William Furber

  General Notes:

<>An article by Maitland Historian Harry Boyle in the Maitland Mercury on 26 April 2000 recorded particulars of George Furber A George Furber was one of five foundation initiates in Maitland Lodge or Unity on 4 November 1840, the day the lodge was formed The subject of the historical article would have been thirty and so could have been the one who joined Lodge Unity at that time. His father was William Furber and arrived in the Colony in the “Neptune’ in 1795. William married at Penrith on 1 January’ 1808; George was born in 1810. William died in 1811 In January 1813 a “John Smith” was tried at Leicester and sentenced to seven years. He arrived here in 1814 on the “General Hewitt” and in the same year married at Parramatta to the widow Mary Furber In 1817 he was transported to Newcastle for stealing tobacco from his master. He was a well behaved person and was allowed to settle at Wallis Plains. George Furber was John Smith’s stepson and so would have been one of the first settlers in Maitland. By 1830 he was working land and had a convict assigned to him. He cleared the first streets in Maitland, became a landowner in Bank Street, Lawes Street and on the Paterson River. He became the Innkeeper of the George and Dragon. He was affected by the depression of 1840 and was declared insolvent. He had married Mary Muir in 1832 but she died in 1837. He married again to Honorah Curtin who went with him to Queensland and was the only white woman in the area for a long time. There Furber took over “Girkum”, a station which had been abandoned by John Eales because of the fierce nature of aboriginals who had speared shepherds and sheep. He built a store and wharf on the Mary River and opened an Inn. In 1847, he and an employee were building a fence with two aboriginals and at a given signal one aboriginal chopped Furber’s skull while the other killed his employee. Furber later rode 150 miles to lpswich for attention and when he recovered he searched for the aboriginal and shot him. Furber and his son—in—law, Joseph Wilmhurst, were decoyed into an ambush in the bush and surrounded and murdered in December 1855. He had been a pioneer of Maitland and Queensland and died at the young age of 44.
<>Acknowledgements: Maitland Historian Harry Boyle & Maitland Mercury 26 April 2000

Second-Fleet Convict pioneer of Kissing Point
William Furber was born c.1768, and arrived in Australia as a convict, aged about 22, in the Second Fleet <http://www.historyaustralia.org.au/ifhaa/ships/2ndfleet.htm> aboard the “death ship” Neptune on 28 June 1790 (his Convict Indent showed his name as William Philip Forber) 1. He had been committed to Gloucester Castle Gaol on 28 September 1784, charged with the theft of a brown mare from one William Mower in the parish of Berkeley. He was sentenced to death at the March 1785 Gloucester Assizes, but was reprieved soon afterwards to transportation for 14 years and by early 1787 had been sent to the Ceres hulk on the Thames, age given as 19. Coincidentally this hulk was also to house his future father-in-law, Anthony Brian </familyhistory/getperson.php?personID=I0055&tree=DavoTree>, when it was moored at Portsmouth about eighteen months later, but by that time Furber had been moved to the Thames hulk Censor. He stayed on the Censor, labouring on public works, until 12 November 1789 when he was embarked on the Neptune for the trip to Sydney Cove 2.
By all reports the journey of the Second Fleet was fraught with deprivation for the convicts. Of a total of about 1243 convicts who embarked, some 267 died during the trip; 158 on the Neptune alone, and another 124 died soon afterwards. Such was the outcry on the condition of the prisoners on their arrival in Port Jackson that the Master of the Neptune, Donald Trail, escaped prosecution only by absconding. 3
Conditions in the Colony at that time were harsh, with severe food shortages. To make matters worse, HMS Guardian <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Guardian_(1784)>, having been loaded with food and other provisions in response to requests from Governor Phillip, had sunk off the Cape of Good Hope after colliding with an iceberg.
Given these conditions it is not surprising that the authorities encouraged the practice of farming, and in 1795 William Furber, whilst still a convict, was farming 30 acres of land at fertile, heavily-forested Kissing Point, becoming a recognised pioneer of the area. Some of the trees at that time were over 300 feet tall and up to 50 feet in circumference. 4 In 1797 he married Margaret McArthur 5 or McArby 6, who had arrived as a convict on the Indispensible, at St John's Church, Parramatta.
In February 1799 his wife lodged a complaint in the Sydney Magistrates' Court, charging another woman with "having publicly accused her of adultery & fornication, which had occasioned some serious disturbances between her husband and herself". The court found blame on both sides, and both parties agreed to "depart quietly home & live upon amicable terms together" 7
By 1800 he bought his farm, and was obviously industrious, for despite the lack of implements and beasts, by the 1801 Muster he and his wife were "Off Stores" (i.e. self-sufficient in feeding themselves) and had 4 sheep, 8 pigs, 6 acres of wheat and 10 acres ready for maize to be planted. By the following year he had cleared 27 acres, had 12 under wheat and 10 for maize, had 18 hogs, 10 bushels of wheat and 100 bushels of maize in store, and had two Government Servants (i.e. prisoners) working for him 8.
In 1805, by now having served his time and hence a free man, he had 2 acres of potatoes in addition to wheat and maize, and had 61 sheep and 8 goats as well as hogs, and had 3 prisoners and one free man working for him 9. He also had "upwards of 3000 fruit trees of different kinds" 10. In fact Kissing Point, from being "the original oasis of plenty between Australia's first two settlements, went on to become the fruit bowl of the colony" 11. Furber's orchard grew peaches, oranges, guavas and lemons, and on Sunday 10 May 1805 he placed the following advertisement in the Sydney Gazette and NSW Advertiser: "For Sale. By W. Furber, at Kissing Point, a number of peach seedlings of a proper age for transplanting, and, if taken in quantities, will be disposed of at the very low price of 4d. each plant. Also, some very fine vinegar at 8s. per gallon." 12 He also advertised a kangaroo dog for sale in the same year.
In May 1806 he offered a reward for information regarding the disappearance of his hired stock keeper Thomas Rice, a Ticket-of-Leave convict, who had absconded. By then it also appears his marriage had broken down, for in an advertisement in the Sydney Gazette of 29 June he disclaimed responsibility for his wife's debts. 13
In February 1807 he advertised his farm for sale 14, but on 3 October he obtained a loan for £8/18/4 from John Blaxland, elder brother of explorer Gregory, to purchase pigs. 15
On 4 January 1808 at St John's Church, Parramatta he married Mary Brian </familyhistory/getperson.php?personID=I0054&tree=DavoTree> (Bryan) 16, the eldest child, born on 7 April 1792 and thus not yet 16, of Anthony Brian and Elizabeth Dean </familyhistory/getperson.php?personID=I0056&tree=DavoTree> who married on 3 October 1795. Both of Mary's parents were also Second Fleeters, Anthony having arrived on the Surprize and Elizabeth on the Lady Juliana 17.
In the Sydney Gazette of 1 October 1809, William was described as "an early nurseryman who, for years, supplied the market with fruit, seedlings and vinegar" 18. On 4 June of the same year his property was described in the Gazette as "a capital 30-acre farm at Kissing Point with a shingled dwelling place, capital barn, outhouses, pig styles, sheep-shade, a capital orchard, fenced in, containing excellent peach, pear, orange, guava and lemon trees; 12 acres of wheat, 1 of oats and clover, an acre and a half of potatoes; 3 acres of corn planted and most of the ground broke up." 19 About this time another servant absconded.
A son, George </familyhistory/getperson.php?personID=I0051&tree=DavoTree>, was born to the couple on 18 December 1810 20 and baptised 10 February 1811.
On 4 May 1811 and possibly, like many of his fellow Second Fleeters, in failing health, he advertised peach trees for 2/6d., and was seeking a man and wife to farm 18 or 20 acres of his land in return for breaking up 5 acres annually "with the considerable advantage that there are now peach trees on the ground that will be capable of producing 200 bushels of cyder annually" 21.
William Furber died and was buried about 23 July 1811, aged 45 22. Unfortunately his grave can no longer be distinguished, the headstone having been either eroded too badly to be deciphered or vandalised. His widow Mary went on to marry John Smith in 1814. By 1820 many of the early settlers at Kissing Point had gone, their farms losing productivity due to being overworked and under-fertilized, there being a lack of manure in the colony due to insufficient cattle herds.
Compiled by Ian Davidson<http://familyhistory.davoweb.net>Last modified 10 Jan 2007

References
1 RYAN, R.J., The Second Fleet Convicts, Australian Documents Library Pty Ltd, Sydney, 1982
2 FLYNN, Michael, The Second Fleet - Britain's Grim Convict Armada of 1790, Library of Australian History, Sydney, 1993, p.281
3 ibid
4 LEVY, M.C.I., "Wallumetta" - A History of Ryde and its District 1792-1945, Sydney, 1947
5 MUTCH, Thomas D. Index of Births, Deaths & Marriages, 1788-1857, mss
6 ARCHIVES AUTHORITY OF NSW, Marriages Pre-1800 microfiche
7 FLYNN, Michael, op. cit.
8 BAXTER, Carol J. (ed.), Musters & Lists New South Wales & Norfolk Island 1800-1802, Australian Biographical & Genealogical Record, Sydney, 1988
9 BAXTER, Carol J. (ed.), Muster of New South Wales & Norfolk Island 1805-1806, Australian Biographical & Genealogical Record, Sydney, 1989
10 GEEVES, Philip, A Place of Pioneers - The Centenary History of the Municipality of Ryde, Ryde Municipal Council, Sydney, 1970, p.44
11 ibid., p.43
12 Quoted in PACEY, F.S., Ryde 1790-1926, Sydney, 1926, p.39
13 FLYNN, Michael, op. cit.
14 ibid
15 ARCHIVES OFFICE OF NSW, Colonial Secretary's Papers Microfilm reel no. 6043, bundle 4/1727, p. 202 "Statement of Capital advanced by John Blaxland in his Concerns from 3 April 1807 to 14 September 1808"
16 SMEE, C.J., The Second Fleet Families of Australia, Sydney, 1990; also Mutch Index op. cit.; also ARCHIVES AUTHORITY OF NSW op. cit.
17 SMEE, C.J., op. cit.
18 Quoted in LEVY, M.C.I., op. cit., p. 36
19 ibid.
20 Mutch Index op. cit.; also ARCHIVES AUTHORITY OF NSW, Baptisms Pre-1800 Microfiche
21 Quoted in GEEVES, Philip, op. cit., p.44
22 Mutch Index op. cit.; also ARCHIVES AUTHORITY OF NSW, Burials Pre-1836 microfiche
(Ian Davidson)- This information was copied from Davoweb- the Family history of the Davidson Family of Australia- http://familyhistory.davoweb.net/showmedia.php?mediaID=27

William married Mary Brian, daughter of Anthony Brian and Elizabeth Dean, on 1 Jan 1808 in Church of England, Parramatta, St. John's NSW, Australia.⁸⁹⁷ (Mary Brian was born on 7 Apr 1792 in Sydney New South Wales, Australia ⁷⁶⁸ and died in 1867 in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.)

  Marriage Notes:

According to the Maitland News article this marriage occured in Penrith. According to the BDM's this marriage ocurred at Parramatta, either could be correct.