Writings

Wentworth became involved in literary pursuits, and by 1824 had published a number of notable works. He had created a minor stir in 1816 by anonymously publishing a satirical verse attacking the Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales, George Molle. In 1819 he published a book entitled: A Statistical, Historical, and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and Its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land. In this book Wentworth advocated for an elected assembly for New South Wales, free press, trial by jury and settlement of Australia by free emigrants rather than convicts.^[1][16] It served as the source material for the first theatrical play set in Van Diemen's Land (modern-day Tasmania), the bushranging melodrama Michael Howe the Terror! of Van Diemen’s Land, which premiered in London in 1821.^[17]

In 1823 he also published an epic poem Australasia, the first book of verse by a native-born Australian poet,^[13] which contained the lines:

And, O Britannia!... may this—thy last-born infant—then arise,

To glad thy heart, and greet thy parent eyes;

And Australasia float, with flag unfurl'd,

A new Britannia in another world!^[18]

As well as describing the scenery Wentworth saw in the Blue Mountains, the poem featured a romanticised portrayal of the lifestyle of Aboriginal Australians.^[3]

Advocate for reform

Wentworth returned to Sydney in 1824, accompanied by fellow barrister Robert Wardell.^[19] He actively campaigned for the introduction of self-government and trial by jury in the colony by establishing with Wardell The Australian newspaper (not to be confused with the present-day paper of the same name), the colony's first privately owned paper. Governor Brisbane realised there was little point in continuing to censor The Sydney Gazette when The Australian was uncensored and so government censorship of newspapers was abandoned in 1824 and the freedom of the press began in Australia.^[20] With an editorial leaning toward the rights of ex-convicts (known as emancipists), the paper was in frequent conflict with Governor Ralph Darling, who attempted unsuccessfully to have it banned in 1826.^[21] Wentworth also became a director of the Bank of New South Wales in 1825.^[22][23]

Of The Australian, with its liberal sensibilities, one contemporary who commented on flogging and other harsh punishments administered to convicts in New South Wales went on to say:

...the system is not now so bad as it used to be. Since Dr Wardell and young Mr Wentworth came out, and began to look after the government and the magistrates, there are not such dreadful doings as there used to be in former times.^[24]

Wentworth's support for the rights of emancipists pitted him against the opposing exclusives. During a public meeting held on 21 October 1825 in tribute to the outgoing Governor Sir Thomas Brisbane, Wentworth denounced exclusives as “the yellow snakes of the Colony”, expressing a hope “to deprive them of their venom and their fangs”. He successfully proposed a motion to request Brisbane lobby Westminster for “the immediate establishment” of trial by jury and “Taxation by Representation.” Of his call for the establishment of an elected legislature, Wentworth noted “there are colonists of … very great influence at home who are inimical to the establishment in New South Wales of the British Constitution”.^[3] Wentworth and Wardell opined in The Australian:

Public meetings open the eyes of the people—shew them their own strength—moral as well as physical and convey to their reasoning faculties truths, to which, but for them, they might remain strangers. Public meetings expose the irresistibility of the people, if they firmly and legally claim their political due.^[3]

The death of Private Joseph Sudds in November 1826 inflamed Wentworth, prompting him to demand Governor Darling's recall. Sudds and Private Patrick Thompson had broken the law in an effort to be discharged. Darling, seeking to make an example of the two, sentenced Thompson and already-ill Sudds to seven years' hard labour with the unusual additional punishment of being chained from the neck for the entirety of their sentences. Wentworth described Sudds' death as "murder, or at least a high misdemeanour".^[1][25][3]

In 1827, Wentworth's father, D'Arcy Wentworth, died and William inherited much of his highly valuable assets and property, becoming one of the wealthiest men in the colony. He purchased land in eastern Sydney at Vaucluse and built a mansion named Vaucluse House, which he moved into from Petersham. Wentworth also acquired property in Homebush and in 1827 he received a grant of 12,000 acres of prime land along the Hunter River at Luskintyre.^[1][3][26]

A Freemason, Wentworth was an original member of the Lodge of Australia, which held its first recorded meeting on 6 April 1829.^[27][28]

Sarah Wentworth

On 26 October 1829, Wentworth married Sarah Cox, a convict-descended currency lass who had been represented by Wentworth in her successful 1825 breach of promise lawsuit against Captain John Payne.^[29] Wentworth and Sarah had previously named their daughter Thomasine in honour of Sir Thomas Brisbane.^[3] Three days prior to their marriage, a love poem to Sarah authored by Wentworth appeared in The Australian:

For I must love thee, love thee on,

Till life’s remotest latest minute;

And when the light of life is gone,—

Thou’ll find its lamp—had thee within it.^[3]

In 1830, following protracted conflict between Governor Darling and reformists including Wentworth which involved the reassignment of the foreman printer for The Monitor to a road gang, Parliament incorporated Wentworth’s legal argument that convicts could only be removed from assignments if it were to their benefit, and required the Governor to consult the Executive Council before taking such action.^[3]

Powerful squatter

William Wentworth

Wentworth expanded his property holdings, obtaining large pastoral grazing licenses throughout New South Wales. In 1832 he acquired land at Gammon Plains and in 1836 he bought the Windermere estate expanding his Hunter River holdings. In the 1830s he formed partnerships with Captain Thomas Raine and John Christie in taking up land along the Macquarie River from Narromine to Haddon Rig. In the 1840s with John Charles Lloyd, he acquired further massive landholdings along the Namoi River and at Manilla. In the Murrumbidgee River region, Wentworth employed Augustus Morris to establish huge squatting licenses in his name.^{[30][31][32][33]}

Some of these properties were immense and became famous as highly valuable sheep and cattle stations. These included the 120,000 acre Yanko property, the 200,000 acre Tala station, the Wambianna cattle property and the Galathra and Burburgate holdings. Wentworth was able to obtain most of these vast accumulations of land for only the £10 annual squatting fee, and after stocking them, was able to sell the properties for considerable profit.^{[34][35][36][37]}

In 1839, Wentworth led a consortium of Sydney speculators in an attempt to acquire large amounts of land in New Zealand from the resident Ngāi Tahu people. In exchange for paying chief Tūhawaiki a lump sum of £100 with an annual payment of £50, as well as £20 upfront and £10 annually for the other chiefs, Wentworth laid claim to 8 million hectares which amounted to around a third of the entire New Zealand land mass. This included the third of the South Island purchased by Edward Gibbon Wakefield from Te Rauparaha, an enemy of the chiefs Wentworth dealt with. The deed, 1000 words long, was written in dense legal jargon.^[3] Governor George Gipps intervened and prevented the transaction from proceeding, openly accusing Wentworth of an outrageous and immoral fraud against the Māori. This heightened the fierce enmity between the squatters and Gipps, with Wentworth, now a leading member of the "squattocracy", swearing "eternal vengeance" against Gipps for his interference.^[38]

Politician

During the 1830s, Wentworth continued to push his professed ideals of free emigration, trial by jury, rights for emancipists and elected representation. At a meeting on 29 May 1835, a meeting chaired by Wentworth discussed Henry Lytton Bulwer's proposal for a colonial committee to be formed which would act through a Parliamentary Advocate, for which Bulwer nominated himself, to represent New South Wales. The meeting resolved to raise £2,000 to fund the position by establishing the Australian Patriotic Association. During the meeting, when one speaker complained about the membership fee of £5 for directing members, Wentworth reportedly remarked that "Ignorance and poverty went together.” Wentworth committed £50 to the organisation.^[3]

The association was established by Wentworth and ex-convict William Bland and is believed to be the first political party in Australia. While it began as a broad church, division soon grew over the rights of emancipists, augmented by Wentworth drafting two bills for the association proposing not just representative government but also the repeal of all restrictions on trial by jury. However, by 1840 the political climate in New South Wales had changed and with Wentworth becoming one of the wealthiest and most powerful landholders in the colony, his views became very conservative.^[3][38]

In 1842, the British government passed the Constitution Act for New South Wales which allowed for elected representatives to outnumber those nominated by the Crown in the Legislative Council of New South Wales. The following year, 24 members were elected by eligible land-holding male citizens of the colony. Although these changes seemed to democratise governance in New South Wales, it in fact markedly increased the influence of the wealthy land-holding squatters due to the prerequisite of owning at least £2,000 worth of land in order to be a candidate.^[39][40][41] Wentworth was elected to the Council in 1843 for City of Sydney and soon became the leader of the conservative party, opposed to the liberal-minded members led by Charles Cowper.^[42]

Squatter leader

A bronze medallion portrait of Wentworth by Thomas Woolner, 1854

Wentworth positioned himself in government as a vocal leader for the wealthy squatters and landowners. He vehemently opposed any reforms that threatened the status of this "squattocracy" class and was instrumental in the removal of Governor Gipps in 1846 who wanted to fund free emigration to the colony through additional tariffs on squatting licences. With Gipps out of the picture, Wentworth was able to facilitate the passing of the Squatters' Act of 1848, which allowed for very favourable long-term pastoral leases to be handed out to the squatters.^[38]

Convict transportation to the colony ended in 1840 and with it the squatters lost a very cheap source of labour to work on their properties. Wentworth no longer approved of free European migration to fill the void as this was more costly. With other members of the squattocracy such as James Macarthur, Wentworth advocated for the introduction of indentured Chinese coolie labour and procured them as servants at his Vaucluse mansion and on his grazing properties. Wentworth advanced each coolie six Spanish dollars for passage from China, to be paid back over a five year labour contract. He treated them very poorly and had them punished with jail terms of hard labour for absconding. On one occasion, an interpreter for the Chinese workers verbally abused Wentworth following the sentencing of one of the workers, and was subsequently charged by Wentworth for absconding, and as such was sentenced to two months' imprisonment with hard labour.^[38][43]

During the trial, Wentworth quipped that the prisoners ought to be forced to work on treadmills. In 1851, he argued for the death penalty, arguing that "hardened felons, convicted of repeated grave offences would be punished best by death" and that such punishment would be "more reformatory in its effects" than any other. In light of these sentiments, the Australian newspaper, the progressive paper that Wentworth was no longer associated with, stated in the early 1850s that Wentworth's opinions were then worth nothing.^[44][1]

During his time leading elected conservatives in the Legislative Council between 1843 and 1854, Wentworth led agitation for the local control of Crown lands and revenue.^[42]

In 1848, Wentworth proposed the establishment of "a Congress from the various Colonial Legislatures" to legislate on "inter-colonial questions" in response to a suggestion from Earl Grey for a "central authority" for the Australian colonies. This preceded Australian federation in 1901.^[3][45]

Views on Aboriginal people

As a young writer in 1819, Wentworth saw Aboriginal Australians as occupying "the lowest place in the gradatory scale of the human species."^[46] He would argue against their legal protection in court and in the legislature, supporting punitive actions against Aboriginal peoples.

Thirty years’ intercourse with Europeans has not effected the slightest change in their habit; and those even, who have the most intermixed with the colonists, have never been prevailed upon to practise any of the arts of civilized life ... Frequent attempts have been made to divert them from their vagrant propensities, and to adopt some of the fixed occupations of social man; but except in one or two instances, these attempts have been utterly unsuccessful.^[46]

In 1820, Wentworth noted that the outbreak of smallpox decimating Aboriginal communities around Sydney was retold in traditional songs.^[47] He romanticised the lifestyle of Aboriginal Australians in his 1823 epic Australasia.^[3] In 1827, Wentworth was the defence counsel for Lieutenant Nathaniel Lowe who was accused and acquitted of shooting dead an Aboriginal prisoner. He stated to the court that Englishmen were justified in punitively killing Aboriginals as the law did not exist to protect, since it had an “inability” to punish, people who were "one degree just above the beasts":

We could not, according to any principles, have assumed any right of sovereignty over them; they are the free occupants of the demesne or soil; it belongs to them by law of nations, anterior to any laws which follow from human institutions ... there is no right of empire among them, no Chieftain in a condition, from their vagabond state, to make a treaty with the head of any civilized government. If there be no public compact of this sort, there can only exist a tacit compact among individuals, which goes no further than to say, we will be at peace with you if you keep peaceable with us, and that compact would be sufficient to authorize the gentleman at the bar to punish any of these natives who violated this compact, in any way he might think fit.^[48]

In 1844, there was a push to reform the judicial system to allow evidence to be given by Aboriginals. Wentworth was vociferous in his opposition, claiming that the evidence given by "this savage race" would be comparative to the "chatterings of the ourang-outang," and would enable them to "wreak their revenge on the unfortunate white man".^[49] When the issue was brought before the Council again in 1849, he referred to the proposal as "most fatal to the natives themselves [and] most cruel to the white inhabitants." He simultaneously referred to the hangings of the perpetrators of the 1838 Myall Creek massacre as "judicial murder" – it was reported in his obituary that "the Crown was thought by Mr. Wentworth, and by many more, to have strained the law against those who slew the savages," with their executions "bitterly and even fiercely resented by Wentworth, and ... perhaps, never forgiven or forgotten."^[50][4] While arguing against the proposal, Wentworth remarked:

...remember when the Cowpasture tribe made an inroad upon the settled lands, and on that occasion what was the course adopted by the Government? The military were ordered out by the Government—they opposed these savage marauders, and a slaughter, numerically considered very inconsiderable, ensued. But the force of the bullets and bayonets of the English forces prevailed, and peace and quiet was for ever obtained. It was not the policy of a wise Government to attempt the perpetuation of the aboriginal race of New South Wales by any protective means. They must give way before the arms, aye! even the diseases of civilised nations—they must give way before they attained the power of those nations.^[50]

In 1849, Wentworth supported the establishment of a Native Police force, believing "it would be the most powerful, perhaps, the only means, of averting those collisions between the blacks and the border settlers which had hitherto unfortunately existed." The first Commandant of the Native Police for the northern districts, Frederick Walker, was a personal friend of Wentworth's who also managed his immense property at Tala on the Murrumbidgee.^[51][52]

When the Wentworths sailed to Britain in 1862, their Aboriginal servant Bobby travelled with them. Bobby returned after finding the winters too cold, Sarah Wentworth remarking that “He is naturally so clever and sensible that I hope he will be content to go back to Vaucluse.”^[3]

University of Sydney

William Wentworth was instrumental in the establishment of the University of Sydney

Wentworth was a strong supporter of universal and secular education. He was involved in the establishment of the state primary education system in 1848, proposing the introduction of "Lord Stanley's system of national education" used in Ireland, with some modification so that:^[53]

...instead of the clergy and pastors of the several denominations being allowed to impart religious instruction in the schools, the children be allowed to be absent from school one day in every week exclusive of Sunday, for the purpose of receiving such instruction elsewhere...

The proposed amendment was passed by the Legislative Council and the Board of National Education was established shortly after.^[53] Wentworth was also key to the establishment of the University of Sydney. The university was Australia's first, and one of the first public, non-denominational and secular universities in the British Empire.^[54][10][55] The latter came about when Wentworth and Sir Charles Nicholson, a graduate of medicine from the University of Edinburgh Medical School, proposed in the Legislative Council a plan to expand the existing Sydney College – of which Wentworth was on the governing council – into a larger university. Wentworth argued that a state secular university was imperative for the growth of a society aspiring towards self-government, and that it would provide the opportunity for "the child of every class, to become great and useful in the destinies of his country".^[56][57][58]

I see In this measure the path opened to the poor man to the highest position which the country can afford him. So far from being an institution for the rich, I take It to be an institution for the poor. ... I trust that, from the pregnant womb of this institution will arise a long list of illustrious names—of statesmen—of patriots—of philanthropists—of philosophers—of poets and of heroes, who will shed a deathless halo, not only on their country, but upon the University which called them into being.^[59]

He promoted access on the basis of merit rather than religious or social status.^[57] Speaking in parliament in September 1849 advocating for the establishment of a university, Wentworth argued that:

No doubt on the subject of education great and deplorable apathy had existed in the colony; but while he wished not to excuse the community from their share of the blame, he must confess that this apathy seemed to him to be more chargeable on the Government than on the public. If it was the duty of the governments of other colonies to provide education for the people, that duty became infinitely more imperious here. If it was the duty of the State to instruct the free and virtuous population of those colonies, how much greater the necessity to enlighten the tainted population of this ... In this colony, therefore, of all others, it was the paramount duty of the Government to provide for the instruction of the people, and to reclaim it from the mood taint attaching to it, by elevating and enlightening the minds of its inhabitants.^[60]

On the university's secular mandate, Wentworth declared:

Clergy ... ought to be excluded altogether from ... [its] management ... its gates must be open to all whether they were disciples of Moses, of Jesus, of Brahmin, of Mohammed, of Vishnu or of Buddha.^[3]

Sydney newspaper The People's Advocate in October 1849 praised Wentworth for his efforts to establish the university, remarking that:

It is always a gratification of the highest order to behold a repentant sinner making some great and signal atonement for the errors of his past life ... Without broadly asserting that Mr. Wentworth is precisely in the position of the youthful sinner referred to, we think we can perceive in some of his recent actions evidence of a latent consciousness of not having discharged, his duty to his country, and of a desire to make some expiation for his culpable neglect, not to use a stronger term.^[61]

It took two attempts on Wentworth's behalf before the plan was finally adopted, culminating in the passage of the University of Sydney Act 1850 (NSW) on 24 September 1850. Wentworth was among the first members of the university's senate.^[56][57][58]

Wentworth helped endow the university, and donations from Wentworth funded the establishment of the Wentworth Medal in 1854 and the Wentworth Fellowship in 2020.^[62][63] The 1972-built Wentworth Building is named after him, and a statue of him stands in the Great Hall.^[64][65][66]

New South Wales constitution

Well before Wentworth led the creation of the first self-governing New South Wales constitution, he advocated for representative government in the colony. In his 1819 book, Wentworth wrote:

Every community which has not a free government is devoid of that security of person and property which has been found to be the chief stimulus to individual exertion and the only basis on which social edifice can repose in a solid and durable tranquility.^[67]

In April 1851, Wentworth established a committee to formulate a motion against the perceived inadequacies of the Australian Colonies Government Act. The "Declaration and Remonstrance" declared, among other things, that "the Imperial Parliament has not, nor of right ought to have any power to tax the people of this Colony," and that "plenary powers of legislation should be conferred upon and exercised by the Colonial Legislature ... [and] no bills should be reserved" for the Imperial Parliament unless they affected the Empire. Sir Henry Parkes later wrote of Wentworth that "His Declaration and Remonstrance is so important as one of the foundation-stones of the fabric of our constitutional liberties."^[3][68]

In 1853 Wentworth chaired the committee to draft a new constitution for New South Wales, which was to receive full responsible self-government from Britain. His draft provided for a powerful unelected Legislative Council and an elected Legislative Assembly with high property qualifications for voting and membership. He also suggested the establishment of a colonial peerage drawn from the landowning class. He described people without property as "idiots, unfit to have any voice" in parliament. This draft aroused the bitter opposition of the democrats and radicals such as Daniel Deniehy, who ridiculed Wentworth's plans for what he called a "bunyip aristocracy". The draft constitution was substantially changed to make it more democratic, although the Legislative Council remained unelected.^[1]

Australian confederation

Wentworth's constitution committee also proposed a General Assembly of the Australian Colonies to legislate on intercolonial matters, including tariffs, railways, lighthouses, penal settlements, gold and the mail. This was the first outline of the future Australian Commonwealth to be presented in an official colonial legislative report.^[69]

In 1857 while in London, Wentworth produced a draft Bill proposing a confederation of the Australian colonies, with each colony given equal representation in an intercolonial assembly, a proposal subsequently endorsed by his General Association for the Australian Colonies. He further proposed that a 'permissive Act' be passed by Parliament allowing the colonies of Australia or any subset of them which was not a penal settlement to federate at will. Wentworth, hoping to garner as broad support as possible, proposed a loose association of the colonies, which was criticised by Robert Lowe. The Secretary of State subsequently opted not to introduce the Bill stating it would probably lead to "dissension and discontent," distributing it nonetheless to the colonies for their responses. While there was in-principle support for a union of the colonies, the matter was ultimately deferred while NSW Premier Charles Cowper and Henry Parkes preferred to focus on liberalising Wentworth's squatter-friendly constitution.^[3]