by Robert Wuchatsch
Richmond Henty, son of Stephen Henty and nephew of Edward Henty, pioneer settlers in Western Victoria, owned the Stony Rises Estate between Colac and Camperdown from 1882-84.
However, events related to Richmond’s ownership of the Stony Rises Estate saw him quit Australia in December 1884 to live in England. A dual bankrupt who reneged on his 1883 sale of the Stony Rises Estate to a French-Mauritian man named Deschamps who planned to establish a vineyard there, Henty was jailed in October 1884 for failing to repay the man’s money.
By then Richmond Henty’s relatives, embarrassed by his behaviour, appear to have disowned him, although none of this appears in Henty family histories or Richmond’s unashamedly egotistical autobiography Australiana or My Early Life, published in London in 1886.
Richmond Henty could be loose with the truth. In his autobiography he ambiguously wrote that he ‘was the first white child born in the first settlement in Victoria’ and did not discourage the widespread belief he was the first white child born in Victoria. He was born at Portland on 3 August 1837, almost two years after Melbourne was established, where a number of births had already taken place. It is doubtful he was even the first white child born at Portland, although he does appear to have been the first white male child born there. He was named Richmond after the 5th Duke of Richmond, Lord Lieutenant of Sussex, a friend and supporter of the Henty family.
Stephen Henty (1811-72) emigrated to Western Australia from West Tarring, Sussex in 1829, but later moved to Tasmania where other members of his family had settled. Stephen and his wife Jane (née Pace) were married at Fremantle in Western Australia on 14 April 1836 and the following month sailed for Launceston, en route to Portland Bay, where elder brother Edward lived. Stephen first set up business at Portland in partnership with Edward, then later as a merchant on his own account. In 1856, he was elected a Member of the Victoria’s Legislative Council, a position he held until 1870.
Richmond, the eldest of eleven children, attended school at Portland, Port Fairy and Launceston before leaving for England in March 1856, where he matriculated and commenced studies at Trinity College, Cambridge in April 1857.
He left Cambridge soon after, however, allegedly for health reasons. After travelling in Europe and the Middle East he arrived back in Victoria with his father and two sisters on the Frances Henty in January 1859.
Left: Excerpt from Australiana or My Early Life by Richmond Henty – State Library of New South Wales
In August 1859 Richmond’s father purchased the Walla Walla and Wallandool pastoral runs on the Billabong Creek near Albury for him to manage and Richmond later claimed he had been an improver and successful pastoralist there. After two years he travelled to London, where on 30 April 1861 he married Agnes Reed, daughter of the Rev. Edward Reed of Cheltenham and granddaughter of the late Sir Edwin B. Sandys, Baronet of Miserden Castle, Gloucestershire. Following a short honeymoon in France, followed by visits to relatives and friends in England, he returned to Australia with Agnes.
In late 1861, Stephen Henty experienced financial problems, so decided to sell his Walla Walla and Wallendool runs. Richmond and Agnes then lived on Moonbria, an adjoining run Richmond had acquired prior to his marriage. Their first two children – Ernest George (1862-95) and Eveline Agnes (1863-1925) were born in New South Wales, but then they moved to Melbourne. Third child Richmond Sandys (1864-87) was born at Findon, Stephen Henty’s Melbourne home at Kew. By 1866 they had moved to Warrayure, one of Richmond’s father’s runs near Dunkeld, where two more children – Lindsay Pace (1866-1950) and Percival Edward (1868-89) were born.
In December 1867, during Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh’s visit to John Moffat’s Chatsworth House at Hopkins Hill, Richmond was given the honour of escorting the young prince on a kangaroo hunt at Caramut. In June 1868 he was appointed a magistrate and later that year hosted the Victorian Governor and his wife Lady Manners Sutton during their tour of the Western District.
However, at the same time as Richmond was living out his aristocratic pretensions, his wife Agnes was struggling to adapt to her ‘dull bush prison’ at Warrayure and his frequent absences. Agnes regularly began her diary with the lines ‘Alone all day as usual’ and on 19 October 1868 wrote ‘Richie away 183 days up to this date.’ In 1871 Richmond stood for the Victorian Legislative Assembly seat of Portland but was narrowly defeated.
In 1870 Stephen Henty resigned from the Legislative Council because of ill-health and retired to Tarrington, a property which adjoined Warrayure. He died there in December 1882 aged 61. Stephen had experienced serious financial difficulties during his final years and Warrayure and Tarrington were sold in January 1872, although Tarrington remained in the family, purchased by Richmond. Without a substantial inheritance, Richmond’s insolvency soon followed in April 1873.
Richmond’s liabilities were calculated at £4,095/2/6; assets £2,562; resulting in a deficiency of £1,533/2/6. The causes of his insolvency were given as unpaid bills of exchange and depreciation in the value of mining shares, in which he had invested heavily during the mid 1860s. Accepting the grim reality, Richmond’s creditors, many of whom were close relatives, accepted a composition of one penny in the pound (1/240th) and he was released from insolvency in September 1873.
Richmond and Agnes then lived at South Yarra but in 1875 he was granted an auctioneer’s licence at Portland. In May 1877, he stood for the Legislative Assembly seat of Normanby, but came last and lost his deposit. In August 1877 he was again declared insolvent but when discharged from insolvency in February 1879 his creditors received the more respectable sum of 10/- in the £ (1/2 ).
In November 1882 Richmond purchased the 6,305 acre Stony Rises Estate from the MacVean family for a reported 10/- per acre. Overrun by rabbits, the estate had been on the market for four years. He took out a mortgage for £3,700 with Thomas Hitchins Testar and William Strachan to fund the purchase but his intentions for the estate are unclear. Perhaps he just saw a bargain. John Matheson, the estate manager and occupant of the Stony Rises Homestead, was left in charge of the estate.
Richmond was soon in financial trouble again. A constant stream of creditors sued him for non-payment of debts during late 1883 and 1884 when he appears to have been technically insolvent. In November 1883, the Colac Herald reported he had sold the Stony Rises Estate to Louis Isidore Henry Deschamps, a French-Mauritian who intended to establish a large vineyard tended by French peasants. The sale took place on 10 September 1883 and the purchase price was £4,458, which presumably meant a substantial profit for Richmond. The terms were that Deschamps would pay out Henty’s mortgage and make up half the difference with cash and the other half with a bill of exchange at six months. He would then receive title to the estate.
However, in February 1884 Richmond Henty resold the Stony Rises Estate to a man named George Jenkyn, who represented a Melbourne syndicate which intended to establish a rabbit canning factory in the Stony Rises. The price is not known but was presumably more than Deschamps had agreed to pay. Deschamps then sued Henty for £2,000 damages for breach of agreement and for the recovery of money and bills he had already paid.
In June 1884, a Supreme Court jury found in favour of Deschamps and Richmond was ordered to make restitution to Deschamps by 1 October 1884, with a month’s jail if he did not pay by then. Justice Higinbotham stated that it appeared to him ‘the said Defendant has made a transfer of his property with intent to defraud his creditor to wit the plaintiff.
Corangamite Heritage Study Stage 2
When Richmond failed to pay Deschamps he was duly imprisoned at Ararat. He was released after Deschamps signed a letter of satisfaction on 24 October, Henty having paid £327 of the £658/8/9 he owed. Deschamps must have decided to cut his losses, agreeing to the lesser amount as full settlement, making him yet another creditor out of pocket to Richmond Henty.
Richmond and Agnes Henty left for England in December 1884 aboard the steamer Pathan and his autobiography was published in London in 1886. He appears to have briefly returned to Australia in 1889. Agnes, who appears to have been separated from Richmond, died at her daughter Eveline Starkey’s home at Tang Hall, York on 9 September 1895 aged 58. Eveline had married Captain Edward Starkey in London in 1888. Using the name E. A. Henty, Eveline later wrote evocative poems about life in Australia, usually with a bush theme. Her 1912 book Australian Idylls and Other Poems was dedicated to her grandmother Jane Henty. Eveline’s husband died in 1906 and she died at Bootham Park Hospital, York in 1925 aged 62.
On 24 December 1896, Richmond married Florence Wood, aged 20 at Caterham in Surrey where they lived.
The 1901 census records them as living at Peckham, London with a daughter Agnes, aged 2. Richmond died there on 22 April 1904 aged 66. In his 1901 will, he left all future inheritances to his wife Florence, seemingly having little property of his own. He was buried at York Cemetery with his first wife Agnes.
Three of Richmond and Agnes Henty’s four sons died young –
Richmond Sandys died at Goulburn, New South Wales in 1887 aged 24;
Percival Edward died at Heidelberg in Melbourne in 1889 aged 21;
Ernest George, who married Katherine Cobham in 1890, died at Coolgardie, Western Australia in 1895, aged 32.
The remaining son, Lindsay Pace, who married Rosina Mary Thompson in 1900, died at Camperdown in Sydney, New South Wales in 1950 aged 83.
About the Author: Robert Wuchatsch is an award winning writer of nonfiction books. For several years he has been researching the history and people who lived in the Stony Rises area and has kindly shared this previously unknown story of Richmond Henty.
