John Rowley (b 1797 Sydney Cove, m Sarah
Pear 1819 St John's, Paramatta, d 1873 Scone NSW)
John is of interest in that he was cinvolved in exploration
expeditions
before marrying and becoming a farmer.
There ia a portrait of John Rowley in the
National Gallery
Manning Clark, A History of Australia Volume 1 (P300)
By the middle of 1819 prospects of expansion to the south-west were
opened up by the journey of Charles Throsby from the Cow Pastures to
Bathurst. Throsby, who was born at Leicester in England in 1771,
arrived in the colony as a surgeon in 1802, served at Newcastle,
took
up land at Cabramatta in 1808, became agent to Sir John Jamison in
1811, returned to England for a visit, and then returned to Sydney
where he spent some of his time exploring the Moss Vale, and Sutton
Forest district. In March 1818, he had set out with Meehan to
discover
a land route to Jervis Bay. The immediate motive for the journey of
1819 was not to discover more land, but rather a new route to the
rich
and extensive plains of Bathurst, because the communication with the
western country was over a long and difficult range of mountains,
alike
uncongenial to man and cattle because of their parched and barren
state.(28) Throsby set out on 25 April, accompanied by John Rowley, two servants, and
two
aboriginal guides, Cookoogong and Dual, passing through the Cow
Pastures. Fifteen days later, on 9 May, they arrived at the hut of
Lieutenant Lawson on the Campbell River within a short distance of
Bathurst. Throsby had found the country over which he had passed
rich,
fertile, and luxuriant, abounding with fine runs of water, and
highly
suitable to all the purposes of pasturage and agriculture. Macquarie
was so delighted that he offered to Throsby a public tribute of
acknowledgment, and one thousand acres in any part of the new
country,
to John Rowley two hundred
acres, to the two servants, Joseph Wait and John Wild, one hundred
acres each, and to the two aborigines for their very meritorious
services a remuneration of clothing and bedding, appointing
Cookoogong
chief of his tribe, together with a badge of distinction, and
conferring on Dual the badge of merit.(29) By July he detected a
wider
significance in the discovery, believing the rich country between
the
Cow Pastures and Bathurst Plains would be fully equal to meet every
increase in the population, that it would provide opportunities for
the
speculative grazier and farmer, and that it would increase
intercourse
with the mother country by furnishing wool, hides and tallow.(30) By
1819 New South Wales promised to be a land of opportunity for free
settlers in the areas discovered by Oxley in the hinterland of Port
Macquarie, in the valley of the Hunter River, in the land between
Bathurst and the Cow Pastures, at Illawarra, and Jervis Bay. All of
those, except for Illawarra and Jervis Bay, presented opportunities
for
the grazier, for the large estates, for dispersion of settlement,
for
an economy and a way of life clean different from a convict farm.
(28) Government and General Order of 31 May 1819; Sydney Gazette, 5
June 1819.
(29) Sydney Gazette, 5 June 1819.
(30) Macquarie to Bathurst, 19 July 1819, H.R.A., 1, 10, PP. 178-9.
Manning Clark, A History of Australia Volume 1 (P352)
In August 1817, with Hamilton Hume, John
Rowley and Joseph Wild, Throsby had travelled west from
Sutton
Forest towards the Wollondilly River. This journey was worthy of
note
not because of its achievement, which was meagre, or its promise,
but
because one of the immortals in the history of land exploration,
Hamilton Hume, began his career on this journey as a servant to
Throsby.
Also John was part of a group that opened up the Illawarra
region. Dr Joseph Davis has generously allowed us to include
an
article he wrote on this Illawarra exploration. Link
to Article This article has been set up as a PDF
file.
If that poses a problem, please contact
us . If you are a Victorian like me, you may not know where
Illawarra is. I was quite disconcerted to find it was not in the
index
of either of my road atlases of Australia. Apparently it is a region
just south of Sydney, Wollongongish. .More about
Illawarra
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Page last updated - 19 Jan 2006 19 July 2020