in return were sure that Rolleston and his troopers would "teach these sable gentleman that their recent outrages will not escape unpunished"
Aboriginal Wars - The Battle of One Tree Hill
In September 1843, one of the first skirmishes occurred in neighbouring penal settlement of Moreton Bay (now Brisbane). The Aboriginal Yugara people had pushed back against settler encroachment into the Lockyer Valley by raiding squatting properties, killing shepherds, robbing drays and blocking the main road connecting Moreton Bay with the Darling Downs. Local squatters in the region, unable to control the resistance, petitioned the colonial government for military aid. In response to these requests, the colonial government assembled a large expeditionary force, which included the Moreton bay commissioner and his troopers, the Border Police from the Darling Downs district under Christopher Rolleston as well as soldiers from the 99th Regiment of Foot and armed settlers. The Yugara retreated to Mount Davidson near the present locality of Blanchview from where they were able to repulse several attacks by rolling large rocks down towards the expeditionary force. However, the hill was eventually stormed by the expeditionary force, killing numerous Yugara and taking an immense number of spears and tools. Several Yugara encampments in the era were later destroyed, and a sentry of soldiers was established at Soldier's Flat (two miles from the modern-day town of Helidon) to prevent any further attacks on the road.
Rolleston's troopers were also active in hunting down convict runaways and deserters from the British Army.
End of the wars in Darling Downs
Rolleston's activities pleased his Sydney superiors and the local "squatters". In 1845, he reported that the squatters had allowed Aboriginal people back on the sheep stations as Aboriginal relations improved somewhat partly to his distribution of blankets, flour and tobacco in winter months. ...
"Last year I applied to His Excellency the Governor for a few blankets, shirts, &c., to distribute, with a view of encourage the natives to visit my head quarters, and give me an opportunity of shewing them the folly of their aggressions, and proving to them that we wished to be on friendly terms. The effect has been more favourable than I was prepared to hope for; no aggressions have since been made on the property or lives of the whites, and I am happy to observe, not only a friendly feeling, but mutual confidence springing up between the two colors, of which I am inclined to hope the continuance. I do not hesitate to say, that it will be most desirable to resume the distribution of blankets next winter, not only as a defence from the cold, which in this district is most severe, but to ensure the maintenance of the friendly disposition at present entertained by them towards the Europeans. It may be as well to state here, that, with His Excellency the Governor's permission, I distributed a little flour and tobacco occasionally during the winter month which I may safely say has promoted our friendly relations with them to a considerable extent."
Rolleston's Border Police were mostly disbanded in 1847 and was left to small groups of constabulary. It was not the end of the violence though. In the 1850's another force was organised in New South Wales, which later evolved into the Queensland Native Police force. It employed Aboriginals from distant districts as policemen led by colonial officers, modelled on the sepoy system from British colonial India. This force massacred thousands of Aboriginal people under the official euphemism of "dispersal", and is regarded as one of the most conspicuous examples of genocidal policy in colonial Australia. It existed until around 1915, when the last Native Police camps in Queensland were closed.
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| 1864 - Native Police in Rockhampton Queensland |
Married life as a colonial administrator
Granted leave of absence to visit England in 1853, Rolleston received a silver salver and 125 guineas from the squatters. On 20 September 1854 at Foller, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Rolleston married Katherine, daughter of William Leslie, ninth laird of Warthill, and sister of Patrick Leslie his "squatter" friend from the Darling Downs. In December he brought her to Sydney, reputedly having declined the presidency of Montserrat, in the West Indies, and in January 1855 became the private secretary to the governor-general, Sir William Denison. He lived the rest of his life in various colonial administration roles.
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| Rolleston front and centre of the staff at the NSW Land Titles Office December 1864 |
Farewell Watnall, hello Rolleston town
While his land acquisition at the short-lived Watnall, New South Wales had not worked out, from 1860 he acquired extensive land in the Leichhardt district of Queensland centred upon his head station, Springsure, near the present town of Rolleston. He was a director of the European Assurance Society, the Mercantile Bank of Sydney and the Australian Gaslight Co. and vice-president of the Savings Bank of New South Wales.
Sydney Harbour Bridge
His final home, Northcliff, was on a prominent spur of land overlooking Sydney harbour called Milsons Point. Then relatively unknown to the rest of the world, it is anything but today as Milsons Point is where Sydney Harbour Bridge was built. This is the view from roughly the same location then and now...
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| Above - Milsons Point c.1869 Rolleston's house would have been on the rocky point in the centre Below - Milsons Point today! |
Rolleston's career in the civil service was notable for his steady devotion to duty and his avoidance of political controversy. His work contributed to the orderly growth of responsible government in New South Wales. He was made C.M.G. in 1879. A pillar of the colonial community, he died on 9 April 1888 of chronic Bright's disease at his home, Northcliff, Milsons Point, Sydney, survived by his wife and four of their six children and was buried in the Anglican cemetery, Willoughby. His estate was sworn for probate at £16,763.
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