[SYDNEY] Manuscript list of the effects of Third Fleeter Edward Robinson, sold at auction for Samuel Terry by Simeon Lord., January 1821

Two sheets, manuscript in ink to the recto of both, each 245 x 183 mm, wove paper; dated Sydney, 16 January 1821; very good, the second sheet with repair to top edge.

Samuel Terry buys up the estate of a Third Fleeter.

The present manuscripts are clearly the invoices sent by the auctioneer Simeon Lord regarding the sale of the goods of the early Hawkesbury settler Edward Robinson to the main buyer on the day, Samuel Terry.

The first of the manuscripts is neatly headed ‘Account sales of sundry goods, the property of Mr. Edwd. Robinson, deceased, sold by Simeon Lord, at auction, by order of Samuel Terry Esqr., the Administrator’, while the accompanying document recordings specifically the purchases of Terry personally, as “Bo[ugh]t. of S. Lord, at auction.” Such lists are an invaluable insight into the lives of the early settlers.

Yorkshireman Edward Robinson (c.1754-1820) arrived in Australia as a convict on the Third Fleet in October 1791. He went on to become a respected citizen of the Hawkesbury River district – a landowner, sheep farmer and, later in life, an innkeeper. He had been granted 30 acres of land on the river at Hawkesbury in the District of Mulgrave Place in December 1794. In September 1802 he was granted a further 100 acres at a lagoon nearby, which was called Robinson’s Lagoon. By 1805 he had a flock of around 200 sheep, and it is known that he informed Governor King of his wish to experiment with merinos. In 1809 he would receive a further grant to lease 1 3/4 acres 25 rods in Sydney Town, and be granted 80 acres at Upper Nelson. Robinson was the proprietor of a tavern known as the Sign of the York Roses from 1809 through to 1815. A short time before his death in June 1820, he was issued a hotel licence for an establishment on the Sydney Road. He died at the Half Way House, an inn on the Parramatta Road today known as the Horse and Jockey, on 6 June 1820, and was buried in the Devonshire Street Cemetery.

Terry had applied for letters of administration over Robinson’s goods in December 1820, an intriguing example of his well-known habit of managing such estates to his advantage. Living up to his reputation as the ‘Botany Bay Rothschild’ the lists make clear that Terry was far and away the heaviest buyer, acquiring a number of cattle, a plough (£1 5s.) and, for the hefty price of £50, a bullock-team, cart and harness. In fact, Terry spent the significant sum of £106 15s. at the sale, more than two-third of the total realised of £144 7s., with other buyers being Mr. [Daly], P. Traynor, and Mr. Campbell. Lord made just under £10 in commission as well as laying out 10 shillings for “advertisements,” certainly a reference to his notice of the impending auction of a bullock team, plough and a quantity of cattle, as published in the Sydney Gazette (13 January 1821, p.4), although it is interesting that Robinson is not mentioned in that advertisement by name.