Robert Dulhunty

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Robert Venour Dulhunty (1803 to December 30, 1854), is chiefly remembered as being the first permanent white settler of Dubbo. The son of Dr John Dulhunty and Jane Dulhunty (nee Smith), he also was one of the New South Wales colony's wealthiest and most enterprising citizens of the late-Georgian and early-Victorian eras.

It was in about 1832 that Dulhunty took up the land - which he named 'Dubbo' - on the Macquarie River, just to the south of the present city. Consequently, he can be viewed as the founder what is today one of the most important regional centres in eastern Australia.

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[edit] Background

Robert Venour Dulhunty was born in Paignton, Devonshire, England, in 1803. His mother came from English stock but his father's lineage Irish in origin. Dulhunty's parents would also settle in Sydney; Dr Dulhunty, a former naval surgeon, was appointed the colony's police superintendent but he died suddenly at his residence, Burwood House, in 1828.

Dulhunty would marry into the Sydney establishment nine years after his father's demise (see below.) He and his wife, Eliza, would have six sons and three daughters, the last three children being born in Dubbo. They were:

Another child, Emily, died as an infant in 1839 and was buried at St Thomas' Churchyard, Mulgoa.

[edit] History

At the age of 21, Dulhunty arrived in the Colony of New South Wales as a free settler on the ship Guildford. The date of his arrival was March 5, 1824. He was accompanied on the voyage from England by his brother, Lawrence Vance Dulhunty, a surveyor. The colony centred on the future City of Sydney, which was just 36 years old at the time and still essentially a penal settlement under Governor Brisbane's administration.

On 23 March 1824, Dulhunty applied for a grant of land as the colony's hinterland was opened up to private citizens for farming and grazing. The Governor issued him with a grant of 2000 acres (eight km²) of land which Dulhunty chose at Cullen Bullen. In addition, he was equipped with six assigned convict servants/labourers. (Dulhunty would earn a reputation for treating his convict workers humanely.)

Dulhunty is listed as a founding member of Sydney's Australian Club, the first meeting being held on October, 1836. The 86 members included such prominent names as W.C. Wentworth, Captain John Piper, Dr William Bland, Sir John Jamison, Major Edmund Lockyer, James Macarthur, William Lithgow and John Blaxland.

On July 4, 1828, Dulhunty requested a ticket of occupation from Surveyor-General, Sir Thomas Mitchell. He was informed on the 10 July that the government had, for some time, discontinued giving tickets of occupation.

In the period between 1829 and 1833, Dulhunty set out from Penrith with an escort of about 40 Aborigines. Crossing the rugged Great Dividing Range, he followed the Macquarie River down to what is now known as Dubbo. The location had not been occupied when the explorer Captain Charles Sturt passed down the Macquarie in 1829.

When surveyor Robert Dixon passed through Dubbo to survey the Bogan River in 1833, he mentioned that he had borrowed a dray from Dulhunty. It is therefore believed that Dulhunty took up the land which he named 'Dubbo' in 1832.

By way of background, it should be noted that Governor Darling had created an area known as the ‘limits of location’ on September 5, 1826. Settlers were only allowed to take up land within this area. A further government order on October 14, 1829 increased this area of approved settlement to include an area called the 'Nineteen Counties'. Anyone who occupied land outside of this area were technically considered to be a 'squatter', without legal title. Among these squatters were many of the leading citizens of the colony, including Dulhunty.

On April 29, 1837, Dulhunty married Eliza Julia Gibbes (1811-1892), the eldest daughter of Major (later Colonel) John George Nathaniel Gibbes, who was a Member of the NSW Legislative Council as well as the Collector of Customs for NSW from 1834 to 1859. Colonel Gibbes (1787-1873) was also reputed to be the bastard son of Frederick, Duke of York, the second son of King George III. Dulhunty and his bride honeymooned at Sir John Jamison's Regentville mansion, near Penrith. (Mrs Dulhunty's brother, William John Gibbes, was married to a daughter of Sir John's.)

Dulhunty was appointed a Commissioner of Crown Lands on May 16, 1837. He was appointed police magistrate for the Penrith District on December 5 of that same year. He also took out a licence for ‘Dubbo Station’ in 1837. On December 10, 1840, Dulhunty was appointed to the Committee of the Australian Immigration Association. He represented the Penrith district along with E. Blaxland and R.C. Lethbridge.

By 1839, 28 free men and 18 male convicts were working on Dubbo station. Dulhunty built a homestead there in 1840; but he remained a largely absentee proprietor until 1847, in which year he moved his wife and family from his head station, Claremont, at Emu Plains, to Dubbo. This relocation involved an arduous journey with a dray-load of furniture and other belongings across rough mountain roads and along bush tracks.

After the village of Dubbo was laid-out and officially proclaimed in 1849, Dulhunty's estate subsequently became known as 'Old Dubbo'.

Robert Venour Dulhunty died on Friday the 30 December, 1854, after three days of illness. His grave lies in the Dubbo Pioneers' Cemetery, which is sited on former Dulhunty land amidst paddocks and bush. He was aged only 51 at the time of his death. His widow fought a resolute but ultimately losing battle to hold together the Dulhunty's rural kingdom in the face of drought, bank foreclosures and other setbacks - all the while being saddled with the additional responsibility of raising a large family to maturity. Mrs Dulhunty never remarried. During the 1870s, she lived with one of her sons, Robert George Dulhunty, on a small rural property near Wellington, New South Wales. Later, when she grew frail with age, she moved to the town of Bathurst, where she was looked after by another of her sons, John - a commission agent. Mrs Dulhunty died at Bathurst Hospital on February 13, 1892, having outlived her husband by almost 40 years. She is buried in Old Bathurst Cemetery.

[edit] Notes

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[edit] References

  • The Dulhunty Papers by Beryl Dulhunty (Sydney, 1959)
  • Volume One of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, edited by Douglas Pike, (Melbourne University Press, 1966), under "Dulhunty" and "Gibbes".

[edit] External links