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FF WILLIAM BROUGHTON ‘Charlotte’ (1768-1821)
Servant to Surgeon John White
- this story is under review by Membership Team
Born in November 1768, William
Broughton was the son of Henry and Sarah
Broughton of Chatham in Kent. His father died when
he was young and he was brought up by his uncle Captain
Broughton.
William arrived in Sydney Cove on January
26 1788 on the ‘Charlotte’, as the personal
servant of surgeon John White. Prior to sailing,
White apparently heard in London that the First Fleet
Chaplain Richard Johnson had been allowed to
engage a servant and he requested the same privilege for
himself. This is how the nineteen year old William came
to be sailing with the First Fleet. He was young, and I
like to think he was ambitious and looking for an
adventure, willing, honest and from a good naval family.
It was an opportunity which he appreciated. With hard
work and his strong sense of public duty, and despite
some difficulties, he became a storekeeper, land owner
and Deputy -General Commissary in Sydney, Norfolk
Island and Van Diemen’s Land and a Magistrate at Appin
and Airds, early settlements west of Wollongong.
Described in official letters of the time
as “well educated and a competent accountant” he was
appointed to supervise the food rationing at Rose Hill
in February 1789. His assistant at the Commissary was
James Smith who was also responsible for
assigning the day to day work for gangs of convicts. He
had previously been granted some land at Parramatta and
Concord, and later, in 1795, he and several others
received a substantial land grant at the North Brush in
the Field of Mars, now known as Ryde and Eastwood. Soon
afterwards he bought out the others and assumed full
control of the property he named Chatham Farm
after his birthplace. Incidentally, this area is close
to where I lived for many years with my family before I
moved to Albury. By 1800 William had 16 acres sown with
wheat and 3 acres ready for planting maize, as well as
grazing a collection of animals, 7 sheep, 3 goats,3
pigs, and 2 horses.
During his time in Parramatta William met
and formed a close relationship with Elizabeth
Heathorn, also known as Ann Glossop, a young
woman from Poole in Monmouthshire who had arrived in the
colony in February 1792 on the Pitt, sentenced to
7 years transportation. They set up house together and
their first daughter Mary Ann Broughton was born
in 1793, follow by Sarah in 1799. In February
1800 Governor King appointed William as Acting
Deputy Commissary for Norfolk Island and he and
Elizabeth and their daughters arrived on the Island to
take up the position in 1801. Three more children,
William Henry, Rebecca and Betsy were
born on Norfolk Island before the family returned home
via a short time spent in Van Diemen’s Land.
Back in Sydney Town there was talk that
the newly appointed Governor, Lachlan Macquarie,
would act against couples engaged in illicit
relationships. William may have had some thoughts about
marriage with a young widow Eliza Simpson. He
apparently decided to send Elizabeth Heathorn and their
youngest child Betsy back to England where their eldest
daughter was at school. Mother and daughter embarked on
the General Boyd, which was under charter to
Simeon Lord and sailed from Port Jackson on November
8 1809 with a cargo of timber, seal skins, coal and oil
bound for the Cape of Good Hope.
Their first port of call was Wangaroa in
the North Island of New Zealand where they were to load
Kauri spars. However, while the ship was at anchor in
the harbour, there was a vicious surprise attack by a
group of angry Maori warriors. Elizabeth Heathorn, along
with the crew and most of the passengers died in what
was later known as the Boyd Massacre. Little Betsy was
apparently protected by a kindly Maori and was very
lucky to survive until she was rescued by Alexander
Berry. In 1812, after a series of adventures
including time spent in Peru, she was eventually
reunited with her father in Sydney three years later.
Meanwhile back in Sydney William had been
appointed as a Magistrate in 1809, and the following
year on December 8 1810 The Sydney Gazette reported his
marriage “By Rev Mr Marsden at St John’s Church
Parramatta on Tuesday last, William Broughton Esq.
Acting Commissary to Mrs Simpson widow of the late
Captain Roger Simpson.” William was aged 42 and
Eliza Charlotte was 27. They were married by special
licence granted by Governor Macquarie. They probably
lived in Windsor after their marriage with their
combined family of four, Eliza’s son Edward Simpson
then aged 6 and William’s motherless children Sarah 11,
William Henry 8, and Rebecca 6.William’s eldest daughter
Mary Ann was still at school in England. I imagine Eliza
would have been very busy with her new husband and four
children and the added joy of the birth of their first
son James Gordon Broughton the following year.
Appointed Commissary General in 1814 by
Governor Macquarie, William was granted one thousand
acres at Appin. In Macquarie’s Journal of his tours of
the Cow Pastures in 1815 he wrote ‘we proceeded by a
short but rough road to the farm of William Broughton
which he has been pleased to name Lachlan Vale.
Here he is building a long one-storey weather board
house with two wings on a very lofty eminence commanding
a very extensive prospect. He has cleared a
considerable portion of his farm and has some
fine-looking fields of wheat growing looking healthy and
promising’. I have a convict - made brick salvaged with
permission from the bull-dozed ruins of William’s
house.
A great strain was being put on the
Commissary stores with the increasing numbers of
convicts arriving in the colony. Governor Macquarie
claimed he too was ‘bewildered’ by the prospect of
having to feed and house the two thousand six hundred
convicts arriving within six months. William’s health
was said to be deteriorating. There was a sale of
furniture from his York St Sydney house which was then
leased out. In December 1820 he was too ill to attend
the official naming of Campbelltown and he was
represented in Governor Macquarie’s official party by
his young daughter Betsy. Sadly William and Eliza had
only been married for eleven years when he died at
Lachlan Vale on July 22 1821 aged fifty three.
His grave in St Luke’s Cemetery Liverpool
is inscribed
Sacred to the memory of Acting
Assistant Commissary-General Broughton Who departed this
life July 20th 1821, Aged 53 years, Having
faithfully served 33years in the above department in New
South Wales.
His will made in 1813 mentioned bequests
to his mother and brother and stressed that all his
children were to receive equal shares of his estate.
It was said that as a colonial officer
‘he stood out among the motley officials of the day’and
Governor Macquarie described him as having been a
faithful, honest and useful official for thirty years.
The Fellowship of First Fleeters
installed a FFF Plaque on William Broughton’s Grave on
14th August 1977.
This Plaque was replaced in 1993.
Refer FFF Web Site:http://www.fellowshipfirstfleeters.org.au/graves.html
Under
FFF Plaque 2 –
Installed 14th August 1977
(Replaced in 1993)
for
FF WILLIAM BROUGHTON Servant to
Surgeon John White ‘Charlotte’ (1768-1821)
Written by #8990 Kate Macpherson,
a great greatgreat granddaughter of William and Eliza
Broughton, who states: My
connection is through William’s second family with Eliza
Charlotte Simpson. Their daughter Francis Matilda
married Dr Benjamin Clayton from Windsor near Sydney.
The Clayton’s son Benjamin, who inherited his father’s
property Baltinglass at Murrumburrah, married Marianne
Mackey Garland from Lochinvar near Maitland. Their
second daughter Aileen Clayton married Kenneth Mackenzie
of Bundanon at Nowra and their eldest child was my
mother Jean Mackenzie.
References
Family letters, newspaper cuttings, notes
Lachlan Macquarie Journals:-
Tours of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land
1810-1822.-Tour of the Cow Pastures 1815-Tour of
Illawarra 1822.
Margaret Carty:-
William Broughton and the Kennedy Connection
Florence Stacey:-
Notes from the history of the Anglican Church in Tumut
1830-1926
Stuart Hamilton Hume:-
Beyond the Borders.
Details of William
Broughton's death and burial place can be found on the Gravestone
Plaques page - and with photographs.
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