Australian and New Zealand Camdens

Australia

John Jeffreys Pratt, 2nd Earl Camden, while Secretary of State for War and the Colonies in 1804-05, was supportive of a certain John Macarthur. Born in England, near Plymouth (Devon), Macarthur was a soldier in the British Army, who in 1789 became a lieutenant in the New South Wales Corps, formed to serve the recently established convict outpost of Sydney.

In 1801 he was shipped back to England to face a court-martial, accused of wounding a fellow officer in a duel. When the ship was waylaid in Indonesia, he befriended Robert Farquhar, the local administrator for the East India Company. Farquhar was the son of Sir Walter Farquhar, physician to both the Prince of Wales and the British prime minister William Pitt the Younger, in whose government Earl Camden served. Arriving in England in 1802, Macarthur used his friendship with the doctor’s son to gain favour in elite circles in London. The charges against him were quietly dropped and he resigned from the Army, now intent on establishing large-scale wool production in Australia. Earl Camden was especially helpful to Macarthur in this respect, granting him 5,000 acres of ‘unoccupied’ land in New South Wales and facilitating his purchase of nine prized Merino rams and one ewe from the Royal Flock at Kew. In 1805 Macarthur sailed back to Australia with his sheep, where on his newly acquired land – which he named Camden Park – his sheep-breeding enterprise thrived. Macarthur, and mainly his wife Elizabeth, ran their empire from Elizabeth Farm at Parramatta.

A great self-publicist, Macarthur gained an overblown and unwarranted reputation as the pioneer of Australian wool production. Two dozen Merino sheep, brought from the Cape of Good Hope, had been landed at Sydney Cove by Henry Waterhouse back in 1797. Macarthur was nevertheless celebrated on a 1934 postage stamp and a later $2 banknote.

Camden, NEW SOUTH WALES

Contribution from Camden Historical Society, NSW . By Ian Willis.

The establishment of Camden, New South Wales, the town in 1840, was a private venture of James and William Macarthur, sons of colonial patriarch John Macarthur, at the Nepean River crossing on the northern edge of the family’s pastoral property of Camden Park. The town’s site was enclosed on three sides by a sweeping bend in the Nepean River and has regularly flooded the surrounding farmland and lower parts of the town.

The site of Camden was within the 5000 acres granted to John Macarthur by the 2nd Earl Camden, the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, in 1805, while Macarthur was in England on charges for duelling. Macarthur was a fractious, quarrelsome self-promoter who arrived in NSW with his wife Elizabeth and family in 1790 as paymaster of the New South Wales Corps. The Corps (sometimes called The Rum Corps) was formed in England in 1789 as a permanent regiment of the British Army to relieve the New South Wales Marine Corps, which had accompanied the First Fleet to Australia in 1788 to fortify the colony of NSW.

The town’s site, as part of the Macarthur grants, was located on some of the finest farming country in the colony in the government Cowpastures reserve on the colonial frontier. The grants were part of the dispossession of traditional lands of the Dharawal people by the British settler colonial project and inevitably led to conflict and violence. Macarthur claimed that the town's establishment threatened the security of his landholdings at Camden Park and opposed it during his lifetime. On his death in 1834, his sons had a different worldview and moved to establish an English-style estate village dominated by a church.

The ridge-top location of St John’s Church (1840) on the southern end of the town meant that it towered over the town centre and had a clear line of sight to the Macarthur family’s Georgian mansion at Camden Park 2.6 miles to the southwest. The fine English Gothic-style church was funded mainly by the Macarthur family and has been the basis of the town's iconic imagery. There were a number of large gentry estates built on convict labour in the surrounding farmland, the largest being the Macarthur family’s Camden Park of over 28,000 acres.

Many immigrant families came to the area under Governor Bourke's 1835 plan and settled on the gentry estates as tenant farmers, some establishing businesses in Camden. The first land sales in the village occurred in 1841, which stifled the growth of the existing European settlements in the area. The population of Camden grew from 242 in 1846 to 458 in1856, although the gentry's estates still dominated the village. Camden Park, for example, had a population of 900 in 1850.

The English-style gentry practised philanthropy in Camden to maintain its moral tone. Elizabeth Macarthur Onslow, John Macarthur’s granddaughter, encouraged the maintenance of the proprieties of life, moral order and good works, as well as memorialising her family by donating a clock and bells to St John's Church in 1897. She also marked the memory of her late husband, Captain Onslow, by providing a public park in 1882 named after her husband (Onslow Park), which is now the Camden showground.

Camden became the district's transport hub at the centre of the road network, primarily set by the pattern of land grants from the 1820s. The earliest villages in the district predated Camden and then looked to Camden for cultural and economic leadership as the district's major centre. The arrival of the Camden tramway in 1882 meant that silver ore west of the district (1871) was shipped through the Camden railhead to the Main Southern Railway from Sydney.

Combined with rail access to markets, the town's prosperity was assured by a series of technical and institutional innovations that transformed the dairy industry in the 1890s. In the 1920s the Macarthur family set up the Camden Vale Milk Company and built a milk processing plant at the eastern end of the main street adjacent to the rail line. Whole milk was railed to Sydney and bottled under its label until the mid-1920s. Milk was delivered daily to the factory by horse and cart until the 1940s from local dairy farms.

Camden’s progress saw the construction of a new bank (1878), the commencement of weekly stock sales (1883), the formation of the Camden Agricultural, Horticultural and Industrial Society and the first Camden Show (1886), a new post and telegraph office (1898), the foundation of two weekly newspapers (Camden Times, 1879, Camden News, 1880), a new cottage hospital (1898), the formation of a fire brigade (1900), the opening of a telephone exchange (1910), the installation of reticulated gas (1912), electricity (1929), town water (1899) and the replacement of gas street lighting with electric lights (1932), and a sewerage scheme (1939). By 1933 the population of the town had grown to 2394. The first attempt at local government in 1843 was unsuccessful. A meeting of local notables formed the municipality of Camden at a public meeting in 1883. Still, it was not until 1889 that the municipality was proclaimed, covering 7,000 acres and including Camden and the neighbouring village of Elderslie. Nine townsmen were elected aldermen at the first election that year, and the first meeting was held at the School of Arts. In 1993 the Camden Municipal Council eventually became the Council of Camden. Camden's 1840 street grid is still intact today, with streets named after members of the Macarthur family – John Street, Elizabeth, Edward Street – and NSW colonial notables – Oxley Street, Broughton Street, Mitchell Street. The main highway between Sydney and Melbourne (the Hume Highway) passed along the main street (Argyle Street), until it was re-routed in 1976. The town’s business centre still has several Victorian and Art Deco shopfronts.

Some charming Federation and Californian bungalows in the church ridge-top precinct were the homes of the Camden elite in the early 20th century. The precinct is the site of Macarthur Park (1905), which was dedicated to the townsfolk by Elizabeth Macarthur Onslow and contained the town's World War One cenotaph (donated by the Macarthur family).

John Street runs north-south downhill to the floodplain from the commanding position of St John's church. Lower John Street is the location of the Italianate house Macaria (c1842), St Paul's Catholic church and the government buildings associated with the Camden police barracks (1878) and courthouse (1857), and Camden Public School (1851). This area also contains the oldest surviving Georgian cottage in the town area, Bransby's Cottage (1842). Lower John Street has the Camden Temperance Hall (1867) which later served as Camden Fire Station (1916–1993), and the School of Arts (1866), which served as the Camden Town Hall, while the rear of the building was occupied for a time by Camden Municipal Council.

Community voluntary organisations have been part of Camden life from the town's foundation. In the late 1800s, they were male-dominated, usually led by the landed gentry, and held informal political power through patronage. James Macarthur sponsored the Camden School of Arts (1865) and Agricultural, Horticultural & Industrial Society (1886), later called the Camden Show Society, while the non-conformists sponsored various lodges and the temperance movement. A small clique of well-off local women established several conservative women's organisations after Federation. Their social position supported their husbands' political activities, and the influence of the Macarthur family was felt in these organisations, for example, the Camden Red Cross and Country Women's Association.

Many men and women from Camden and the district saw military service in the Boer War and later World War One and Two when residents set up local branches of national patriotic funds and civil defence organisations. On the outskirts of the town, there were active defence establishments during World War II, including an airbase, army infantry, and training camps.

Economic prosperity from coal mining in the district's western part challenged old hierarchies in the postwar years, replacing the old colonially-based rural hegemony. New community organisations like Rotary and later the Chamber of Commerce fostered business networks in the town. The Camden Historical Society (1957) promoted the town's past and later opened a local museum (1970).

The New South Wales state government decreed that the town would become part of a growth area in the form of ‘new cities’ under the Macarthur Growth Centre Plan (1973), modelled on the British Garden City concept. Increasing urbanisation threatened the town’s identity and the number of community members formed by the Camden Residents' Action Group (1973).

In 2007 Camden was the administrative centre of the Camden Local Government Area, which had a population of over 51,000 (2006) and an area of 201 km2. The Camden LGA became part of the state government's Sydney South West Growth Centre, planned to house 500,000 new residents, and is one of Australia's fastest-growing urban areas. Increasing levels of Sydney’s urbanisation have continued, threatened the loss of rural landscapes around the town, and awakened a wave of nostalgia. The NSW state government created the Camden Town Conservation Area (2008) based on the mid-20th century country town that aimed at preserving the town’s integrity and material fabric.

The Camden Woollybutt, Eucalyptus macarthurii, commonly known as the Camden woollybutt (or Paddy's river box), is a species of tree native to a small area of New South Wales. It has rough, fibrous bark on the trunk and larger branches. Sir William Macarthur, the fifth son of John Macarthur, was a vigneron and amateur botanist; he is believed to have been the first to recognise this particular woollybutt as a distinct tree.

Land near Camden was granted in 1810 to John Oxley (see below). Raising and breeding sheep there, he named the property Kirkham after his Yorkshire (England) birthplace. (1890s). John Oxley Cottage at Elderslie now houses the Camden Visitor Information Centre.

Displayed in the Camden Museum is a plaque bearing the coat of arms of the London Borough of Camden and inscribed “Florence Cayford, Mayor of Camden”. Dame Florence Cayford, a train driver’s daughter and a redoubtable councillor dubbed “the uncrowned queen of Kilburn”, was elected Mayor in 1968. How the plaque reached New South Wales is a mystery.

Camden Haven, NEW SOUTH WALES

District in the Mid North Coast region; population 17,835. Camden Haven lies 365 km (228 mi) north of Sydney and 42 km (26 mi) south of Port Macquarie, where the Camden Haven River empties into the Pacific Ocean. The district consists of fertile, well-watered valleys punctuated by several large mountains, notably the Three Brothers – so named by Captain James Cook when he sailed by in 1770. The region’s economy is based on tourism, fisheries, forestry and oyster farming. The largest town, Laurieton (named after timber-mill owner Joseph Laurie), was long known alternatively as Camden Haven.

Long before European settlement the area was home to the Birpai people. In 1818, John Oxley, Surveyor General of New South Wales, leading an expedition party returning to Sydney after four months in the outback, found their way blocked by a wide estuary. After an exploration of the area, a canoe was built to convey the 13 men and their luggage and horses across the water. Oxley’s journal entry for 15 October 1818 described “the haven, which we named after Lord Camden” – i.e. John Jeffreys Pratt, 1st Marquess Camden, who was Teller of the Exchequer at the time. Oxley also named the two lakes on the estuary as Queens Lake and Watson Taylors Lake, the latter after George Watson Taylor, who had been Lord Camden’s Private Secretary when Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Main source Wikipedia and the website of the Camden Haven Historical Society.

Camden Sound, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

A bay in the Kimberley region, with no road access and the nearest town, Kalumburu (of 412 souls), lying 268 km (167 mi) to the east. Aboriginal peoples lived and fished in the area for a long time before the colonisation of Western Australia. Today, native title claims have been registered in the area of the marine park by the Dambimangari, Uunguru and Mayala native title groups.

Camden Sound was ‘discovered’ by naval officer and hydrographer Phillip Parker King on HMS Bathurst on 15 August 1821, while surveying Australia’s west coast. He named the sound Camden Bay after John Jeffreys Pratt, 1st Marquess Camden. To the east of Camden Sound lies a body water called Brecknock Harbour (and also known as Camden Harbour), which took its name from Pratt’s subsidiary title. Earl of Brecknock (in Wales). Camden Harbour was also the name of a short-lived attempted settlement in 1864-65.

Captain King had reputedly been introduced to surveying by Matthew Flinders, and in 1817 been commissioned by the British government to survey the parts of the coastline that Flinders had not surveyed. Flinders, incidentally, was eventually buried in what is now Camden, London (England), though recently exhumed to make way for the new high-speed railway HS2; there is a charming statue of him and his cat outside Euston Station. A son of Philip Gidley King, Governor of New South Wales (and an adversary of John Macarthur [above]), Philip Parker King acquired over 4,000 acres of land there, and served on the Australian Advisory Committee with Macarthur.

Nowadays, as part of the Lalang-garram/Camden Sound Marine Park, the bay is an important area for a number of marine animals, and a critical calving and nursery site for the world’s largest population of humpback whales, totalling up to 30,000 individuals.

Other Australian locations are

Camden Park, ADELAIDE

in the City of West Torrens, a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia

Camden, QUEENSLAND

A homestead near Meandu Creek.

New Zealand

Camden and Mount Camden, SOUTH ISLAND

Documents and image are from Marlborough Historical Society & Museum

Camden is a sheep station lying thirty miles up the Awatare Valley (famed for its wine) in the high country of Marlborough, in the northeast of South Island. Crown land, it was licensed to in 1850 to Henry Godfrey, who named it the Hodder Run after a river on that borders it. In 1862, ownership passed to Philip McRae, one of a family hailing from Scotland, who had emigrated in 1842 and owned several sheep runs in Marlborough. McRae renamed the station ‘Camden’. It is still a working farm of 7,674 hectares / 18,963 acres, running Merino sheep and Angus cattle and has its own airstrip. Its campsite and chalet tourist accommodation are named Camden Cookshop.

The pastures of the Camden Run extend onto the slopes of several neighbouring mountains, including Mount Camden which, at 1379 m / 4,525 ft, must be the world’s highest Camden. Evidence of how it came to be named is lacking. Two of the watercourses flowing through the Camden Run, or bordering it, are the Isis Stream and the Cam River, with names suggestive of the rivers traversing the English university towns of Oxford and Cambridge. Philip McRae’s father George, a pioneer settler, had named several Awatare Valley rivers including the Jordan and Medway. Were the Isis and Cam part of the same eclectic mix? Was ‘Camden’ simply a more euphonious and aristocratic extension of ‘Cam’? Or was the mountain indeed named after John Jeffreys Pratt, Marquess Camden, as a possibly posthumous tribute to his support for antipodean sheep farming?

The Awatare Valley farm road leads eventually to the spectacular Molesworth Station, 120 km from Blenheim. Another Crown property, covering 185,000 hectares(almost ½ million acres), this supports the country’s largest herd of cattle, while contributing to rabbit population control and government research into bovine TB and possums.

Originally called Barefell Pass, the land was discovered by the pioneer of NZ pastoral farming, Frederick Weld. The names Molesworth Moor and Molesworth Creek, first appearing on a map of 1852, were probably assigned by Weld, a friend of Francis Alexander Molesworth, younger brother of Sir William Molesworth, said to have been a director or supporter of the New Zealand Company. The brothers were coincidentally great-nephews of Frances Molesworth, the wife of Marquess Camden.

Ships, heraldry and three men called Camden

Camdens in Britain and Ireland

Camdens in the US and Canada

Camdens in the Global South