Contents

No.	Title	Page
11	Was G.W. Evans another casualty of the ‘bunyip aristocracy’? How and why ‘Evan’s Dale’ (Evandale) was named in a confusing way in honor of one of Colonial Australia’s most significant if forgotten surveyor explorers	337
12	Evandale as an ‘historic Georgian village’? The Kennedy Murrays (and Norfolk Plains family and friends) as also pioneers of ‘Vandemonian architectural styles’ in early colonial buildings of Australia	375
13	‘Long way home’ taken by Kennedy Murray Sr c1831: From Dundonald to Glasgow, Scotland and later Norfolk Island then Windsor NSW (‘the Hawkesbury’) before his ‘return’ to Prosperous House	409
14	Evandale as ‘home’ for not just celebrated ‘local son’ Harry Murray VC but all the Kennedy Murrays (one of modern Australia’s larger family trees)	427
15	The astonishing further story of the recent discovery that KM Sr’s ‘Ayrshire Murrays’ ancestral tree is one of post-1603 ‘hidden MacGregors’ (i.e. the Glenlyon lineage of the Scottish Highlands’ ‘royal is my blood’ clan tradition)	444
	Final note (re ‘corrections’ and ‘further information’)	467

 

1. Introduction: How the unveiling of the Harry Murray VC statue in 2006 opened the door to remember the largely forgotten role of the Kennedy Murrays in the early history of Evandale

1.1 The link between the Harry Murray VC statue unveiling in 2006 and a related family memorial that week to ‘the Kennedy Murrays’

1.2 The focus on the Kennedy Murrays in Karl Von Stieglitz’s ‘Evandale histories’ ?

1.3 Related gaps in the contemporary record?

1.4 The 2022 ‘Kennedy Murrays Descendants Gathering’ in Tasmania

1.5 Organisation of this book Part 1. How the Kennedy Murrays family history can help fill in ‘the gaps’ in early Evandale (and Australian) local history

1.6 Organisation of this book Part 2. Further reflections

2. Background: From Norfolk Island to Norfolk Plains in ‘Tasmania’ (1813)

2.1 Introduction: Norfolk Plains the first ‘future Australian food basket’?

2.2 Kennedy Murray’s 1799 birth and early childhood on Norfolk Island

2.3 Did Kennedy Murray Sr desert his first ‘wife’ Ann White in March 1802 or did he arrive in NSW in 1804 on the Brig Harrington seeking a mainland grant for his family?

2.4 The 1813 move to Tasmania’s Norfolk Plains from Norfolk Island

2.5 Kennedy Murray’s activities at Port Dalrymple and Norfolk Plains leading up to (and after) his first successful land grant application made in 1818

2.6 The Piper brothers and the pivotal role of Collins’ brother-in-law’ David Gibson (and half-sister Elizabeth Nicholls) in the developing ‘Norfolk Plains overflow’

2.7 The related story of John Youl – the first Anglican Church permanent appointment to Port Dalrymple (who performed the marriage of Kennedy Murray and wife Sarah – and baptised their eldest children).

2.8 David Gibson – one of Kennedy Murray’s first local neighbours as well as an early mentor with extended family links

3. How and why Kennedy Murray ended up ‘building a village’ (Prosperous) on the very farming land he obtained through initial 1820s farming grants

3.1 Introduction: The close relationship of Kennedy Murray and George Collins

3.2 29 May 1821 – the day Governor Lachlan Macquarie apparently founded plans for a future ‘Evans’ Dale’ district (and a related town in this)

3.3 The several distinct stages in which the town of Evandale emerged (mainly) from an initial ‘Murray village’

3.4 The links between Murray’s early land grants and the sites of both his Prosperous House built and the ‘early Murray Street’ axis of emerging Evandale

3.5 Kennedy Murray’s 1831 land grant application

3.6 George Collins’ first land grant and two adjacent acquisitions

3.7 The 200 acre ‘Collins Hill’ farm adjacent to Prosperous Farm that was originally an 1820 grant to Joseph Childs?

3.8 And what about Collin’s 60-acre first land grant at South Esk: Where was it exactly and what happened to it?

3.9 The adjoining hamlets as well as farms of Murray and his brother-in-law George Collins – an initial basis for the emerging ‘Prosperous villages’

3.10 Different interpretations of ‘community-building’? Murray’s c1830 school Vs. Collins’ 1829 ‘public house’

3.11 ‘Morven’ in the 1842 Census – still one of the biggest towns in VDL at that time, so why was there no (needed) town survey plan or (required) town allotment plan?

3.12 The significance of the 1842 Census re: the historic origins of Evandale?

3.13 Early ‘town planning policy’ practiced by the Van Diemen’s Land government

3.14 The wider implications of the Bryan vs. Lyttleton ‘battle of Westbury’

3.15 The refusal of the first known Evandale ‘non-farm’ land allotment application

3.16 The connection between the ‘shoemaker’ William Sidebottom’s business activities and the Kettle farmland just outside the future town of Evandale

4. Kennedy Murray’s 1830s promotion to District Constable and the formation of an Evandale Anglican Parish as well as Morven Police District

4.1 Introduction: Kennedy Murray’s changing relationship with James Cox?

4.2 Connections between Murray’s promotion to Chief District Constable and the Arthur government’s plans for a new Cornwall County Parish

4.3 The mid-June 1834 first survey map of a planned secondment of Murray farmland for an Anglican Parish glebe

4.4 The key roles of Port Dalrymple Magistrates James Cox and Thomas Archer on Governor Arthur’s initial VDL Legislative Councils.

4.5 What did the position of a southern Port Dalrymple Poundkeeper entail and why did it also really require Murray become a ‘police constable’

4.6 Murray’s further appointment as a ‘Division Constable’ in what was about to become the Morven Police District

4.7 The 1830s and 1840s ‘roaming emancipist’ problem in the Morven district

4.8 Becoming part of Arthur’s new centralised policing regime in 1830s VDL

4.9 The role of Launceston Police Magistrate William Lyttleton (Hortle’s brother-in-law) in Murray’s series of police constable appointments

4.10 Promotion to Chief District Constable in 1834 as part of related ‘deals’ to create the new Evandale Parish

4.11 Murray’s Chief District Constable role as a supervisor as well as monitor of emancipists, convicts, and also ‘convict policemen’

4.12 Why the first published mentions of an Evandale Parish are at the same time as the June 1834 ‘promotion application’ by Kennedy Murray

4.13 The 1837 opening of the inaugural Evandale Anglican Chapel

4.14 The related plans to make the Cornwall County a pivot of the new 1836 Colony-wide system or network of existing Anglican Parishes

4.15 Caught up in Hobart politics? The protracted delays and ‘obstructions’ evident in Kennedy Murray’s correspondence with VDL Surveyor General George Franklin and Colonial Secretary John Montagu

4.1.1 Disconnection #1: Ongoing confusions about whether the ‘deal’ to second Murray lands in the emerging ‘Evandale’ was mainly for an Anglican Parish

4.1.2 Disconnection #2: An additional secondment of land for ‘a new jail’ as well as Anglican glebe in a new location shown on the revised 1835 ‘secondment map’

4.1.3 Disconnection #3: Extensive delays and then a paltry ‘34 acre compensation’ five years after Arthur’s assurance of a ‘generous and timely resolution’

4.16 How the ’34 acres compensation figure’ compensation was eventually decided years after Frankland ‘refused’ to follow up (and Montagu failed to assist)

4.17 Kennedy Murray’s growing disillusionment with the ‘Arthurite clique’?

4.18 Postscript: Kennedy Murray’s ‘deals’ with Arthur’s VDL government re-visited

5. The late 1830s ‘annus horribilis’ of Kennedy Murray: How Governor Arthur’s ‘Evandale deals, plans, and shams’ were also linked to the town’s (and Australia’s) ‘magnificent Evandale-Launceston Water Scheme’

5.1 The ‘gazetting’ of Murray’s private road: The Water Scheme and the accelerated growth of the Murray emancipist village along ‘White Hills Road’

5.2 The forgotten ‘magnificence’ of the Evandale-Launceston Water Scheme

5.3 ‘Arthurite’ Colonial Secretary Montagu again pivotally involved in the ‘failure then erasure’ of the ELWS from memory and generally from the records also

5.4 The ‘lost records’ of the emerging Murray emancipist village in the mid 1830s (and those of the linked Evandale-Launceston Water Supply Scheme)

5.5 Why was Murray so upset in his 1838 letter to Surveyor General Frankland?

5.6 How the Barclay estate came to ‘accidentally acquire’ Murray farmlands in 1839

5.7 The c1820 ‘mud map’ inaccurately imposed on Murray farmland grants by the 1837 ‘re-surveys’ also contradicted by the 8 Nov 1838 ‘sketch’

5.8 James Scott’s 1839 admissions about earlier district survey map ‘discrepancies’ and ‘unreliable methods’ open to abuse

5.9 How ‘inappropriate conflicts of interest’ were also a basis for James Scott to achieve great wealth and a career in politics as a mere Tasmanian Survey Office ‘contractor’

5.10 Where did the inaccurate ‘zig zag’ that was mistakenly imposed on the Murray Prosperous grants (and also the Evandale district) come from?

5.11 James Scott’s additional Survey Map error in the ‘‘Williatt 37 ½ acres’ (originally 30 acres) on the South-Western corner of Kennedy Murray’s Prosperous farm

5.12 ‘Robert Russell’s 8 acre grant’: The scandalous, secretive and second ‘government secondment’ of Murray-Collins land 1843 in central Evandale without compensation

5.13 The clumsy attempt to create a planned new Evandale commercial area ‘on top of’ lands already owned by others in an existing commercial area of a town the government refused to recognize

5.14 The ‘what, how and why’ of the ‘sham Evandale village’ plans (including the related sham plan for the ‘Kennedy Murray 34 acres compensation grant’ in this)

6. Kennedy Murrays as Anglican vs. Scottish Presbyterian? The ‘Murray school’, the Evandale Subscription Library, and ‘the town they forgot to gazette’ in the 1840s

6.1 Why did the foundation Anglican Warden Murray end up paying for a family crypt in both the local ‘Church of Scotland’ and Anglican cemeteries?

6.2 Historical background: The 1837 VDL Church Act and the Scottish Presbyterian challenge to the Anglican Church in the ‘Evandale Parish’

6.3 Kennedy Murray marries again (but in the new Church of Scotland) just months after burying his first wife in the Murray family ‘Anglican crypt’

6.4 Some related push factors behind Murray’s decision to relinquish his Anglican Warden position

6.5 The central ‘pull’ factor for the Kennedy Murrays – why ‘Scottish values’ seem to have increasingly resonated with him compared to English ones?

6.6 The Rev. Robert Russell and the Evandale St. Andrew’s Church of Scotland

6.7 The Murray-Martin-Russell ‘partnership’ in Evandale community-building from the early 1840s to the late 1850s?

6.8 How support for the idea of an Evandale Subscription Library was not just limited to ‘the local Presbyterians’ but was also embraced by the Anglicans etc.

6.9 The active roles of Martin and Murray in the Evandale Benevolent Society

6.10 John Saffery Martin’s decade-long role as the first librarian for the Evandale Subscription Library

6.11 Adkins’ doctoral thesis ‘the early years of the Evandale Subscription Library’

6.12 Some key errors and omissions in Adkin’s otherwise effective 2010 book

6.13 The ‘hasty, confused and demonstrably inaccurate middle pages’ of his book that pertain to Atkin’s central argument about a ‘Russell plan’

6.14 The c1830 Murray Anjou Villa school – another ‘lost story’ of how this was one of the first community schools in VDL outside Launceston and Hobart

7. The further related responsibilities of Chief District Constable Murray 1834-1853: From the threat of bushrangers to later challenges of ‘pubs and politics’

7.1 Kennedy Murray’s other professional responsibilities

7.2 Kennedy Murray’s main responsibility? Why the need for so many extra police constables at Morven District’s ‘Murray emancipist village’ by 1837?

7.3 Bushrangers in the Tasmanian midlands up until the late 1840s

7.4 The ‘bushranger bounty-hunting’ activities in the late 1820s of five ‘locals’ who were the core group of the Port Philip Association which ‘founded’ Melbourne

7.5 A focus on John Batman’s role in the VDL ‘Black Wars’?

7.6 Constable Kennedy Murray’s later recorded encounters with bushrangers

7.7 The appointment of Robert Wales as police magistrate to ‘assist’ Murray

7.8 The changing responsibilities (and allegiances?) of Robert Wales?

7.9 Wales’s controversial role in the Morven magistrates’ ‘annual licensing’ meetings

7.10 Dealings by Wales with ‘other’ Evandale public houses

7.11 The Morven magistracy’s obstructions also against Morrison’s The Royal Oak

7.12 How and why the police magistrate Robert Wales (directed to by James Cox?) called for the retrospective gazetting of the town as ‘Evandale’ in 1848

7.13 How ‘Evandale’ effectively got missed twice with the gazetting of roads in the Northern VDL settlements.

7.14 Alterations needed for some Evandale-related national trust listings and a tourism-related digital repository planned for the village ‘heritage walk’?

7.15 Evandale’s ‘pubs and politics’ after the 1853 retirement of Kennedy Murray

7.16 Related Evandale community ‘fault lines’ for the Cox Vs. Sinclair battle to be the first Member for Morven in the new VDL/Tasmanian Legislative Council?

7.17 The bizarre case of Sinclair becoming the second elected Member for Morven after Cox’s 1854 resignation – before departing the Colony for good in 1855

8. Retirement of an early native-born Australian gentleman, local community leader, and significant Tasmanian pioneer: The 1850s ‘heyday’ of KM Jr

8.1 Introduction: The 1853 retirement dinner of Kennedy Murray Jr

8.2 Murray’s 1853 ‘gold watch’ – the testimonial by leading Evandale citizens

8.3 How local Irish Catholic emancipists also found refuge under Murray

8.4 A notable Irish Catholic in 1840s Evandale – John ‘Red’ Kelly (Ned’s father)

8.5 Evandale ‘Irish Catholics’ and the Irish convict contingent in VDL pre-1852

8.6 The 1852 Kennedy Murray ‘sabbatical’ – The initial trip to Melbourne and Geelong (and the ‘Victorian goldfields’)

8.7 The Sodens move to California in 1850-1852 prior to the visit by Murray

8.8 Murray’s related overseas trip in 1852 to visit the Sodens

8.9 The death of Kennedy Murray Sr at Prosperous House in 1853

8.10 ‘One of the patriarchs of Tasmania’ turns his focus to family – the drafting of Murray’s ‘last Will and Testament’

8.11 The 1853 Kennedy Murray Will (largely retained in the final 1859 version)

8.12 Who was Kennedy Murray’s ‘son’ William Ussher Goodall Murray?

8.13 The ‘extended Murray family’ households in and near Prosperous House in the early 1850s (and the role of the ‘Murray women’ in these)?

8.14 The surviving Kenndy Murray family portrait (by John Glover?)

8.15 The mid-1850s ‘final effort’ by KM son-in-law David Rogers to rescue the ‘sham 1843 Evandale village plans’

9. The ‘temporary downturn’ in post-1850s Tasmania? The ‘Kennedy Murray legacy’ before and after the 1860s sale of Prosperous House

9.1 Introduction: The sale of Prosperous House following the 1860 passing of KM

9.2 The link between the fate of the Kennedy Murray estate and the ‘temporary downturn’ in post-1850s Evandale and Tasmania?

9.3 How after 1857 Kenndy Murray needed to assist several extended Murray family members with their emerging debt problems with the onset of a new local ‘depression’

9.4 One outcome of the loss of the Prosperous House (and Murray family estate) – William Kennedy Murray’s ‘secret second family’ in Victoria?

9.5 Money, debts, insolvency and mortgages in VDL and early Australia

9.6 The mortgage debt problems of Annie Murray Martin following her husband’s tragic drowning in 1858 (and what happened next)

9.7 Why we think that David Murray likely agreed to several related ‘mortgage’ deals with Kennedy Murray – and also Hannah Goodall Murray

9.8 David Murray’s ‘maneuvers’ to separate Hannah Goodall Murray’s ‘part-ownership’ to his own mortgagee disposal of the Blanchfield farm

9.9 Kennedy Murray’s last Lot sales from his two Prosperous farmland grants – and two ‘mysterious’ (or unexplained) mortgages months before his death

9.10 Kennedy Murray as ‘mortgage creditor’ to others for the very mortgage debts that resulted in his own posthumous insolvency?

9.11 How did KM come to be persuaded by Russell to act as a mortgage creditor to others?

9.12 What did the Executors of KM’s Will do or not do that should have been done?

9.13 The apparent agreements of key debtors as well as creditors of the KM Jr estate with ‘main Executor’ Robert Russell before his departure to Scotland late February 1861

9.14 What responsibility did Russell (and some Murray debtors as well as creditors close to Russell and the Ralstons) have for the fate of the Kennedy Murray estate?

9.15 Actions by David Murray to sell Blanchfield and James Scott the ‘second’ Prosperous farmlands – before the announcement in mid-August 1861 that the family estate had been declared insolvent by the Executors of Murray’s Will

9.16 The ‘insolvency’ acquisition by G.T. Matthews of the main Prosperous House and the remaining part of the first Murray farmland grant in and around Evandale

9.17 The related dilemmas of Evandale’s first ‘Rector’ (Mayor) John Ralston?

9.18 The true story of how Thomas Fall came to acquire Prosperous House – re-naming this Fallgrove House after his daughters took up residence by 1880

10. Postscript to the loss of Prosperous House: A new beginning for Hannah Goodall Murray and her ‘second family’ of Kennedy Murrays

10.1 Introduction: Kennedy Murray’s most significant legacy?

10.2 Kennedy Murray’s ‘Anzac grandsons’ at the WW1 Battle of Mouquet Farm

10.3 Kennedy Murray’s most significant legacy? His personal as well as family and community vision of future Australian ‘prosperity’

11. Was G.W. Evans a casualty of the ‘bunyip aristocracy’? How and why ‘Evan’s Dale’ (Evandale) was named in such a confusing way in honor of one of Colonial Australia’s most significant if forgotten surveyor explorers

11.1 Introduction: Why was Evandale named in honor of G.W. Evans?

11.2 Background: How the story of G.W. Evans might also be recognized as part of a battle between post-colonial ‘visions of a future Australia’ and the intransigence of ‘the bunyip aristocracy’ in the national history

11.3 An ‘Arthurite chapter’ of the bunyip aristocracy? How the 1835 dispute with Surveyor General Frankland contributed to the recall of Governor Arthur

11.4 The ‘Evans case’ in light of the dispute with new Surveyor General Frankland that contributed to the recall of Governor Arthur in 1835

11.5 How Arthur left Van Dieman’s Land in 1836 a very rich man – thanks to the gross hypocrisy and dishonesty of his nephew-in-law John Montagu as well as himself?

11.6 G.W. Evans’ earlier and later surveying experiences at Port Dalrymple, Norfolk Plains and the future Evandale

11.7 Revisiting Arthur’s ‘claims’ against Evans (and his assistant Thomas Scott) as part of a strategy to retrospectively ‘discredit’ Macquarie and Sorell?

11.8 Evandale connection of Wedge as a key ‘witness’ for Arthur against Evans

11.9 The early 1820s survey map produced for David Gibson and apparently accessed by Evan’s new VDL Survey Office assistant Wedge?

11.10 Evidence of Evan’s future plans to settle down with his family in ‘Evandale’?

11.11 Arthur’s related claims of corruption against Evan’s assistant Thomas Scott?

11.12 G.W. Evans and the Glovers: VDL as a ‘paradise for pastoralist painters’?

11.13 Epilogue of a cultured ‘nature’s gentleman’ (never a mere ‘bunyip aristocrat’)

12. Evandale as a ‘historic Georgian village’? Links between the Kennedy Murray (and other local) buildings and the influential ‘Vandemonian architectural styles’ of early colonial Australia

12.1 Introduction: Evandale a ‘historic Georgian village’?

12.2 What is a typical ‘Georgian style’ of cottage, residential house or other type of building in an early Australian colonial context

12.3 How Kennedy Murray went being from an exemplar in the 1820s to an innovator in the late 1830s of the Evandale Georgian cottage

12.4 Was Murray’s main contribution to the emerging ‘Evandale Georgian village’ in setting a distinctive tone as well as quality standard?

12.5 The 2nd post-1837 cluster of stone and brick Georgian cottages built for Murray

12.6 Who did Murray get to help build ‘quality buildings’ c1820-1850?

12.7 Was John Glover’s Patterdale garden the inspiration for the ‘parterred’ cottage garden model in Murray’s Prosperous House and Williatt’s The Laurels?

12.8 The ‘English Georgian House’ style at Evandale?

12.9 Is the 1836 Prosperous (now Fallgrove) House a ‘Georgian building’? And what of the other exemplary late 1830s ‘Evandale mansions’ that followed?

12.10 Links to the ‘neoclassical’ Evandale St. Andrews Church of Scotland (etc)

12.11 Robert Russell and the Dennistoun House ‘center’ of emerging VDL Scottish settler networks influencing ‘Vandemonian architectural styles’

12.12 The ’native born optimism’ of the earlier VDL Georgian cottages?

12.13 Did Murray’s ‘humanism’ exemplify a more basic layer to emerging Australian cultural perspectives and practices?

13. ‘Long way home’ taken by Kennedy Murray Sr c1831: From Glasgow in 1786 to Windsor NSW (the Hawkesbury) before his ‘return’ to Prosperous

13.1 Introduction: The 1853 death of an ‘unlikely gentleman’

13.2 ‘Going off the rails’ south of Glasgow in 18th Century Scotland after being born in the Countess of Eglington’s Auchens Castle

13.3 The story behind the name ‘Kennedy Murray’

13.4 Kennedy Murray’s ‘banishment adventure’ to early New South Wales

13.5 Kennedy Murray Sr. starts a ‘second family’ as a free settler in the Sydney Colony

13.6 The fate of KM Sr’s four young sons after Ann Parker was locked up in a lunatic asylum: The case of the ‘stolen chickens’?

13.7 The later move to ‘Coasters Retreat’: The fate of KM Sr and eldest son John after the three younger sons were admitted to the Cabramatta Boys Orphan School?

13.8 ‘Australian royalty’? Kennedy Murray Sr’s life in context

14. Evandale as home for not just celebrated ‘local son’ Harry Murray VC but all the Kennedy Murrays (one of modern Australia’s larger family trees)

14.1 Introduction: One of modern Australia’s larger family trees?

14.2 The foundational family trees of the Kennedy Murrays ‘tribe’

A. The two families of Kennedy Murray Sr (1771=1853)

A.1 Children from KM Sr’s common law marriage c1798 to Anne White (1771 –1820)

A.2 Marriage & children of KM Sr (1771-1853) & Ann Parker (1786-1862

B. The two families of Kennedy Murray Jr (1799-1860)

B.1 Marriage & children of KM Jr (1799-1860) & Sarah McQueen (1805-1839)

B.2 Marriage & children of KM Jr (1799-1860) & Hannah Goodall (1815-1904)

B.3 Marriage and children of KM Jr’s adopted son ‘William Usher Goodall Murray’

C. Marriage & children of Elizabeth Murray (1802-1878) & James Lucas (1798-1869)

D. Marriage & children of William Murray (1815-1878) & Cath. Foran (1819-1894)

E. Marriage & children of James Murray (1819-1970) & Jane Carter (c1823-1911)

F. Marriage & children of Anne White (1771-1820) & Richard Sydes (1776-1844)

F.1 Marriage & children of Mary Ann Sydes (1804-1873) & George Collins (1801-1870)

F.2 Marriage & children of Thomas Sydes (1810-1872) & Sarah O’Neill (1818-1900)

F.3 Marriage & children of Margaret Sydes (1815-1887) & Thomas Lucas (1807-1888)

15. The astonishing further story of the recent discovery that KM Sr’s ‘Ayrshire Murrays’ ancestral tree is one of post-1603 ‘hidden MacGregors’ (i.e. the Glenlyon branch of the ‘royal is our blood’ Scottish Clan tradition)

15.1 Introduction: The Kennedy Murray Sr ancestral tree in Scotland?

15.2 The further search for Kennedy Murray Sr’s Ayrshire ancestry

15.3 How the ‘clincher’ confirming this direct Kennedy Murray lineage in Scottish Ayrshire was also the answer to the ‘Alex Murray mystery’

15.4 The DNA confirmation that Kennedy Murray’s ancestor great-grandfather Hugh was a first cousin to the Robert Murray who first lived near Glasgow c1664

15.5 Just who was KM Sr’s verified ancestor 6X grandfather Sir James McGregor?

15.6 ‘Macgregor country’ as also a cultural as well as geographical heartland (still) of both traditional ‘Pictland’ (Albann, etc) and ‘modern Scotland’?

15.7 Postscript: Harry (MacGregor) Murray VC’s 1917 ‘homecoming’ to Glen Lyon?