Bringing this one back up in order to relate a story about how “fake news” is nothing new.
I’ve now downloaded and/or viewed over 200 documents relating to the life of Ben Singleton, and it has been interesting to see how he was painted in earlier times compared with impressions formed today when digesting those early documents. To keep this to a reasonable length, just three examples:
In 1887 Ben Singleton’ s oldest daughter wrote a piece for the Maitland Mercury partly defending Ben against some contemporary attacks on his character. One related to his first journey of discovery in a party led by a Mister Parr: “I have no recollection of ever hearing of the Government sending out ‘Parr’ mentioned by Mr McAlpin” writes Elizabeth Yeomans (nee Singleton). “At any rate I am sure that my father never went with him - “
“Fake news”, I’m afraid. These days you can download a copy of Parr’s handwritten journal.
In a 1935 newspaper article to commemorate the centenary of the town of Singleton, Ben was remembered as being the proprietor of three large estates: at “Pine Ridge”, at “McIntyre” and at “Liverpool Plains”. And these were in addition to the land he subdivided and turned into the town. The author of the article wonders how, with so many valuable assets, Ben was bankrupted in 1842.
Well, it’s more “fake news”. He didn’t have three large estates. Documents reveal he held depasturing licences - that is, the right to graze stock on government owned land for £10 a year - on two properties (“Pine Ridge” and “McIntyre”) both in the Liverpool Plains. This didn’t stop him saying, in newspaper advertisements, e.g. “my estate at Pine Ridge”.
Even an otherwise well-written and well-researched article in the Australian Dictionary of Biography seems to gloss over or be unaware of the start of Ben’s financial failings. The Dictionary certainly is much more reliable than the newspaper article, noting his unsuccessful venture into a horse-drawn riverboat enterprise in 1831. And also suggesting that his selling off of blocks of land in “Singletown” in the later 1830s was an indication that he was by then under considerable financial stress.
But documents now available reveal that Ben was already getting into financial troubles a full two decades before this! Here is a notice in the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser for Saturday 18 June 1814, page 2, under the heading, Sales by Auction:
“Ex Parte Henry Colden Antill, and Thomas Moore, Esquires, Executors of the Last Will and Testament of Andrew Thompson Esq. deceased, in the matter of Benjamin Singleton:-
By Virtue of an Order of the Court of Civil Jurisdiction made in the above matter,
At Windsor, on Friday the 24th at Nine precisely,
The Provost Marshal will cause to be put up for sale by Public Auction a certain Allotment of Ground, containing 112 Perches together with the Houses and Buildings thereon erected, situate in the Township of Windsor (unless the Debt, Costs and all included Expenses are previously liquidated).”Different commentators have offered a variety of reasons for his ultimate financial failure - floods, economic downturns, his absence overseas in 1840. But records show a consistent pattern over many years: he just didn’t pay his debts. As soon as he was granted land (I can’t see that he ever bought any) it was mortgaged - usually to provide cover for existing debts.
My impression of Ben Singleton is of an enthusiastic, energetic, enterprising, adventurous, generous and mostly well-liked man. He was a discoverer, a builder, a mill owner, an inn owner, a farmer, a grazier, a developer. He donated land for the building of a church, and he cleared a path through bushland to make it easier for children to walk to school.
But his generosity and kindliness was more often than not funded from someone else’s money!
Oh, and the Surrender document the original subject of this thread? Fairly insignificant now in the light of what I’ve now found out about Ben Singleton’s life, because it appears to have been simply a technical issue to facilitate the selling off of the subdivided land in Singleton.
Now to get on with documenting the documents.
Peter
