Shipping a risky business

I am convinced in my own mind that ships and shipping were the primary source of Robert Henderson's wealth. The income from shipping probably gave him the capital to invest in property and other ventures. We will never know to what extent the illicit (smuggling) side of the shipping business played, but it may have been significant.

Maybe the smuggling made up for the losses that Robert suffered when his vessels were wrecked. I have identified three vessels that were wrecked while in Robert's ownership and there were likely more. This represents almost a third of the vessels that we know he owned or co-owned over his 35-year involvement in shipping. 

• Ranger was a vessel built by Robert at Brisbane Water. She sank off Sydney in 1831 with the loss of three lives. She was less than a year old. Robert himself had captained this vessel on its previous voyage.
• Maid of Australia vanished on her maiden voyage in 1834 and was presumed lost with all hands. Robert had supervised her construction and invested £1,500 in the project. This was the largest loss as far as I know.
• Catherine was another vessel built by Robert (or at least in his shipyard). I can find no trace of her after 1842, so I have presumed she may have been lost.
• The fate of the Betsey is unknown, but there were reports that she was often overloaded and unsafe, so it is a fair assumption that she went down on one of her trips to Sydney. The last mention that I have seen of her was in about 1836.
• The Fly was wrecked on the bar at Taree in 1845. Robert was the owner.
• Currency Boy was a 50-ton schooner, launched by Robert's wife Catherine in 1848. She was wrecked at Norah head in 1856 with the loss of two lives. (Robert advertised this vessel for auction in 1853 so she may not have been in his ownership when she was wrecked.)

My hypothesis is that shipping must have been a very profitable business for Robert to continue despite these losses. He may have carried insurance for the vessels, but the loss of life alone would deter most men. I have not discovered the number of crew aboard the Maid of Australia but as a 70-ton brig would possibly have had a crew of 10 or more, so the complete toll from all these wrecks would be 15 or more men. 

Robert and Catherine Henderson as parents

Sydney Morning Herald, 2 April 1846

Robert and Catherine Henderson were not prolific in the parenting department. They were married for 15 years before their first child was born. Of course it is likely that they had problems conceiving or there were unsuccessful pregnancies, but those are not the sort of details that are available from records, so we will never know. 

In the absence of children of their own, Robert and Catherine took in an orphaned child named Sarah Murray. Sarah's father had been a harbour pilot in Sydney and died in a boating accident leaving his wife pregnant with Sarah. Sarah's mother died when the child was only four. We don't know when Sarah went to live with the Hendersons, but it was possibly when the child was orphaned in 1824 This corresponded with the family moving to live at Veteran Hall. Sarah is listed in the 1828 Census as living with Robert Henderson at Brisbane Water.

Reading between the lines, Sarah was also with the Hendersons when they moved to Sydney in 1840 because three years later she married a shoemaker who had a shop at the same site as the Dove Inn. Robert was a witness at the marriage, but Sarah was shown as Sarah Murray, not Sarah Henderson (so she was fostered,  not adopted). Sarah continued a close association with the Hendersons for another decade, living in their houses in Sussex Street.

Robert and Catherine must have been overjoyed when their own son was born in 1832. He was named Robert Geary Henderson. It may have been a sign of the parent's enthusiasm that Robert Jnr was baptised twice, once at Brisbane Water and once in Sydney.

A second son appears in 1838. No record of Thomas' birth or baptism has been found to my knowledge. It might also be significant that when Catherine died in 1868, her death certificate says she has 'one son living'. This has led some people to theorise that Thomas may have been adopted as a companion for Robert Jnr. I assume that the adoption laws in those days were minimal.

Robert Jnr and Thomas both attended school in Sydney and there are some notices in the newspapers when they achieved academic prizes at school. When they left school, it seems that they worked in the family hotel business.

Unfortunately for Robert and Catherine, both boys proved to be of poor moral character. The first sign is in 1851 when Robert Jnr is accused in court of not looking after a child that he had fathered. His parents probably hoped he had settled down when he married Hannah Wallbridge two years later, and they were probably delighted when his young wife produced three children in quick succession. But shortly after his third child was born, Robert Jnr deserted his family and set up house with another woman at Brisbane Water.

Thomas followed in his brother's footsteps. In 1858 he fathered a child with Hanna's younger sister, Eliza Wallbridge, then refused to take any responsibility for the mother or child. The whole saga was played out in the Sydney papers. 

Robert and Catherine did their best, supporting Robert Jnr's deserted wife. They would have faced great embarrassment from their son's behaviour, both in Sydney and in Brisbane Water. This was probably evident in Robert Snr's Will which made direct provision for Hannah's two surviving children (Madeline Geary Henderson and Robert Francis Geary Henderson). While both of the son's also received property in the Will, it was to be held in Trust for their lifetime. This meant that they were well provided for, but could not squander their inheritance.

Robert and Catherine may also have fostered other children. Robert was named as a trustee on several estates and in the Mossman family in particular, managed a Trust for the benefit of the children. John Mossman was the Master of one of Robert's vessels and died in 1832. His wife died less than two years later, leaving 6 children, including a girl named Ann, aged five. The clipping above appeared in the Sydney newspapers in April 1846, when Ann was 16. It suggests that Robert was her legal guardian and that she may have been living with his family. However, Robert was too late to make any difference. Ann married  Mark Hinks on the very day that the advertisement was published. If an Ancestry tree that I found can be believed, Ann and Mark had 16 children, 10 surviving to adulthood!

  

Early Pubs of the Central Coast

From Kincumber Parish Map - click to enlarge.

It seems that the first Public Houses in the Brisbane Water District were granted licenses about 1839 and 1840.

The first was possibly the Crooked Billet established by William Spears in 1839. When the license for the inn was first granted, William Spears and two sureties had to declare that if the inn failed to meet up to the conditions of the license, they would each pay the Crown £50. For the first license, the sureties were William Spears himself, his brother George and his good friend Robert Henderson (many years later, William Spears would be named Robert Henderon's executor and Robert's will refers to him as 'my good friend William Spears'). The following year, the third surety was changed to William Ward. This may have been because Robert had moved to live in Sydney.

William Spears was licensed 'to keep a common ale house, and to sell fermented and distilled liquors, in the house whither he now dwells being the sign of ‘Crooked Billet' situated at Brisbane Water ...'. This was the same house where three years earlier, Catherine Mitchell had arrived as an assigned convict, before marrying William Ward in 1837. William Spears' grant was at current-day Pretty Beach. On the Parish map above it is shown as portions 32 and 33 in the bottom left. William Ward's grant is portion 119 in the top right.

The conditions applying to the inn included:

• to not allow any person to become drunk;
• not to supply liquor to any person in a state of intoxication;
• not to permit an intoxicated person to remain in the house or premises or to commit any disorder therein;
• not to refuse to admit a Magistrate or Constable into any part of the house at any hour;
• not to admit any Convict or serve any liquor to a Convict;
• to maintain good order in the house;
• to provide food and accommodation for travellers and guests and their servants.

A second Public house was licensed to Peter Fagan in 1840 and was under the sign of the Red Cow. The sureties for this Inn were Peter Fagan, James Malone and William Ward. I understand that this Inn was in the building that today serves as Kendall Cottage and museum.

The documents that tell us so much about these two public houses are contained in a letter book for the Brisbane Water Police District. They have led many researchers to conclude that Robert Henderson and William Ward had a financial interest in these hotels, but reading the documents carefully, they would only have had to pay money if the licence conditions were not met. While the documents do not rule out a financial interest, I don't think Robert and William would actually have had to pay any money, and could well have trusted William Spears enough to do this out of community spirit.

This is as close as I have come to connecting William Ward and Robert Henderson. They both arrived in Brisbane Water within a year or two and their homes were only 5km apart as the crow flies. They were both involved in the coastal shipping trade and these documents prove that they had friends in common. They were of a similar age, with William being the younger by three or four years. I have no doubts that the two men knew each other well, but whether they were friends, we will probably never know!

Robert died in 1869 and Willian in 1876. I suspect neither one had a suspicion that their families would join. It was less than 18 months after William Ward died that his son Manasseh married Robert Henderson's granddaughter, Madeline Keele nee Henderson. They would go on to found a very large family and many of their descendants continue to live on the Central Coast to this day.

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.