Tahlee is a heritage-listed former pastoral property of in the suburb of Tahlee situated on the north side of Port Stephens near Karuah in New South Wales, Australia. It is the original site of the Australian Agricultural Company and more recently the location of the former Tahlee Bible College. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
History
Earliest inhabitants The earliest inhabitants of this area were the Worimi tribe. Tahlee comes from the local Aboriginal word, Tarlee, meaning "sheltered from the wind and above water".
European discovery Captain James Cook first sighted Port Stephens on 11 May 1777. He named it after Philip Stephens, then Secretary to the Admiralty. Charles Grimes, Surveyor General of the Colony, explored the area in 1795. It was concluded from his unfavourable report that it would never "be necessary to send a second time to it".Parry, William Edward, Sir. Early Days of Port Stephens: Extracts from Sir Edward Parry’s diary (Dungog: Dungog Chronicle; between 1940 and 1960), p3 This report was later criticised when Newcastle Harbour was established.
Australian Agricultural Company In 1824, London was in the midst of an enormous stock market boom. With Australian wool becoming increasingly important, two companies – the Australian Agricultural Company (AACo.) and the Van Diemen's Land Company – were floated on the London Stock Exchange to promote raising fine-wooled sheep in the Australian colonies. The AACo. became a major force in the Australian coal and pastoral industries and in the settlement and development of the Hunter River and Port Stephens regions. Today, listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, it is the oldest Australian company operating under its original name.
Founded by a special Act of Parliament and under Royal Charter, it acquired the right to hold and sell land in New South Wales. Its founding members were a group of British bankers, merchants and politicians who saw the potential for big profits to be made in the colony.
The terms of the charter were that most of the labour would be provided by convicts under the supervision of superintendents, overseers and skilled mechanics sent from England. If, at the end of 15 years, the company had expended 10,000 pounds on improvements and employed 1400 convicts, it would obtain freehold title to its land. The size of the land grant was not specified in the charter, but discussions between the company directors and the Colonial Office settled on one million acres.
The company appointed a chief agent, Robert Dawson and a Colonial Committee to assist him. This eventually included just three people – James Macarthur (fourth son of John Macarthur), his cousin Hannibal Macarthur and his brother-in-law, Principal Surgeon, James Bowman. The committee took a four-year lease of "The Retreat" (later 'Kelvin') at Bringelly near Camden for the immediate accommodation of imported stock, and sought advice on the best location for the land grant.
In June 1825 Dawson sailed from the Isle of Wight with 27 employees and their wives and families, 800 French and Anglo merino sheep, 8 cattle and 6 horses. They were followed a few weeks later by an overseer, 6 shepherds and a further 79 French merinos.
In January 1826, when people and stock were settled, Dawson sailed to Newcastle with a small party on the "Liverpool Packet" and from there, they travelled across country to inspect Port Stephens, an area which, of all those suggested, had the great advantage of access by water.
On the northern shore of Port Stephens, Dawson noticed land which seemed ideal. About 800 acres were suitable for growing corn, while the surrounding hills provided good sheep grazing country, with plenty of fresh water and lime (oyster shells) for building, all situated on a magnificent harbour.
Dawson hurried back to Sydney, determined to take the whole million-acre grant between Port Stephens and the Manning River (named for the AACo.'s deputy governor, William Manning).
Initially known to Europeans by its Aboriginal name, Caribbean, the settlement at Port Stephens was renamed after the banking peer, Lord Carrington, brother of the company's first governor.Pemberton, 2009, 56-7 He was Britain's first Lord Carrington and had strong AACo. links. His grandson was later to become a Governor of New South Wales and Newcastle's Bullock Island was later renamed Carrington in his honour.
One version of the name "Tahlee", a Gringal Aboriginal tribal name, was supposed to mean "sheltered from the wind".
Dawson was much maligned. He gave the Barrington Tops and Barrington River their names. He also clashed with stormy wool pioneer John Macarthur.Scanlon, 2008
Dense bushland with sweeping water views was cleared and settled. In February 1826 Dawson arrived with cattle, sheep and convicts with the express purpose of growing fine wool for the mills of England and to secure a handsome profit for his bosses. The estate's main entry was by sea. It was the first major influx of private investment in Australia. Tahlee House became the original headquarters of the AACo. The house was eventually to become the home of four of the AACo.'s chief agents: Dawson, Parry, Dumaresq and King, whose names were commemorated in Newcastle inner-city street names.
Within four years, by 1830, a new waterfront area of Carrington village, a few hundred metres away from Tahlee, boasted of being the first planned company town in Australia with a population of more than 500 souls and a school for 50 children.
The original Carrington village initially had a 26-man military barracks made of brick, a row of 11 substantial cottages, a surgery, a permanent shearing shed, a butcher shop, offices, workshops, a brick kiln, a timber yard, a jail and two wharves.
Over the next two years, Dawson explored the estate, naming many features after the company's directors or places of fine wool production in England. The village at No. 2 Farm took its name, Stroud, from the Gloucestershire town renowned for its manufacture of scarlet cloth; the Barrington River (and Barrington Tops) in honour of Dawson's previous employer, Lord Barrington.
By the end of 1826 a chain of company sheep stations stretched from Carrington in the south to the Gloucester River in the north. Dawson had purchased flocks of colonial ewes and overseen the first shearing, dispatching the wool to England. He had also made arrangements to survey the entire land grant.
Tahlee Estate was occupied by the AACo. in 1826 as their (first) headquarters. It was the first point of European settlement in the district, and there was extensive contact with the local Aboriginal people.
The Commissioner's house was built on the site, and workers housing was built in the nearby village of Carrington. The workers included convict and free workers.Integrated Design Associates, 1999 The 172-acre estate had few owners and has been left largely intact.
All appeared to be going well but difficulties gradually arose between Dawson and the Colonial Committee which led to Dawson's dismissal in April 1828. John Macarthur took over for a few months before abruptly returning to Sydney, leaving everything in the capable but inexperienced young accountant, Edward Ebsworth.
Meanwhile, in London, the Colonial Office had approached the directors with a proposal that the company should take over the coal mining operations at Newcastle and, after lengthy discussions, the company agreed. John Henderson was appointed colliery manager and arrived in Australia in January 1827 with mechanics, labourers and equipment, 230 sheep and 3 horses. He spent nearly a year prospecting for coal around Newcastle, at Port Stephens and along the Parramatta River, concluding that without the Newcastle coalfield, the company had no mining prospects, but Governor Darling was loath to give it up.
Dawson's dismissal, Henderson's return to England and rumours that the Port Stephens estate in its entirety was unsuitable for their purposes all came as a shock to the directors. As far as the coal venture was concerned, they were prepared to abandon the project provided the Colonial Office paid compensation. After much negotiation, however, it was agreed in June 1828 that the Governor would be instructed to hand over the coalfields, together with a land grant at Newcastle, and that Henderson would return to the colony as colliery manager. By way of compensation the company was granted a 32-year monopoly on coal mining in New South Wales.
Sir William Edward Parry, the Arctic explorer and hydrographer, became the next commissioner of the AA Co in 1829 and arrived at Tahlee in March 1830. Parry set about restoring order at the neglected Port Stephens settlement and assessing the estate there and a possible exchange of land. The next two years were taken up with exploration to the north and west beyond the Dividing Range. In February 1831 Parry visited Governor Darling to negotiate the exchange of the north-eastern part of the Port Stephens estate (north from Bulahdelah) for two blocks of roughly 250,000 acres each – one on the Liverpool Plains (Warrah) and the other on the Peel River (Goonoo Goonoo).Parry, Edward. Memoirs of Rear-Admiral Sir WE Parry (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans and Roberts; 1857) His five-year tenure was marked by progress and social reformation. Under his direction, Booral House, Stroud House and Telegherry House were constructed, along with a flour mill at Stroud and a dam on the Karuah River, now known as Washpool. He also personally oversaw the construction of a steamship named "The Karuah."
Parry was a devout Christian. When he discovered that the settlement lacked a church, he conducted his own Sunday service in the carpenter's shop at Carrington. In 1833 he constructed St John's church in Stroud and laid the cornerstone himself. Lady Parry opened a school and provided for the education of nearly 50 children. An adult school was also commissioned for the prisoners who wished to learn how to read and write.
Parry also oversaw the formation of the colliery at Newcastle. Henderson had surveyed and rejected the government mines, so after putting down test boreholes on the hill and Government Reserve to the west of the town, Parry finally chose a site for the first pit that enabled the use of an inclined plane railway to take the coal skips to the company's wharf on the Hunter River. Work at the mine began on 14 January 1832. The promised land grant of 2000 acres was marked out – now covered by Newcastle's suburbs of Cook's Hill and Hamilton.
Sir Edward Parry in May 1832 was plunged into grief due to the death of his beloved and revered mother, which he learned of through Sydney newspapers.Thomson, 1986, 28
Lady Parry had been a Miss Stanley, a member of the titled Stanley family of Alderley in Cheshire. The residence of the commissioner and his lady on the shores of Port Stephens became a social centre for the district, as well as an administrative centre for the A.A.Company. The house, "Tahlee", still evokes some of the charm, comfort and agreeable atmosphere it must have possessed when inhabited by Parrys. Sir Edward, a deeply religious man, was not only responsible to the London company directors, but also regarded the spiritual and physical well-being of almost 500 people on the company's estate as a solemn and personal responsibility.