William Richard was the eldest son of John aka Richard Smith and Frances Green. He was born on 4th December 1818 in Sydney. His parents had married on 3rd March 1818 , 9 months before. William Richard was baptised in St Philips Church on 17th January 1819 when he was less than 2 months old. His father is listed as Richard Smith. This name is also listed on William’s death certificate so it is safe to say that is what John aka Richard Smith called himself.

In the March of 1818 Governor Macquarie had selected ten men to take up small grants on the east frontages of Cox’s Hereford estate in Bathurst what we now call Kelso. These men included William’s great uncles by marriage James and John Blackman, brothers to his future mother-in-law Mary Ann Blackman[1] Who knew that William’s future and that of the Smith’s would lie in this newly found region.
In 1818 Governor Macquarie initiated the first celebration of colonisation, and made the thirtieth anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 a public holiday. The day was celebrated in particular by the emancipists and the first generation of new Australians, and led to the event we call Australia Day.[2]

January 1818 was also momentous as the Great Western Road was completed linking Emu Ford near the foot of the Blue Mountains with Parramatta and Sydney. Sydney was therefore linked to the newly discovered pastoral lands around the Macquarie River ie Bathurst /Kelso.[3]
On December 24th 1818 the first known Christmas carol "Silent Night" composed by Franz Xaver Gruber is first sung at St Nicholas parish church in Oberndorf, Austria and on Christmas day Handel's Messiah, premiered in the US in Boston. This was a far cry from William’s family experience.

On the 5th December 1818 Governor Macquarie made a proclamation defining the role of District Justices who were now responsible for justice/law in their district covering all people including free settlers as well as convicts. Essentially the proclamation outlines the industrial relations powers of JP’s. They were able to make judgements where people were not being paid by their employers either in wages or rations up to a value of  10 pounds and where employers did not comply with an order to pay, they could sell the property and chattels of the employer to meet the legal obligations to the employee. They could conversely hear a complaint  by an employer against an employee and where it was substantiated the JP’s could commit the employee to goal or allow them to be sacked.[4] Governor Macquarie had a history of labour regulation and management, introducing job descriptions to the colony from 1811 and regulating wages to be paid to convicts.[5] Was this part of Macquarie’s justice system which angered the free settlers and large land owners and led to the Bigge Commission which eventually led to Macquarie’s demise?

At the time of William’s birth Governor Macquarie announced his congratulations at the return of explorer John Oxley on his second expedition to Macquarie River. Oxley had left Bathurst on 28th May 1818 with his party. The party would get upriver to the Macquarie Marshes, turn north-east to the Warrumbungle mountains crossing the Castlereagh River in the process, view the rich Liverpool Plains, come across the Peel River and the Hastings River to reach the NSW coast and the site of present-day Port Macquarie. These European sightings delivered a real boost to the NSW colony.[6]
In 1818 a small pox vaccination was discovered and a baptism script was issued to Church ministers to implore good parents to have their children vaccinated. Government House released its support of vaccination on 21st February 1818 stating:

“ HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR having lately received some Packets of Vaccine Matter from William A. Burke, Esq. M. D. Deputy Inspector of Hospitals, and Superintendant of Vaccination at Port Louis, Mauritius, avails himself of this Mode of giving Publicity to this Circumstance, in Order that
the Benefits of the System of Vaccine Inoculation may be disseminated through this Colony ; and trusts that on a Subject so well known and so universally interesting and beneficial to the Human Race, it will be attended to with that Zeal and Earnestness which become Parents and Guardians, in Order to prevent the destructive and fatal Ravages which the Small Pox has hitherto made amongst Mankind. Although it may be presumed that the good Effects of the System of Vaccine Inoculation have been sufficiently felt and understood, yet with a View to explain to those Persons who have not received Information on the Subject, or who may perhaps be labouring under unfounded Prejudices, it may be necessary to premise, that the Natural Small Pox has been known to destroy in every Year an immense Proportion of the whole Population of the World : and that the Inoculated Small Pox, though for the most Part mild, yet is in many Instances violent, painful, loathsome, and dangerous to Life : Contrasted with this--the Cow Pox, which is the Object of the present Orders, when properly conducted, is uniformly mild, inoffensive, free from Pain or Danger, and at the same Time an infallible Preventative of the Small Pox. During a long Series of Years the Cow Pox, accidentally received, has been considered a Preservative against any future Attack of the Small Pox; many Persons in the Dairy Countries who have had the former in their Youth having remained to old Age, unsusceptible of the latter. Its Description and Effects may be collected from the following Facts.
 
1. Independent of Contagion and Mortality, the Inoculated Cow Pox is attended by no Danger.
2. It produces a Pustule only on the inoculated part.
3. It occasions neither Confinement, loss of Time, nor Expence.
4. It requires no other Precautions than simply such as respect the Conduct of the Inoculation.
5. It requires no Medicine;
6. It leaves no Deformity or Disfiguration ; and
7. It excites no subsequent Disease.
 
From these Considerations, which the Experience of Years has confirmed, it it presumed that no Person can conscientiously refuse or hesitate to embrace the Opportunity now providentially offered of preserving his own Family from so Dreadful a Pestilence as the Small Pox, and of contributing his Part towards its total Extirpation. In Furtherance of the Recommendation of this great and important Discovery, an Address, framed and recommended by the Jennerian Society, with the Design that it should be delivered by Clergymen at the Baptism of Children, will forthwith be transmitted to the respective Chaplains of this Colony, for that laudable Purpose; which containing as it does so very clear an Exposition of the Benefits resulting to the present and all future Generations from the Adoption of the Vaccine Inoculation, is inserted herewith, and it is hoped will be duly appreciated by all those Persons, who, either as Parents, Guardians, or Friends, can contribute to its Promotion by their Authority or Influence.”[7]
 
There was indeed a Baptism script received by the clergy and delivered. It would have been delivered when William was baptised in 1819. William was living in a time similar to our experience of COVID in 2020-2021 and arguments for and against vaccination with Astra Zeneca in Australia. This is probably the first pro vaccination campaign experienced in Australia.

1818 was not without its comedy either as can be seen here in a newspaper article Choice Tracts published in the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser 30th May 1818:

“TIME.—1. No time to be expended on Thought, as nothing comes of it among men of fashion.
2. The wear and tear of time by constant use to be avoided, as so precious an article ought to be employed
sparingly.
3. Time often to be protracted by long and weari-some lounges, by way of making the most of it,
4. When time is heavy with lassitude, and dull with inoccupation, be tender of using it in this torpid and vapourish condition, and endeavour to refresh it by the slumbers of inanity.
5. Make up your mind at once, and irrevocably on every question: by these means you save the time that would otherwise be lost in choosing, and need never after waste a moment in hearing what another man has
to say.
6. Avoid the acquisition of too many new ideas, which will demand considerable time to arrange themselves in your mind. The fewer your ideas, the more speedily will your measures be taken, and your resolutions formed ; it being a much shorter process to determine with two ideas than with half a score.
7. Dispossess yourself as much as possible of all feeling for other men ; for this is giving to others a claim upon your time; and while you are sympathizing with their sufferings, they are stealing a march upon you.
8. Rob other men of as much of their time and money as possible, by way of saving your own. This is a golden rule, and a most ingenious economy.
9. Study your own gratifications in every concern of life, and waste no time in thinking of the sacrifices
you make to them, or of their consequences to other men.
10. Fill up your time as much as possible with pleasures that exclude participation: on this account, the time spent in decorating your person, and in the pleasures of the table, is worthily employed ; for then self is the sole object of it, and not a single moment is alienated from you.
12. The last and greatest rule is this:—Allow no time for praying, or for works of charity ; for this is giving up a portion of our time to eternity, which is a greater absurdity than sending presents to Crœsus, our pouring water into the ocean.
EXPENCE.—1. All expensive feelings and sensations to be subdued ; such as compassion, generosity, patriotism, and public spirit.
2. The money bestowed on horses to be saved out of the education of our children : they are therefore to be sent to school where the cheapest bargain can be made for them.
3. To banish hospitality from our bosoms, and to ask the company of our friends for the sake of pillaging them at play, and in a view to the douceurs which they in course leave behind them, and which we divide with our servants.
4. To sacrifice comfort to ostentation in every article of life ; to go without substantial conveniences for the sake of shining superfluities; to be mean and sordid under the rose, that we may look like prodigals in public; and to live like beggars in secret, to glitter like spendthrifts abroad.
5. To abandon all poor relations, and to make presents only to those who are much richer than our-selves, in the expectation of being gainers at last.
6. To be lone against the ingratitude of the poor, which we have never experienced ; and to reserve our charity for deserving objects, which we are deter-mined never to acknowledge.
7. To be active and forward in speculative schemes of charity, which we are well assured can never take place; while we are silently raising our rents, to the ruin of distressed families.
$. To pass by the door of famine with our money glued to our pockets; while, to see a new dancer in the evening, we draw our purses trings as generously as noblemen.
9. To repair to the house of distress, not to dissipate our money in common-place acts of compassion and generosity, but to extort good bargains from hunger and necessity, and to purchase, at cheap rates, the last valuable relics of perishing fortunes.
10. To be lavish of kind speeches, which cost nothing; and to lament, when death has come in relief to misery, that the circumstances of so melancholya case were not known to us in time, to afford us the luxury of exercising our humanity ! ! !
 
William had a younger brother George who was born on 3rd March 1821 in Sydney.  This was the year Richard Smith received his absolute pardon. We know from that document that Richard had a few cattle to provide for his family, probably on land he was granted with his Ticket of Leave in 1815. George was baptised on 3rd March 1822 aged 1 and died in that August on the 27th. His baptism record also records his father’s name as Richard Smith. Why did they delay his baptism for 1 year? Was he a sickly child or was there an infectious disease outbreak?  On 15th February 1822, Lachlan and Elizabeth Macquarie had left the colony. Did this change Richard’s and the family’s prospects given his father had been indentured to Governor Macquarie’s Secretary , John Thomas Campbell ?

By the end of 1822 William Richard aged 3 yrs was an only child living with his parents who were both free and living in Sydney. The 1822 Census lists Richard as a householder of Sydney living with his wife and 2 sons, William and George.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



Ref: Sydney from North View in 1822 above and below the streets of Sydney in 1822

























 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



















William was a ‘currency lad’. The term 'currency lads and lasses' was used to refer to the first generation of children born in the colony to distinguish them from the free settlers who were born in the British Isles. Currency lads and lasses were mostly the children of convicts or emancipists and the term suggested inferiority and a distinct identity. These currency lads and lasses were also referred to as 'cornstalks' as they were taller than their British counterparts and had a distinct way of talking. When reporting on the condition of the colony, Commissioner John Thomas Bigge (1780–1843) found the children of convicts generally industrious and surprisingly free of any criminality. This was seen as evidence of the success of the penal system. He described them as taller and fairer, and stronger and healthier than the free settlers[8].

William had been born into a penal colony under Governor Macquarie. At the time of his birth his father had a Ticket of Leave dated from 1815 and was considered an emancipist. From 1815-1822 Sydney was transformed by Macquarie. In 1815, when war between Britain and France ended, the aftershock was felt far away in Sydney. As soldiers headed home from the battlefields – to British towns and cities already racked with hardship and poverty – a rapid spike in social unrest, unemployment and, in turn, rising crime pushed courts and prisons to the brink. To relieve the pressure on lockups and jails, and serve as a dire warning to would-be criminals, it was decided to increase the flow of convict workers to the distant settlements of New South Wales[9]. Sydney saw its population grow from 10,000 to 30,000. Macquarie in this period built schools, hospitals, churches, civic buildings and the Hyde Park Barracks to house the convicts.

By 1822 Sydney was becoming a different colony. In the early 1820s, Sydney saw a glimpse of itself as a civil society. For ex-convicts there was a free press, trial by jury and hints of equality…. Up until now, the liveliness and energy of waterfront Sydney, with its emerging business and playful distractions, had suited the locals fine. The British government, however, saw two problems with this. Firstly, it still needed a penal colony – a fearsome and terrible fate for would-be law-breakers. And secondly, there were too many convicts in town, with their labour wasted on costly building projects. Sharing the desires of the local gentry, Britain looked to the endless pastures beyond the Blue Mountains where the colony’s future lay. [https://sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/convict-sydney/back-business].

As late as 1821 the principal settlement of Port Jackson was still largely confined to a strip of country bordered by the Blue Mountains on the west and by unknown and inhospitable country to the north and south.[10] The Blue Mountains had been crossed by Blaxland , Lawson and Wentworth to Mt Blaxland in 1813 and Macquarie commissioned William Cox to oversee the building of a road from Emu Plains to Bathurst in 1814.  Bathurst was officially established by Governor Macquarie in 1815. It was considered an administrative hub and it took a number of decades for settlers to populate the area. As news of the quality of the land spread in Sydney, pastoralists flooded inland and for the next decade a state of armed conflict existed in the region as the Wiradjuri people, led by the warrior Windradyne, resisted the loss of their lands to the settlers[11]. Although not established as such, the Bathurst Settlement came to be recognised and administered as a penal settlement in the final years of Macquarie’s tenure and more exactly so under Governor Brisbane from the early 1820s. Until 1827, the Bathurst Penal Settlement functioned primarily as an Agricultural Establishment, with the additional purpose of providing a suitable place of servitude for “Gentlemen Convicts” .[12]

By 1820 Bathurst consisted of 114 people including 75 convicts. The settlement consisted of a thatched brick house of the commandant, a brick barracks with thatched roof for the military, another building for the storekeeper and the chief constable and superintendent of convicts had shingled houses. A large shingled brick barn, a granary and provisions store were also present with the timber barracks for the principal overseer of Government stock and log houses for the convicts[13].

By 1824 French explorer Rene Lesson described the area as having “ numerous herds and flocks (of Merino sheep) which had increased greatly. Its yields a quantity of wheat. Over fifty farm occupy the different parts of the Plain 0Bathurst/Kelso)….. the population of Bathurst and Kelso was about seven hundred inhabitants.”[14]

William would later marry into the Blackman and Barsden families who were explorers and early settlers of Bathurst and surrounds and Joseph Sewell his step father would be one of those agricultural convicts / workers.

In William’s birth year, his maternal grandfather Jonathon Green was Under Gaoler at Sydney Gaol. His grandfather had been in the service of the Sydney Police as a District Constable since 1810. By 1822 his grandfather had been sacked for drunkenness the year before and replaced by John Redman who went on to be Governor of H.M Gaol. He retained his Constable status however and was being assigned convicts in 1822.  So, the broader family was doing OK in the colony. Some of the Greens were also to migrate to Bathurst. Read more about Jonathon in the Greens Story.

William’s father was to leave the family between April and May 1823 on the Britomart to take Timor horses to Mauritius most likely for Messr Riley and Walker, traders of the day. Frances was left with a 4 year old William in Sydney. Did her parents support them? William’s father never returned.

We know William had Green cousins at this time but they were babies so William would not have had children related to him to play with in his first 10 years. William was also living on the cusp of change in the colony.

William was one of a small percentage of children in the colony. In the first New South Wales census delivered in 1828, children under 12 years comprised only 16 per cent of the total European population. It was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that the proportion of children in the population of the Australian colonies reached 40 per cent, a figure comparable with that of Britain.[15]

William gained a stepsibling or brother in 1829 who he grew up with at Sewells Creek . Charles Henry Smith later Green was born to Frances on 8th March 1829 in Sydney. His baptism record of 5th April 1829 shows his name as Charles Henry Smith son of Frances Smith but no father is listed. Why in later life did he become Green? Refer to the alternative narrative for convict John alias Richard Smith. William was 10 years old when Charles was born. See Charles story for more information on this line .  It is interesting to note that in the 1828 census William’s father is still listed and noted to have left the colony. He is not listed as deceased! See his story to find out more .

William’s mother Frances went on to ‘marry’ Joseph Sewell and a further 2 step brothers were born in Rockley where Frances and Joseph lived at Sewells Creek. Jonathan Sewell arrived in 1836 when William was 17 years of age and Daniel William Sewell on Christmas Day 1840 , the year William married at the age of 21 yrs. We know from these births that William moved with his mother and step brother Charles to Rockley sometime between 1829 and 1836 .

Joseph Sewell was a convict who had arrived on the Lord Eldon in 1817. He was assigned to Governor King’s family at St Mary’s[16] likely to be Anna King wife of Governor Philip Gidley King . The 1822 census sees him as a government servant in the employee of William Hayes in Parramatta [17]who worked for Mrs King as an overseer.[18] Joseph obtained his Certificate of Freedom on 29th October 1823 indicating he had served out his sentence . In 1824 he came to work for the King’s in the Bathurst area at Essington Park employed by Captain Phillip Parker King son of Governor King.[19] [20]Governor King died in 1856 but his widow continued to own the 2000 acres of Essington Park in 1874. By 1827 he is employed as a shepherd by Thomas Arkell on Charlton Station[21],  a name with a long association with the Smiths. Arkell had been granted special warrant on May 17th 1825 by Governor Brisbane for a ‘permissive’ purchase of 1000 acres in the Parish of Baring which was the Charlton Estate. [22]

Joseph purchased 984 acres in 1832 at what was then Stony and Daveys Creek and this section became known as Sewells Creek , over the hill from Charlton on the way to Native Dog Creek. In 1833 he was leasing two 1280 acre blocks on Davis’s (later Sewell’s) Creek, east of Charlton,
and by 1837 he had applied to buy land there. [23] Today the road from Charlton to Native Dog Creek is called Sewells Creek Road.  The property became known as Claremont. See the Sewells for more of their history. How did Joseph meet Frances , William and Charles ? We do not know. We do know Joseph accepted the boys and by 1840 had 4 boys in his care aged 21yrs to 0 .

Would life have been harder or easier for William Richard Smith at Sewells Creek than in Sydney? He undoubtedly assisted Joseph on the property as did Charles Henry Green.
 
[1] Cook,K and Garvey D, The Glint of Gold: A History and Tourist Guide of the Goldfields of the Central West of New South Wales. Genlin Investments. 1999.p36 and https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/blackman-james-1790
[2] http://www.abc.net.au/abc3/myplace/narrowband/1818/history.htm
[3] O’Brien S., Keith G., Wilson M and Jacobsen G [eds] Two Hundred Years Issue No.4 p.86
[4] https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2178400?searchTerm=Proclamation%20Governor%20Macquarie#
[5] https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/ws/portalfiles/portal/8693742/PrepubPID8113.pdf
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Oxley and https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2178405?searchTerm=Oxley#
[7] https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2177786?searchTerm=smallpox
[8] http://myplace.edu.au/decades_timeline/1820/decade_landing_18.html?tabRank=3&subTabRank=2
[9] https://sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/convict-sydney/civic-good
[10] Greenwood G Professor, Australia : A Social and Political History 1965
[11] https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/founding-of-bathurst
[12] https://yoursay.bathurst.nsw.gov.au/24347/documents/48981
[13] Cook,K and Garvey D, The Glint of Gold: A History and Tourist Guide of the Goldfields of the Central West of New South Wales. Genlin Investments. 1999. p37
[14] McRae A and Churches C, Kelso Village Book 1: To Celebrate the Centenary of Federation 2001. p 12-13
[15] https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/children
[16] Rockley Manners
[17] William Hayes was an Irish convict, assigned at first to Governor King's farm but who went on to become the overseer/manager of Phillip Parker King's property Dunheved. With Harriet King's return to the colony with her children she decided to move to Dunheved where she installed her a manager of her choice. Hayes turned his attention to his own property at Eastern Creek called Lucan Park and at his property at Mudgee becoming a wealthy landholder involved in horse-breeding with his son-in-law Charles Roberts. [https://trove.nla.gov.au/list?id=84358]
 
[18] NSW Archives  COD 504
[19] Roberson A. The Rockley Manner . 1989
[20] Gemmel Smith Phillipa Mountain Beings Relationships with land in the Oberon district, 1800-1900. April 2018 p 130
[21] 1828 Census
[22] Roberson A. The Rockley Manner. 1989  p 3
[23] Gemmel Smith Phillipa Mountain Beings Relationships with land in the Oberon district, 1800-1900. April 2018 p 130