Thomas Clarkson  - TOWN PURCHASES

    Being the opportunist that he was, Thomas Clarkson very quickly realized that there was money to be made from a tenant/landlord relationship. With this in mind he turned his energies and available finances towards owning property. It was to become a common pattern for him throughout his life, to buy, borrow and buy some more.
    On 12 June 1811 he purchased 3 allotments situated quite close to his home. Each cost him £15 colonial currency.
    The first was from Joseph Dunsfield, from whom he acquired "all that messuage and premises in Hunter Street… formerly part of an allotment in the possession o f Joseph Smith," and from John Jones, that same day, he bought two allotments "at the corner of Macquarie St near Hyde Park together with a frame of a house erected".(31)
    A little more than a fortnight later he added, "all that house and premises situate at the corner of Phillip St opposite the premises now building by the said Clarkson in Phillip St".(32)
    This purchase, from Joseph Smith cost him £30 sterling and was dated 29 June 1811. This property may well have been the one later referred to as No 54 and the property listed as being opposite was probably No 13. Evidence taken at a coronial inquiry in August 1811 gives reference to "Mr Clarkson's new building" in Hunter Street,(33) so it would appear Thomas had a number of projects going concurrently.
    The Sydney Gazette of 24 August 1811 ran the following notice;(34)
To be sold by private contract, a good dwelling house No 73 Castlereagh -- If not earlier disposed of, it will be sold by public auction on Monday 2 September --
Apply for viewing and terms to T. Clarkson, Hunter St
    A month later, on 24 September, Thomas purchased another allotment in Macquarie Street. It measured 40 feet backwards onto Joseph Smith's allotment, was bounded on one side by Andrew Kaine and on the other by Clarkson's land. For the meager sum of £5 sterling Thomas became the owner of this additional piece of ground adjoining his other two allotments. The transfer was made from Richard Thompson and Mary McCabe in the presence of George Jubb jnr. and Thomas Piersons.(35)
    This purchase gave Thomas Clarkson three allotments in a row at the Hyde Park end of Macquarie Street. Today they would be located opposite the Mint, on the site of the Supreme Court. The parish map shows St James Church (not then built) bordering the Hyde Park end of the allotments. The Hyde Park barracks, also were not in existence at this time, (they being built in 1817). At the time of the purchase the property fronted the new General Hospital.
    In 1818 Thomas mortgaged these allotments to D'Arcy Wentworth for £350 + interest (the highest rate available at the time). By then the "newly erected frame of a house" described in the contract of 1811 had become "a newly erected stone and brick messuage or dwelling house" with "all stables, barns, coach houses, wells, waterways and gardens".(36)
    The contract cited the allotments as being ...
situate at the southern extremity of Macquarie Street... adjoining Hyde Park, measuring 100 feet, the rear facing Phillip Street and measuring 100 - 120 feet on the side facing Hyde Park.
    A clause in the mortgage stated that all deeds, as soon as they were presented to Clarkson, were to be included in the deal. Particular reference was given here to the deed of grant which Wentworth went to great pains to make sure was included in the contract.(37) Obviously, the land was only under lease and a grant was supposedly forthcoming.
    Later events were to show that Thomas never took possession of the deeds, as on 31 December 1819 a grant was issued to D'Arcy Wentworth for the sixty-four and three quarter perches.(38)
    As 1811 drew to a close Thomas Clarkson and family had spent five years in the colony and with the coming of the new year they were looking forward to the arrival of another colonial born child.
    On 15 March 1812 they announced the arrival or little Mountford Clarkson.(39) Perhaps he was named from both nostalgia for lost Warwickshire days and family tradition. Whichever it was, the name was to become quite frequently used in the following generations. "Mountford" is synonymous with countries around Warwickshire, deriving from the 13th Century crusader Simon de Montfort, and perhaps it was after this hero that little Mountford (there are various spellings) born in a new land, of ex-Warwickshire parents, was named.
    He was their second child of that name. Thomas and Catherine had buried their first tiny Mountford in 1802 in Kingsbury, England.(40) This second Mountford was hale and hearty and throughout his life was very close to his family. Later, sources were to reveal that he was the Godson of the family's close neighbours and intimate friends, Mr and Mrs Richard Harding.(41)
    Richard Harding was a blacksmith, who in 1806 had purchased a house and garden from Charles Evans in Back Row East (Phillip St).(42) The families became very close and when Mountford was born the Hardings were chosen to be his Godparents. In 1813 the Hardings purchased a home in Hunter Street from Thomas Parsonage,(43) and Richard Harding placed two young boys, William Holloway(44) and John Small(45) to his trade as apprentices.
    In November of the year that Mountford was born, it was claimed, Richard Harding bought the land at the back of Clarkson's property, from William Smith.(46) Sometime in 1813 the Hardings decided to return to Europe and as a parting gift and out of remembrance of them, they gave the land to their Godson, Mountford. The fact that Harding was Godfather to Mountford was attested to by various people, but evidence of the transfer of the land was to be disputed in later years.(47)
    The transfer of a house and land in Hunter Street from Mark Millington on 1 September 1812, cost him £45 and added another link to Thomas' growing chain of local properties. Perhaps this was Millington's relocated house.(48)
    On 2 November 1812 Thomas Legg transferred to Thomas Clarkson for £12 "an allotment of ground situate on the North End of Mr Lewin's premises on the Brickfields Hill".(49) Thomas' estate was increasing.
    As the colony expanded, the need for more roads was obvious. Financed by public subscription and constructed by the military, a road now stretched from Sydney to the South Head. In the Public Notices column of the Sydney Gazette of 27 March 1813 was a list of those persons who had donated money to the construction of the carriageway and urged others who might desire to do so, to add their names to the list being held at the Office of Mr Robert Campbell in Hunter Street. The name of Thomas Clarkson was already among others on the list and his donation of £1/1/- was acknowledged (This was a popular amount offered by many).(50)
    The frequent traffic of carts and wagons, heavily laden with firewood and lime was cutting up the newly laid roads and since the volume of traffic was increasing rapidly (due to the fact that there was a Turnpike on the Parramatta Road and the use of the same necessitated the payment of fees) the collecting of commodities to sell in Sydney was increasing along this roadway. So, Macquarie quickly remedied this by erecting, at the Governor's expense, a Toll Gate, "on the boundry at the South East extremity of Hyde Park".
    And he limited the payment only to laden carts in the hope that those causing the damage would finance the repairs.(51)

 Page last updated -  7 July 2006