William Sandys Elrington

Major William Sandys Elrington (1780—1860) was a British military officer, veteran of the Peninsular War, and colonial settler of New South Wales, Australia. He is associated with the locality of Farringdon, New South Wales and the village of Majors Creek, New South Wales, both near Braidwood. 
== Early life and military career ==
Elrington was born in Devon. His father was Captain Thomas Elrington, commander of a company of the Corps of Invalids (Great Britain) at the Royal Citadel, Plymouth. He was from a long line of soldiers, and descended—at least, so he believed—from William the Conqueror.
Elrington followed his family's tradition of employment and joined the army in 1795. He had a 29-year military career, including service in the Peninsular War (from 1809 to 1813) with the 11th Regiment of Foot, before selling his commission in 1826 and migrating to Australia.
== New South Wales ==
=== Migration ===
Elrington left Plymouth, in November 1826, and arrived in Sydney aboard Elizabeth, in April 1827. Early settlers would remember Elrington as a tall, red-headed, blue-eyed man, of soldierly bearing, carrying a scar on his forehead from being slashed with a sabre.
He had migrated to New South Wales during the administration of Governor Ralph Darling. Darling had been appointed with the objective of restoring discipline to the penal colony, after what was seen by the British government of the time as the relatively lax rule of Governor Macquarie and Thomas Brisbane. Darling tended to rely upon like-minded military men to staff his administration, and he favoured many such men with grants of land. 
Before Elrington had left England, he already had a land grant in New South Wales. He was appointed as a magistrate in 1828. In 1830, he was one of a number of prominent colonists, who were appointed as Justice of the peace#New South Wales|justices-of-the-peace, by Governor Darling.
=== Mount Elrington and other landholdings ===
After settler colonisation, Farringdon lay within the Nineteen Counties that were open to settlement. Elrington took up a land grant of 2560 acres there, which became known as 'Mount Elrington', in 1827. His new estate lay, in the upper part of the valley of the Shoalhaven River, on a left-bank tributary now known as Mount Creek. Early settlers said that the native name for the area was Jingro, Jinero, or Jineroo. It lay on the traditional lands of the Walbunja|Walbanga people, a group of the Yuin, from whom it was taken by the land grant. In its early years, Mount Elrington was the location of an annual distribution of government blankets to the surviving Aboriginal people.
Mount Elrington was one of the earliest colonial settlements, in the area south of what would later, in 1839, become the town of Braidwood, New South Wales|Braidwood, Three other early settlers—Duncan Mackellar, John Coghill (Australian politician)|John Coghill, and Thomas Braidwood Wilson—also took up land around Braidwood.
By 1828, using convict labour, he had cleared 500 acres of land and the estate was soon self-sufficient. Around 600 acres of the land was rich, alluvial, river-flat country, much of which may not have needed significant clearing. Although at the time the land was remote, it was arable and well-watered.
Unlike a number of The Wool other landholders in the Braidwood district, Elrington does not appear to have been a supporter or financial backer of the The Wool Road, to Vincentia, New South Wales|Jervis Bay. In fact, around the same time, in 1842, he seems to have been involved in raising subscription funding for a rival private road, from Ballalaba|Bellalaba to the port of Broulee, New South Wales|Broulee. Such a road would have connected Mount Elrington to a seaport on the coast. The road was have followed part of a cart route blazed by Charles Nicholson, from Broulee to the Monaro, in 1841.
By August 1844, then 64 years old and seeking to retire, Elrington was trying to sell his land. By then, his landholding consisted of three large pieces of land; 'Mount Elrington' (2560 acres), 'Smithleagh' (1865 acres, on two titles of 1220 and 645 acres, its northern boundary adjoining Mount Elrington, and its eastern boundary being the Shoalhaven River) and 'Stork' (2560 acres, four miles east of 'Smithleagh'.) The names of the two later properties, are significant; it is almost certain that 'Smithleagh' was named for Mary Smith—whose name seems to have been on its two title deeds, as purchaser— and the oddly-named 'Stork' refers to the heraldic animal on the Elrington family coat of arms. There were also a large number of horses, sheep and cattle, some grazing on other land, as far away as the Monaro (New South Wales)|Monaro. By that time, Elrington was breeding fine horses. It appears that Elrington's land came with some pre-emptive rights, to adjoining government land, and that the total landholding was around 9300 acres.
His home at Mount Elrington was described as, "a substantial ten-roomed verandah dwelling, with stone store, and kitchen, a garden of six acres, well stocked with the choicest fruit trees, and vegetables, stables, cart sheds, sheep shed, forge, men's huts, saw pits, &c."
=== Colonial magistrate ===
In May 1828, Elrington was appointed as a magistrate, joining Captain John Coghill (Australian politician)|John Coghill as a local Police Magistrate. Captain Duncan Mackellar was also a magistrate. All were ex-military men, who were local land-owners using assigned convict labour. In 1838, he would be joined by a newly-appointed magistrate for the Braidwood district, yet another ex-military man and landowner, Lieutenant Colonel John Mackenzie (colonial settler)|John Mackenzie of Nerriga, New South Wales|Nerriga. Mercifully, each magistrate was prohibited from trying their own assigned convicts, and for more serious offences were required to adjudicate in pairs.
When the liberal-minded Richard Bourke replaced Ralph Darling as Governor in late 1831, he was horrified at the severity and arbitrary application of punishments being given to convicts. In August 1832, he had passed the Offenders Punishment and Summary Jurisdiction Act, which for the first time both codified and limited the penalties that could be imposed on convicts. There was resistance from existing magistrates, but the reforms were implemented, and improved, if only relatively, the treatment of convicts.
As might be expected from a Martinet#In English|martinet like Elrington, he was an advocate of summary punishment and greater powers for single magistrates. Hearings were held at his home at Mount Elrington, which given the absence of a nearby town, at the time, was more reasonable than it first might appear. A constable was stationed at Mount Elrington.
Local lore has it that two gum trees, on the Shoalhaven River near Mount Elrington, which were cut down in the 1920s, had been used as makeshift gallows, and hangings were carried out there. This local legend seems unlikely, as magistrates could not impose the death sentence, although they certainly could, and did, impose penalties involving Flagellation|flogging or imprisonment. It is said that, locally, Elrington was known as 'the flogging Major'.
Remoteness from large towns with prisons was not without its consequences. One particularly egregious case was that of a fifteen year old, free-born, orphaned servant girl, Martha Cadman—sentenced by Elrington to three months, 'for improper conduct in her hired service'—who was raped by one of the ex-convict constables escorting her to the 'House of Correction', in 1836. The constable, Patrick Brady, escaped the death penalty, although found guilty. Despite her personal courage in reporting the offence and later giving evidence, it did not end well for Martha, reportedly later the 'kept mistress' of one of the jurors at Brady's trial. In hindsight, these appalling outcomes had been triggered by Elrington's harsh sentencing of Martha, for running away from an employer, whom she said had ill used her, and remaining at large for just two days. 
Elrington resigned as a magistrate, unexpectedly, around September 1839. He did not comment publicly on his resignation. It seems that the cause was a disagreement with Governor Gipps. Elrington had refused to endorse the Ticket of leave|ticket-of-leave application of one of his former convict Stockman (Australia)|stockmen, whom he suspected was a cattle thief, but Gipps granted the ticket-of-leave.
=== Convict servants ===
As part of the Convicts in Australia|convict system, male and female convicts were assigned to landowners, as labourers, Stockman (Australia)|stockmen, gardeners, shepherds, servants, or people with trades of various kinds. By 1841, there were 59 people living at Mount Elrington, the majority of whom were assigned convicts. It is reported that at dinner time, Elrington sat at one end of the table and at the other, his son, Richard, each with a loaded pistol, and that no convict servant was allowed to walk behind either of them. Recalcitrant convicts were kept in a small prison at Mount Elrington.
Conditions were harsh and the estate was near the frontier of 'legal' colonial settlement. Assigned convicts sometimes took the chance to abscond from Mount Elrington. 
One of Elrington's assigned convicts, John Hare, had absconded twice and was about to be punished with 100 lashes, when he broke away and attacked Elrington. Hare brought two large stones down on Elrington's head, while shouting that he would take Elrington's life. Although he survived the attack, the head wound had a lasting impact on Elrington, who reported frequent giddiness and nervousness. In February 1836, charged with attempted murder, Hare was convicted, by a jury, of assault with intent to do some grievous bodily harm. He was executed in March 1836, for the attempted murder of Elrington.
Eventually, with the Convicts in Australia#Cessation of transportation|cessation of convict transportation in 1840 and the end of the assignment of new convicts to private service on 21 July 1841—which created a shortage of new low-cost labour— the economic basis of estates like Mount Elrington began to change gradually, from an excess of compelled, unpaid labour to free, paid labour.
== Family, later life, and death ==
By the time that he came to Australia, his wife, Elizabeth (née Caines), about whom little is known with certainty, was already dead. He had two sons, Clement Caines Elrington (born c.1807) and Richard Goodall Elrington (1814—1870), both graduates of University of Cambridge|Cambridge. Richard—who had exactly the same name as his father's elder brother—came to Australia with his father and a much older woman, Mary Smith, thought to be William's old nanny, who acted as a housekeeper. Mary seems to have been the widow of a sergeant of Elrington's father's invalid company. It is said that she called Elrington, 'the boy', and Richard, 'the young boy'.
Richard, who was headstrong, much like his father, wanted to marry Louisa Clarke (1810—1893), the sister of Dr George Clarke, medical practioner, of Penrith, New South Wales|Penrith. Although Louisa was a highly educated, beautiful young woman, Elrington objected to the marriage—Louisa was the daughter of a London merchant and thus 'in trade'—and would not consent to it. The couple eloped, marrying at Campbelltown, New South Wales|Campbelltown, in 1838, and living for a time in Sydney, where Richard worked as a tutor and Louisa as a governess. Elrington responded by disinheriting Richard. The imminent birth of a grandchild restored relations between Elrington and his son. Richard and heavily-pregnant Lousa returned to live at Mount Elrington. A granddaughter was born there, in 1839, followed by a grandson, in 1841. Elrington became reconciled to his son's marriage, and very fond of Louisa and the children. Sadly, the harmony did not last. A quarrel over the management of the estate, resulted in harsh words and in father and son shaping to fight a duel. At the last moment, Elrington threw down his pistol and apologised to his son. However, Richard had reached the end of his relationship with an overbearing father; he left Mount Elrington, immediately thereafter, with his wife and two children, ignoring the pleas of his then remorseful father. 
Richard and his family, apparently now estranged from Elrington, were living in Sydney by 1845 and, in the same year, Mary Smith died and was buried at Mount Elrington. Elrington sold his land and left Australia, for good, in 1846. He died, at his home in Southsea|Southsea, Hampshire, on 4 May 1860 
Richard Elrington, discovered his vocation as a Shakespeare in performance|Shakespearian actor, and remained in Australia. By 1847, he was performing in Victoria, and living there with his family. Louisa, making use of her education and talents, taught for a living, as did Richard at times.. Richard died at Ararat, Victoria|Ararat in 1870, survived by his wife, Louisa, two daughters, and four sons. The other Richard Goodall Elrington (1776—1845), William Sandys Elrington's elder brother, was a lifelong soldier who, despite a court-marital in 1831-1832, reached the rank of Major-General. 
Clement, Elrington's elder son, came to Australia in 1835, as a Lieutenant of the 4th Regiment of Foot, escorting convicts. He had only recently joined that regiment which was bound for New South Wales, and possibly only did so to make the journey with a source of income. Once in New South Wales, in 1836, he sold his commission and retired from the army. In 1840, he bought 640 acres of land—at a lower cost, as a result of his recent military service—far from Mount Elrington, near Maitland, New South Wales, in the Hunter Region. However, he was very different in temperament to both his father and his younger brother, Richard. He sold the land for a quick profit, in 1841, and he is now mainly remembered as a minor poet. Although uncertain, it is likely that he later returned to England, where he died a bachelor. Although Clement had owned the land in the Hunter Valley only briefly, his name remained associated with it. His former land was later a part of the vast South Maitland coalfields, and the Elrington Colliery and the locality of Elrington, near Cessnock, New South Wales, are named after him.
== Legacy ==
Elrington is remembered by the name of Elrington Street, in Braidwood, New South Wales, most street names of which are taken from those of early settlers of the surrounding region. 
South of Braidwood, a settlement officially known as Elrington came into being, around 1840. From the time of the first gold mining, around 1851, it was better known as Majors Creek, New South Wales|Majors Creek, but still was at least officially, Elrington. Both these names stem from Major William Sandys Elrington. Majors Creek's sole commercial business, its hotel and post office agency, is still known as the Elrington Hotel. The Lands administrative divisions of Australia|cadestral area containing the town of Majors Creek is known as the St Vincent County#Parishes within this county|Parish of Elrington.
His former home, at Farringdon, still known as 'Mount Elrington', is renowned for the remnants of its historic garden. The garden was begun by Elrington, who brought many of the trees and shrubs from England. His old home retained its small prison, complete with leg irons, until the early 1920s. The old house still stands, in somewhat modified condition, on Mount Elrington Road, but the locality—once Mount Elrington—is now known as Farringdon.
During the 1920s, Elrington's great-grandaughter Eleanor Anne Ogilvy (née Hewetson), wrote a screenplay, 'The Martinet', about the life and times of Elrington and her grandparents, Richard Elrington and Louisa Clarke. She disguised the Elrington family—probably in deference to her Elrington cousins—by making the characters' surname 'Sandys'—Elrington's middle name—although other historical characters, such as the Clarke family, retained their names. She also admitted that she deviated from the historical narrative in the character of 'Lieutenant Sandys', the elder son. Copyright was granted, in 1930, and a copy of the screenplay is held in the National Archives of Australia,National Archives of Australia. NAA: A1336, 30738 but It seems that the film was never made.
Category:1780 births
Category:1860 deaths
Category:British military officers
Category:People from Devon