What's in a name

Advertisement: Sydney Herald for 7 March 1936

I have been working on the Story of Robert Henderson for almost 2 months, but I still keep running into problems with his name. The first problem is that he is sometimes shown in official records as 'Robert Anderson'. I thought at first that this was only in his early career and his father, Thomas, suffered from the same confusion.

The second problem occurs after Robert moves to Sydney in 1840. There is another Robert Henderson, of a similar age, who lives in Newtown. This other Robert is a gardener and nurseryman.

My latest issue came while I was re-checking my sources for the last time and I noticed a vessel named William that I had not researched. Gwen Dundon's book on the Shipbuilders of Brisbane Water says the William was a cutter built in Sydney in 1846. She references an item from the Sydney Herald on 7 March 1846. This is where confusion sets in. There was no Sydney Herald in 1846 and I can't find anything relevant in the Sydney Morning Herald of that date. In a stroke of inspiration, I looked in the Sydney Herald for the same date in 1836 (10 years earlier) and discovered the advertisement shown above right.

This is for a Brig, not a cutter and the agent (other versions have him as the agent) is 'Robert Anderson', lower George Street. Now I know Robert was spending time in Sydney around this time, but I don't think he moved full time to Sydney until about 1840. So is this our Robert, or was there actually a Robert Anderson in the picture?

I next turned to the William and had a closer look at the vessels registered with this name and any mentions in the shipping columns. I think there were several brigs of this name. One was lost in Bass Straight in 1939 and another ran ashore on the south coast of NSW in 1842. There were 4 vessels named William in a list of vessels published in 1847 including a 324-ton brig, a 73-ton schooner and two cutters (24-ton and 10-ton). R. Anderson is shown as the owner of the 10-ton cutter, which was built in Sydney.

I am inclined to think that there may well have been a shipping agent named Robert Anderson working in Sydney in 1836 and this was not our Robert Henderson. I have no idea if this Robert Anderson was the owner of the cutter William in 1847, but I notice that 'R. Anderson' and 'Robert Henderson' are separately  listed as owners of vessels in a similar list published in 1842, so this possibly supports the idea thet Robert Henderson and Robert Anderson are separate people.

Moving to Sydney

By the late 1830's Robert Henderson is a prominent resident at Brisbane Water, but his business interests are increasingly based in Sydney. He has acquired a number of properties close to the waterfront in Darling Harbour, at the foot of Erskine Street and he has established a wharf there from which he conducts his shipping operations. He has also acquired an inn on the corner of Erskine and Sussex Streets which is leased under the name of the 'Sprig of Shillalah’.

Meanwhile his son Robert Jnr is nearing school age, with no school nearby to their home at Veteran Hall. Robert has been active in trying to get a school established. He is a member of the committee that will build the school, but it is moving too slowly for Robert Jnr, and maybe the parents are hoping for a better education than a small rural school is likely to provide.

From what I can work out from the records, by late 1838, Robert is spending most of his time in Sydney, leaving Catherine to hold the fort at Veteran Hall. In June 1939, Catherine complains to the authorities that a man named Lowry, has blocked the road though his property, and that this was the only road they could use to access Veteran Hall.

When the 1841 Census is taken, James Wigglesworth and his family are living at Veteran Hall as tenants. The census record for the Darling Harbour area is missing, but other documents from 1941 show Robert residing at Sussex Street Sydney.

From this evidence, I have concluded that Robert and Catherine moved to Sydney around 1840. Perhaps Lowry's closing the road was the final straw for Catherine.

Now that the family is all in Sydney, they take over the running of their hotel and rename it 'The Dove Inn', with the first license in Robert's name being issued in 1842. This becomes the base for their operations for the next 20 years.

Robert continues to visit Brisbane Water regularly and he does not resign from the school committee until late in 1842. I am not sure whether this was brought on by his absence in Sydney, or his impending disgrace in the smuggling affair discussed last week.

A new family home was finally built at No 5 Erskine Street (adjacent or close to the Dove Inn). Robert advertised for builders in late 1844 (see advertisement above) and the home was completed in 1845.

The evidence conundrum

One of the biggest pitfalls in family history research (for me at least) is making false assumptions. A case in point is the ownership of the 100 acres to the north of Veteran Hall. This farm was 100 acres and was known as 'Mount Pleasant'.

Joan Taylor included this in one of her maps as belonging to Robert Henderson, but not in another. There is also a sketch of the farm in the Henderson Box in the Mitchell Library. I have assumed that this is evidence that Robert probably owned Mount Pleasant. Then I spotted something curious in the advertisement for the sale of Veteran Hall. The advertisement right appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on Christmas Eve 1906 (after Robert Geary Henderson's death).

On my first reading there are three separate parcels of land for sale, two of 100-acres and one of 50 acres. One of the 100-acre farms is Veteran Hall and the 50-acre farm is the grant adjoining Veteran Hall to the west. So was the other 100-acre farm 'Mount Pleasant', or the 100-acres between Veteran Hall and Davistown, which we know that Robert owned?

The answer is in the advertisement immediately below the first one - titled Boxing Day at Woy Woy. This is advertising blocks for auction on 'Mount Pleasant Estate'! This makes it less likely that Robert owned Mount Pleasant. Robert's Will allowed his son Robert Geary Henderson the use of Veteran Hall for his lifetime and then to be split between his children. Robert Jnr died on 5 November 1906, just 7 weeks before this advertisement, so the Trustees were wasting no time in liquidating the Estate. I doubt there would have been time to have already sold Mount Pleasant and for the subdivision to have been surveyed and put on the market.

The auction for blocks on the 'Veteran Hall Estate' was on Boxing Day 2007, a full year after the above advertisement. I have found a copy of a poster for this auction. The 50-acre farm is apparently called the 'Eastways Estate'. The north-west corner of the other 100 acres should have been where the '100 foot reservation' is shown, but I have not located the details of that subdivision.

Bob the smuggler

I have found several references to Robert Henderson as 'Bob the Smuggler' and on the evidence, I think this is probably true. 

During the early years of the British colony, it was common to barter goods or pay people with goods rather than with money. Rum in particular was used as currency. But rum and other spirits were subject to very high taxes, so the temptation to evade the taxes was high. If someone could avoid paying the tax, they were at a huge advantage.

The waterways around Brisbane Water and the Hawkesbury estuary were particularly well suited to anyone who wanted to do some illicit dealings with spirits. It was relatively close to Sydney but still remote with lots of dense bush and secluded areas where contraband could be concealed.

In 1842 a 139-ton schooner named Fair Barbadian sailed from Sydney with a cargo of rum and brandy, supposedly bound for Lombok (in current-day Indonesia). The liquor had come out of bond store, meaning that the import tax had not been paid. The import tax did not apply to goods re-exported.

Once clear of the Sydney heads and once they were sure that customs were not following, the ship quietly entered Broken Bay where some or all of the cargo was unloaded. 

A month or so later, a wood cutter named James Toomey stumbled on a large stash of rum and brandy in casks hidden in the bush near Cowan Creek. He hastened to Sydney and reported his find to the water police. The police immediately set out to investigate. Just before arriving at the site, they met 3 men  a boat going the other way. One of the men gave his name as Henderson (our Robert). The water police found items aboard Henderson's boat that later connected him with the stash of spirits.

The following day, Captain Browne of the water police again encountered Robert, this time aboard his schooner. Robert greeted him laughing and said "You have the laugh of me this time, but I have had the laugh at you several times before". Those words possibly tell us where Robert got the money to build his business empire!

Robert was charged by the Customs Department with 'Concealing spirits'. The prosecution failed to present evidence that the site of the crime was within the Colony of New South Wales and the case was dismissed on this technicality. The authorities filed a separate charge of "aiding and abetting the conveyance of the spirits", but this case was also dismissed on another technicality.

Reading the newspaper reports on Robert's case, I formed the view that either the authorities were incompetent, or they did not pursue the case with much energy. Several months later, the Customs Department were more successful when the prosecuted the exporters and reclaimed £12,000 in import taxes.

These events became known as the 'Fair Barbadian Affair'. A customs house was established at Barrenjoey within 6 months of Robert's trial. This proved effective in reducing smuggling operations in Broken Bay.