Joy Braybrook, author and public speaker, provided us with interesting details about John & Eliza Batman and also Charles Swanston.
Eliza Batman nee Callaghan was born in County Clare, Ireland in 1802. Upon leaving school she started work as a servant, and then at the age of 17 moved to London.
In London she was found guilty of passing forged £1 notes and sentenced to death. This sentence was commuted to transportation for 14 years and she arrived in Hobart on the “Providence” on 18 December 1821. She was assigned to John Petchy who reported her for being drunk and disorderly. She absconded several times and eventually found her way to Ben Lomond in north-east Tasmania where she met John Batman.
Batman ran his large home and property ‘Kingston’ with the help of 60 servants, many of whom were convicts. Eliza hid in his cellar for a time and then took on a new identity as Eliza Thompson.
By 1828 she and John had three daughters and with permission from Governor George Arthur, they were married, at St John’s Church of England in Launceston, V.D.L.
John Batman was born in Parramatta, Sydney, New South Wales on 21 January 1801 to William and Mary Bat(e)man. When William was found guilty of receiving stolen goods in 1797 and sentenced to transportation, Mary paid for her own voyage to Australia with their two children.
William worked hard, changed their surname to Batman, and lived comfortably. John was educated and attended church. At the end of 1821 he and his brother Henry moved to Van Diemen’s Land possibly because John was escaping a relationship in which he had fathered a child.
In Tasmania in the late 1820s the aborigines were retaliating against their loss of hunting grounds. At ‘Kingston’ John got on well with the local aborigines but he was involved in the ‘Black Line’ of 1830. There was a bounty of £5 for each aborigine rounded up. One night whilst out hunting for aborigines, Batman ordered his men to fire on some who were fleeing. About 15 were wounded. The following morning, those who were critically wounded were killed, there being legal immunity for doing so.
Governor Arthur’s instructions from the British Government were to not harm the aborigines and after hearing about schemes for a settlement in Port Phillip he suggested a treaty.
Batman liked the idea as did surveyor John Wedge, and banker Charles Swanston. Attorney, John Tice Gellibrand had a passion for native rights as his parents were involved with the abolition of slavery, and after the ‘Abolition of Slavery Act’ was passed in 1833, a treaty seemed appropriate.
Batman’s party arrived in Port Phillip and the signing of the treaty occurred on the 6th June 1835. Governor Richard Bourke in Sydney declared it null and void on the 26th June and on the 10th October 1835 he sent a proclamation to the Colonial Office in London declaring that the aborigines did not own the land – (terra nullius – belongs to no-one) and thus no treaty could be made.
Charles Swanston was perhaps the most influential member of the Port Phillip Association as he had money. Born in Northumberland, England in 1789 to Robert Swanston and Rebecca Lambert he joined the East India Company as a cadet in 1805. In 1818 he was injured in the Battle of Corygaum and a year later was made Captain.
In 1821 he married Georgina Sherson in Madras, India. They decided to make Hobart, V.D.L. their home and arrived on the “Success” on 3 June 1829.
Swanston became manager of the Derwent Bank in 1832 and joined the Legislative Council. He invested huge amounts of money, including other people’s money, into the venture, shipping sheep to Port Phillip and buying up property. He spent millions lobbying in England to have the treaty accepted.
In the 1840’s depression, shareholders of the Derwent Bank wanted their money. They received only a fraction of their investment and Swanston was held responsible. In 1848 he left the Tasmanian Parliament and in 1849 he quit the Derwent Bank.
On 6th September 1850, returning from a trip to California, United States of America, he died at sea. His family believed he committed suicide.
By 1837 John Batman was incapacitated and disfigured by a severe form of syphilis. His aboriginal friends manufactured a cane perambulator to move him around and when he deteriorated further his children were removed to live with their governess Nichola Cooke in the school which Batman had set up on the north-west corner of Swanston and Flinders Streets.
Eliza left him to have an affair with Batman’s manager, William Willoughby, so John changed his will leaving her only £5. He died virtually bankrupt on the 6th May 1839. Eliza was in England at the time but returned to find the government had confiscated their home on Batman’s Hill. She wrote to Queen Victoria pleading for compensation for all her husband had achieved in Melbourne, but to no avail.
In 1841 Eliza married Willoughby and was officially freed from being a convict in 1842. However, with the loss of her former financial security and the death of her only son in 1845, she left Willoughby and her life spiralled downwards into alcoholism and prostitution. She was murdered in Geelong on 13th April 1852.
Melbourne has flourished despite these sad events. Joy believes the true facts of these white pioneers, and the Aboriginals whose lives were forever changed, should be recognised.
The above is a report on the address by Joy Braybrook at the General Meeting on 8 November 2018
Contributed by Jan Hanslow. PPPG Member No. 1057