In 18th century England there was little acceptance that social factors and wealth inequality were drivers of criminality and the prevailing belief was that crimes were committed by a “criminal class”, and their removal could make a permanent reduction to crime in England.
England went to great expense to uphold this belief, and after a revolution ended the deportation of English convicts to North America, a fleet of about 800 convicts was dispatched to the new colony of New South Wales (AKA Australia and New Zealand).
Australia Day is celebrated on the day in which these first convicts and their minders disembarked in 1788 at Sydney Cove. The first two men ashore that day were the Scottish marine, George Johnston and the English convict, James Ruse. They came ashore at the same time as George was carried on the back of James. We have some paintings of George (as below) but none of James.
These first two men ashore were to have a big impact. The colony had very little coinage in circulation and the real currency became rum. George being a military man would have been involved in the rum trade. The problems started when Governor William Bligh (the same infamous Bligh from the mutiny on the Bounty) arrived in Sydney and put restrictions on trading spirits. This directly affected George, John Macarthur (NSWs most wealthy man), and other officers in the NSW Corps. Bligh was known as a hard man, and tensions grew until Bligh ordered the arrest of Macarthur.
The court constituted six military officers, who were sympathetic to Macarthur, and they released him on bail. Bligh denounced his release as treason, and Macarthur then drafted a petition calling for Bligh’s arrest. George led the troops to the governor’s house and arrested Bligh, and this was on the 26th of January 1808, exactly 20 years after he set foot in Sydney cove. The Rum Rebellion is the first and only military coup in our history.
Macarthur and George were now in charge and ran the colony for nearly two years until the NSW Corps were recalled to England in January 1810 and replaced by Governor Macquarie and his regiment. Back in England, George was court marshalled (a very lenient sentence) and was able to travel back to Australia as a private citizen and established a farm, which he called Annandale. He married a Jewish convict and had 7 children.
Now to James, who carried George ashore in 1788. Prior to arriving in Australia, James Ruse was sentenced to death for stealing two silver watches and some other goods. There were over 200 crimes, mainly property crimes, that warranted the death penalty in England at that time. James was fortunate to have his sentence reduced to 7 years imprisonment and deportation.
James was a farmer from Cornwell, and one of the only people with any farming skills in the first fleet. The colony in Sydney was in danger of starvation, and Governor Phillip gave him one cleared acre, a shed and some bush land at Rose Hill (Parramatta). He had no animal manure, so he burned the timber on his clearing and dug in the ashes which were rich in potash. Without horse or plough he hoed the ground thoroughly; “not like the government farms, just scratched over, but properly done”. He turned the ground over to compost the grass and weeds, then turned the soil again before sowing. By February 1791 his wheat and maize was up resulting in a grant of 30 acres being recorded in March 1791, the first land grant made in Australia.
James did go bankrupt some years later after his farm was flooded on the Hawkesbury, it appears he then abandoned his wife and children and disappeared to sea. His wife managed the farm and paid off the debt, they were to reconcile later, and he died at the age of 78.
Today in Sydney we have a few things named after these two men, the main street in the inner west Sydney suburb of Annandale is named after George, and the well-known selective school in Carlingford is named after James.
But more interesting are their stories, George, the free man that led our only military coup, who was treated with leniency and returned to Australia to prosper.
The less documented story of James Ruse shows the fallacy of the criminal class. Rather than conform to the thinking of 18th century English society, he did what most Australian convicts did, took his opportunities and became an industrious and law-abiding citizen. Not only that but his farming skills were a key factor in saving the fledgling colony of New South Wales.
James headstone reads:
MY MOTHER REREAD ME TENDERELY WITH ME SHE TOCK MUCH PAINES AND WHEN I ARIVED IN THIS COELNEY I SOWD THE FORST GRAIN AND NOW WITH MY HEVENLY FATHER I HOPE FOR EVER TO REMAIN