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| Field name | Value |
|---|---|
| Title | Land Grant to Thomas Preston |
| Date | 20 Aug 1789 |
| Document Type | Legal Papers; Manuscript |
| Reference | D_2001-001 |
| Library / Archive | Maritime Museum of Tasmania |
| Description | This land grant to Thomas Preston was one of the very first to be allocated in Van Diemen’s Land. Preston was one of six families and five single men who arrived with Governor Collins in 1804 to establish small farms in the new colony. Each was given 100 acres, provided with tools, provisions for three years and seed for one year (Hayes, J. J. The Early Settlement of Tasmania; The Mercury, 12 September 1903). |
| Biographical Note / History | The farms were situated at New Town, a small distance from the Hobart Town settlement. Preston’s grant was officially signed by Governor Philip Gidley King in Sydney in December 1805. It states that his farm was located at Staniforth Bay (now New Town Bay) and was bound on the west by Pitt Farm (which is the location of the second oldest farmhouse still in existence in Australia). Preston’s land was named Temperance Farm – perhaps inappropriately since JJ Hayes noted that, “The whole community seemed to give way to intemperance, and the rum keg was the most prominent household vessel.” The grant also has the signatures of John Sloan and William Collins who purchased the property from Preston in January 1808. William Collins, a seaman interested in establishing a whale fishery, had also arrived with Collins and was made Harbour Master of Hobart on his arrival. Later he became a merchant, ship-owner and whaler. Collins paid Sloan out in 1809 and the following year sold part of the land to Jacob Mountgarrett who had arrived with Lieutenant John Bowen in 1803, as surgeon to the new Derwent settlement at Risdon Cove. When Bowen and his party left after Collins’ decision to relocate the settlement to Sullivan’s Cove (Hobart), Mountgarrett stayed on as a settler. |
| Theme(s) | Arrivals: Ports and Early Experiences; Permanent Settlement and Successive Generations; Politics, Legislation and Governance |
| Ports | Sydney, Australia; Hobart, Tasmania |
| Nationality | English |
| People | Preston, Thomas; Gigley King, Govenor Philip; Collins, William; Sloan, John; Mountgarrett, Jacob; Bowen, Lieutenant John |
| Keywords | emigration, immigrant, farming, agriculture, whaling, land grant |
| Language | English |
| Copyright | Maritime Museum of Tasmania |
