| [Index] |
| Henry Clay BURNELL (1806 - 1888) |
| Children | Self + Spouses | Parents | Grandparents | Greatgrandparents |
|
Laura BURNELL (1837 - ) Margaret BURNELL (1838 - ) Emily C BURNELL (1844 - 1871) Thomas C BURNELL (1845 - 1934) Frances C BURNELL (1847 - ) Arthur John BURNELL (1849 - 1936) Marion Susan BURNELL (1850 - 1930) Hubert C BURNELL (1852 - 1895) Henry F BURNELL (1854 - 1916) Spencer C BURNELL (1857 - 1935) |
Henry Clay BURNELL (1806 - 1888) + Sarah GRAY ( - 1896) |
Thomas BURNELL (1770 - 1866) | ||
| Anne CLAY | ||||
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| b. Mar 1806 at London, Middlesex, England |
| m. Feb 1836 Sarah GRAY ( - 1896) at Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
| d. 30 May 1888 at Darlinghurst, New South Wales, Australia aged 82 |
| Parents: |
| Thomas BURNELL (1770 - 1866) |
| Anne CLAY |
| Events in Henry Clay BURNELL (1806 - 1888)'s life | |||||
| Date | Age | Event | Place | Notes | Src |
| Mar 1806 | Henry Clay BURNELL was born | London, Middlesex, England | |||
| 09 May 1829 | 23 | Immigration | Sydney, New South Wales, Australia | per 'Pyramus' | |
| Feb 1836 | 29 | Married Sarah GRAY | Sydney, New South Wales, Australia | V1836113 75/1836 | |
| 11 Mar 1837 | 31 | Birth of daughter Laura BURNELL | New South Wales, Australia | V18373093 45B/1837 | |
| 05 Nov 1838 | 32 | Birth of daughter Margaret BURNELL | New South Wales, Australia | V18383533 45B/1838 | |
| 31 Aug 1844 | 38 | Birth of daughter Emily C BURNELL | New South Wales, Australia | V1844708 48/1844 | |
| 1845 | 39 | Birth of son Thomas C BURNELL | New South Wales, Australia | V1845780 48/1845 | |
| 1847 | 41 | Birth of daughter Frances C BURNELL | New South Wales, Australia | V1847346 49/1847 | |
| 1849 | 43 | Birth of son Arthur John BURNELL | New South Wales, Australia | V18492176 34A/1849 | |
| 1850 | 44 | Birth of daughter Marion Susan BURNELL | New South Wales, Australia | V18502090 37A/1850 | |
| 1852 | 46 | Birth of son Hubert C BURNELL | New South Wales, Australia | V18523732 39A/1852 | |
| 1854 | 48 | Birth of son Henry F BURNELL | New South Wales, Australia | V1854248 40/1854 | |
| 1857 | 51 | Birth of son Spencer C BURNELL | Sydney, New South Wales, Australia | 1997/1857 | |
| 13 Jan 1866 | 59 | Death of father Thomas BURNELL (aged 96) | Marylebone, London, England | FreeBMD Mar 1866 1a 417 | |
| 31 Aug 1871 | 65 | Death of daughter Emily C BURNELL (aged 27) | Sydney, New South Wales, Australia | ||
| 30 May 1888 | 82 | Henry Clay BURNELL died | Darlinghurst, New South Wales, Australia | ||
| Personal Notes: |
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HENRY CLAY BURNELL 1806-1888
Henry Clay Burnell, who built the Runnymead Homestead (listed http://www.heritage.nsw.gov.au/07_subnav_01_2.cfm?itemid=1550222) in Bateman's Bay was born in London in March 1896 and christened in St Andrew's, Holborn on 30th May 1806. He was the third son of Thomas Burnell and Anne Clay, who had married on 26th February 1801 in St Paul, Covent Garden, London. According to the death notice which Henry inserted in the Sydney Morning Herald of 21st April 1866, his father, Thomas Burnell, was an architect, but had not worked as such since 1816. It is clear that the family was prosperous. When Thomas died age 96 on 13th January 1866, he was living at 33 York Terrace, Regents Park, an upmarket part of London, and he was accorded the title 'Esquire' which implies he was regarded as a gentleman. Although he left less than £5000, this was still a considerable sum in those days. Henry's oldest brother, Frederick, died at the age of 11 on 25th May 1814. However, the second brother, Arthur, prospered and is recorded in the 1851 census living in Bedford on the proceeds of investments and without other occupation. He was the sole executor of Thomas's estate. He moved to Jersey prior to 1861 and later retired to Hampshire where he died early in 1877. Henry also had a younger sister, Emily, who married Henry Curtis, a landowner of St George, Bloomsbury (another wealthy part of London) on 9th May 1827. By this stage, the Burnell family had moved from central London to Feltham Hill, Middlesex. Feltham Hill is only 7 miles from the historic site of Runnymede where Magna Carta was signed, and the story goes that this was the origin of the name of Henry's Homestead. Emily died on 27th January 1892 in Brighton. There is surviving correspondence between Henry and his sister Emily after he emigrated to Australia in 1829. It is not certain why he decided to emigrate. As a younger son he may have felt his prospects in England were limited, but there is some suggestion that he went out having been left land in Australia or with the promise of land. This was certainly a period when many young men sought their fortune in the colonies. Henry arrived in Sydney on 9th May 1829 on the Pyramus aged 23. He had travelled alone, and was wealthy enough to have his own cabin rather than travel steerage. According to his obituary, he brought a number of valuable sheep with him. According to his obituary, he brought a number of valuable sheep with him, but this may not be true. We do know from his letters to Emily that he arrived with capital, but not enough to acquire land immediately. While trying to establish himself, he invested his capital with a friend (referred to only as 'M', probably a farmer) and worked for him for 2 years. Unfortunately he never received the 15-20% interest he had been promised, and only got the capital back in the form of cattle. However, by this time he had been successful in obtaining land. The records show that in June 1831 he was granted 1280 acres of land in the Araluen valley, inland from Bateman's Bay, with the right to take possession from 27th September 1831. In September 1832 he wrote to say he had a house at Araluen, but hoped to have a better one soon. It would appear he was occasionally travelling back to Sydney on business, which took him 6 days on horseback. He commented that although Sydney was being improved, the theatre was not yet complete and there were few amusements there apart from drinking. We know, both from official records and his letters, that he was using convict labour. During the term of their sentence, convicts had to work without pay, but were given food and accommodation. There are press reports of the assignment of various convicts to Henry - for example, a shoemaker in June 1832, two carters in July 1833 and a carpenter and a joiner in May 1834. It is believed that convicts built the old road from Bateman's Bay to Araluen. During this period, Henry was actively seeking to extend his land holdings in Araluen and from 1st April 1834 he was able to lease 4 additional plots of virgin land there, each of 640 acres. From this year also, there is the first evidence that Henry was beginning to become a member of established society in Sydney. The Sydney Herald of 8th September, 1834 records him in the list of subscribers to a benefit for the survivors of the wreck of the Edward Lombe, giving 10 shillings, a modest beginning to what was to become much more substantial charitable giving. At Araluen, Henry was busy putting up farm buildings and fences. In November 1835 he records having 350 sheep and 500 lambs on the property. He also made a start on the building of a new house at Araluen, which by February 1837 was almost complete. He describes it as having a large cellar, sitting room, three bedrooms, one with french windows, and a kitchen kept separate from the rest of the house because of the heat. It was panelled with wood from the Red Gum, had a verandah on each side and a large garden. It was no doubt on one of his business trips to Sydney that Henry met his future wife, Sarah Gray, the fourth daughter of Mr Charles H. Gray of Sydney. They married in Sydney by special license in February 1836 and their first child, Laura, was born in the house of Sarah's father in Sydney on 11th March 1837 . Their second child, Margaret, was born on 5th November 1838 in the new house at Araluen. They went on to have the following children - Margeret 1840, Emily 1844, Thomas 1845-1934, Frances 1847, Arthur 1849-1936 (born Araluen), Marion 1850-1930 (born Araluen), Henry 1854-1916, Spenser 1857-1935(born Sydney), Hubert ?-1895. During this period, Henry continued to acquire land - in Araluen in 1836 and at Bungendore in 1840. He was wealthy enough to import a chest of clothing, and in 1837 imported a pianoforte, perhaps for his wife. A letter from Henry's wife Sarah written in October 1839 reports that "I have a sister with me so I do not feel the loneliness of the bush much, although you may imagine I am a close housekeeper when I tell you that till last week I had not been out of the valley for two years." She thought their valley more beautiful than anything else around, and took pleasure in the garden which grew peaches, grapes, strawberries and raspberries. When Sarah next writes from Araluen in November 1840, Henry was staying at his "new farm" (probably Bungendore) where he was supervising the clearing of the land and the building of a cottage. It was probably also around this time (a couple of years later than local tradition has it) that Henry commenced building the homestead at Runnymede. The first mention of Runnymede in the letters is July 1842, when Sarah writes "I very much like my new residence, the river being so close forms always a very pleasing variety…Henry is as usual very much occupied in making improvements. At present he is forming a vineyard with terraces; he has upward of a hundred fruit trees." A letter from Henry dated June 1843 shows that he was living in Runnymede, where he had 100 acres of land, predominantly cultivated and with grass for only 8-10 cattle and the same number of horses. His much larger holdings in Araluen were being managed by his brother-in-law, Frederick Michael Stokes, who back in 1831 had been one of the original proprietors of the Sydney Herald, but who had now fallen on hard times and had £8000 of bad debts. "He is doing the only thing that anybody can do in this dreadful crisis, lay to like a ship in a gale of wind." The dreadful crisis to which Henry referred was the great depression which struck Australia at the beginning of the 1840s. There had been a bubble of speculation in the 1830s based on agricultural exploitation of new land. However, increasing wages and a drop in the price of wool led to a slump in land values, insolvencies and high unemployment. This in turn led to a drop in investment from Britain and the calling in of loans. Henry comments: "£100 now would buy as much as £400 would three years back." Henry, although "guided by my father's good advice to avoid speculations", himself lost £1000 from money lent to friends. and his father helped out by sending him £1416. The land at Araluen however remained a substantial asset (even if diminished in value) and could now support 1000 head of cattle. Henry seems to have taken the slump as a sign he needed to diversify and as the economy picked up after 1843, his business interests were increasingly centred on Sydney where he began to develop property. The Sydney Morning Herald of 7th August 1845 advertises tenders for contractors to build 7 houses for H C Burnell in Kent Street, Sydney, and the same paper on 16th August 1847 seeks contractors to build 3 houses at the corner of Goulburn and Pitt Streets for him. In 1864 he issued a further tender to build 4 brick cottages at Rushcutters Bay. It was in 1847 that he was first appointed as a magistrate. It seems probable that he was dividing his time between Sydney and Araluen, with his family living at Runnymede with the exception of the oldest child, Laura, who was staying with her grandmother in Sydney to get an education. A document recording his land holdings dated March 1847 records Henry's official address as Runnymede, Bateman's Bay. In 1851, gold was discovered in Araluen. Henry wrote: "I am likely to reap largely of the pure mineral from the rich creeks Majors, Bell's and Middle Creek concentrated on my land in the valley - called Araluen, where I lived 10 years in blissful ignorance of the treasure underneath me." In 1853 Henry and his family moved to Sydney. Emily had already followed Laura in staying with her grandmother to go to school, and Henry thought the prospects for the children would be better if they moved. Their last child, Spenser, was born in Sydney in 1857, and the 1863 Sands Directory records the family living in Sydney. In Sydney, Henry soon asserted himself as a pillar of society. The Sydney Morning Herald of 3rd November 1854 records H C Burnell contributing £25 to the St Andrews Cathedral Building Fund. In 1856 he was elected a Director of the Society for the Relief of Destitute Children and in 1858 Chairman of the Sydney Bethel Union which supported destitute sailors. Also in 1858 he joined the Australian Horticultural and Agricultural Society. In 1861 he was on the Committee of the Sydney Female Refuge, a charity which provided accommodation and honest employment for fallen women. It would appear that at the time he moved to Sydney, Henry let the Runnymede Homestead to a Mr Austin, who had first worked for him as a convict but who had completed his sentence. A newspaper report of a large bush fire in January 1862 describes Runnymede as "Mr Austin's station". Meanwhile, Henry had let the gold rights on his land in Aruluen. The Empire for 2nd August 1855 advertises licenses at 20 shillings per month to dig for gold on Henry's land. In Sydney, Henry expanded his business interests and became Chairman of The Australian Paper Company which in 1864 built a paper mill on the banks of the Georges River in Liverpool. It commenced operation in 1868, but the set up costs proved greater than expected and Henry had to negotiate an extra loan of £8000 with the City Bank in 1868 for which he stood surety. Unfortunately profits proved insufficient to repay the loan and in 1871 the company became insolvent with total debts of £29,115, leaving Henry with personal liability for £8000, plus loss of his investment in the company. Henry was also a shareholder in the Fitzroy Ironworks, which likewise failed in 1870 leading to a sale of all the assets. Henry declared personal insolvency and came to an arrangement with his creditors to repay his debts by instalments using the proceeds from the goldfields in Araluen. He was forced to make over the goldfields to his creditors as security. In the midst of his financial troubles, Henry was hit by personal tragedy. On 31st August 1971, as a treat for Emily's 26th birthday, she was taken out sailing in Sydney Harbour in a hired boat by her brother Arthur. They were accompanied by one of Emily's sisters (perhaps Frances) and a Mr Boyer who was a lieutenant on HM Clio, currently in port. Some rigging got tangled and Mr Boyer went forward to clear it, leaving Arthur at the helm. A sudden squall capsized the boat throwing them all in the water. Emily was drowned and her body never recovered. Arthur nearly drowned. Although forced in the final years of his life to take a lower profile, Henry continued to be active in public affairs. In 1873 he chaired a meeting of ratepayers and brought a petition to the NSW Parliament opposing the Sewerage Act Amendment Bill. As late as 1881 at age 75 he stepped in to chair a meeting of the Anglo Israel Association of New South Wales when the appointed chairman was unable to be present. Henry died on 30th May 1888 at his home in Clapton, Darlinghurst, Sydney. Sarah survived him by 8 years, dying on 25th August 1896. There are still descendants of his living in Australia today. |