William Henry Yaldwyn

could have prevented two massacres of Aboriginal people but chose not to. He was also a magistrate in Melbourne at the time Merriman and Harlequin were incarcerated.

He was born at Blackdown House in Lodsworth, Sussex, England on 6 September 1801 to Richard Yaldwyn and his wife Martha (née Serle) and was privately educated on the family estate.

In 1831, he married Henrietta Mary Bowles in Cuckfield, Sussex.

William Henry Yaldwyn travelled to Australia on 5 May 1836 from Gravesend to Sydney on the “William Glen Anderson”. His wife Henrietta, their two children William (Willy) and Henrietta (Dally) with Caroline Bowles his sister-in-law accompanied him. After a short stay in Sydney, the family travelled to Yass where Yaldwyn purchased 2,695 acres (1,091 ha) of land freehold from the New South Wales Government. William and Henrietta had their third child in Yass called Burton born on 19 September 1837. (1)

Much of the information we have on Yaldwyn comes from the writings of Caroline Bowles his sister-in-law who travelled and lived with the family. (2)

She wrote that after three months in Sydney, they headed to Yass where Yaldwyn had just purchased a fully stocked station. According to Caroline Bowles, it was impossible to get labour so by owning land one could apply to the government for free convict labourers and the number allocated depended upon the number of acres owned. (2) pg 28

Yaldwyn employed John Coppock (1795-1865) to establish a station in the Macedon area. Coppock arrived at the Murray River on 23rd May 1837. Edward john Eyre, the Australian explorer, met Coppock at the river and noted Coppock had no plan of how he would get across. One of Coppock’s men had attempted to swim a horse through the river the day before and both had drowned.

Eyre loaned Coppock his boat to ferry sheep, drays and baggage across and Coppock repaid him with flour.

When they reached the Goulburn river Coppock was perplexed as to what to do with two Aboriginal boys, aged about eight who had followed another expedition and now attached themselves to his crew. Eyre gladly accepted the responsibility and had the boys with him for many years. He took them to Hobart and later, England. These boys were introduced to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at Buckingham palace on 26th January 1846. (2) pg 31.

John Coppock gave his assigned convicts far too much leniency and allowed them to have guns. He described them as a band of ruffians but said he dare not go against them or else they would kill him. See John Coppock’s profile on this site.

Coppock selected a fine parcel of land beside CH Ebden’s Carlshrue station and named it Barfold after the place where he grew up in England. The land was good quality open grazing country watered by the Coliban, Campaspe and Pipers creek.

Yaldwyn stayed behind in Yass with his wife and family while they awaited the birth of his third child. The birth was overseen by Dr Machie of Yass and this may well be Dr George MacKay who was practising in Yass at that time and in the autumn of 1838 took up land on the Ovens River. Language being phonetic in the first part of the 1800s may account for MacKay being written as Machie.

After Mrs Yaldwyn was safely delivered of their child, Yaldwyn travelled south to inspect his new station and arrived at Barfold on 4th December 1837. He described the whole of the country between Ebdens and Barfold as being as beautiful as can be. He wrote it was the only part of the colony that ever reminded him of England and was like a nobleman’s park. (2) pg 38. Yaldwyn then returned to Yass to prepare his family for the journey south.

While he was away William Bowman arrived and took up Sutton Grange on the western boundary of Barfold station. It was late March 1838, when Bowman took up land located 20 miles northeast of Mount Macedon. Within weeks of arriving at Sutton Grange, William Bowman began having trouble with the local Indigenous people. According to the Melbourne Court Register, 21st April 1838 (2 weeks after the Faithful massacre), Bowman made a sworn statement where he complained the Blacks had intimidated his men to the point he was having trouble making them go out to work.

One of Bowman’s men, Thomas Jones was killed on May 19th 1838 just a few weeks after the station was established.

On 9th June Samuel Futter who had come overland with Coppock was shepherding his flock with a shepherd of Mr Bowman’s who was minding his master’s flock. He claimed they were chased by Aboriginal people and the flocks were stolen. After reporting the incident to their respective masters a posse of armed men went in search of the missing sheep.

John Coppock said in his sworn statement that the flock was tracked and near dark they found the sheep contained in folds made of entwined shrubs just as the shepherds made. The Aboriginal people were camped quietly preparing for the night but upon seeing the white men appear, a shout went up causing one of the white men to fire his gun. A volley of spears was sent towards Coppock and his men.

Coppock says in the first instant, the Blacks called out, ‘Come on you white buggers’ and the men only fired after the Aboriginal people had called out for them to come on. Coppock said he did not go near them.

Coppock says it was very dark and fearing for their lives they went home and returned in the morning to find the camp abandoned and 20 sheep killed. The remainder of the sheep were found a short distance away.

Coppock said the bodies of the Blacks who had been killed had been put upon the fires and were partly consumed. It is more likely the white men burnt the bodies to disguise the actual number of people killed. This killing is known as the Waterloo Plains massacre and it is estimated 23 people died but there is no way of knowing the actual number.

Captain William Lonsdale, writing of this conflict to Governor Sir George Gipps in Sydney, told him, “I am inclined to think these Blacks are some of those who were concerned in the attack upon Mr Faithful’s party, and they have for some time past been very troublesome in the country about Mt Yaldwyn’s station.” – Historical Records of Victoria: Vol 2A page 340.

A letter penned by the nephew of John Coppock was printed in the newspapers in 1885 which gives details of the events that led to the Waterloo Plains massacre of Dja Dja Wurrung people. This sheds a great deal of light upon the anger the Aboriginal people must have felt towards John Coppock and his men at Barfold station. The letter says John Coppocks assigned convict men were in possession of guns and fired at Aboriginal people, men women and children when ever they saw them.

This letter can be found here – Read John Coppocks letter

One source (2) says that Peter Snodgrass had been appointed a Commissioner for Crown lands early in 1838. Snodgrass had his station at Murrindindi, near Yea, on the Goulburn River. As CCL of the area where the Waterloo Plains massacre took place, he would have turned a blind eye to any reprisal killings made by the squatters and their men. Just a few months earlier, in April, he had led a party of 50 well-armed men to kill those believed responsible for the massacre of Faithful’s shepherds at the Broken River. This resulted in chasing a great many Waywurru people into the King River and shooting them. This account comes from John Conway Bourke, the mailman of 1838 – see his profile on this site for more information, If Bourke is correct then Peter Snodgrass was never publicly acknowledged nor was any investigation entered into and this must have influenced Yaldwyn’s thinking because when Yaldwyn was a magistrate in QLD in 1857 and was asked to advise on proceedings after the murder of the Fraser family by Iman people, Yaldwyn refused to organise an investigation and thus ensued a barbaric year of reprisal killings that almost wiped out the Iman people.

By September 1838 the whole Yaldwyn family was in residence at Barfold station. Mrs Henriette Yaldwyn did not like the rough-sawn log home so different from the grand Blackdown House she had left in England. Caroline Bowles wrote bars had to stop the horse, lamb, emu and magpie from entering the house at meal times. Even if Mrs Yaldwyn was not pleased about their situation her children enjoyed freedoms they would not have had back home. (2)

Mr and Mrs Yaldwyn went to a corroboree one night and it appears they were uninvited as a spear was thrown and one of the tribe advised the Yaldwyn’s to go away, which they wisely did. (2) pg50

Caroline Bowles wrote about the Waterloo Plains massacre however her accounts are often only partly correct. She was certainly not an eye witness and it is doubtful anyone ever spoke the truth of the massacre in front of her. But what she writes is still noteworthy. She wrote a shepherd reported a Black fellow asked for a sheep and when refused fifty Black fellows appeared and forced the shepherd to kill the sheep and give it to them.

It is important here to remember GA Robinson’s journal where he wrote that shepherds would capture Black girls’ luring them in with sugar and tobacco then hold them captive to repeatedly rape. The Black men would then demand justice from the shepherds and the shepherds would offer them a sheep as payment. GA Robinson said when the flock was found short the shepherds would claim the Blacks had stolen the sheep. Read the profile on Henry Munro for more details.

Caroline Bowles wrote the Blacks made the shepherds kill the sheep and skin it to show them how it was done. This is nonsense, they knew perfectly well how to kill and skin any number of animals. They were so competent among sheep that Coppock’s statement mentions them rounding up the flock and using their dogs as well as a shepherd could manage.

Caroline Bowles said upon learning of the flock being stolen Mr Yaldwyn contacted the neighbours asking they each supply so many men and go in pursuit of the Black fellows.

She wrote the sheep were found corralled in folds just as the shepherds make and the Black fellows were asked to give the sheep back. A spear was thrown and so the guns began to fire. One man held up a piece of bark as a shield but it was no protection and he was killed. Many were killed before our party got possession of the sheep. (2)

Ms Bowles goes on to say that shortly after the massacre Mr Yaldwyn went to Melbourne and she decided to go out for a ride with two kangaroo dogs. After some miles, the dogs went after kangaroo and she followed but unfortunately, became lost and then it became dark. She eventually found her way home but was terrified the whole time as she knew that had any Blacks found her they would have killed her for certain had they met her. (2) page 51

William Henry Yaldwyn always claimed he was in Melbourne with his family at the time of the massacre however, considering Caroline Bowles’s account it suggests he was in fact at Barfold.

In May 1839 Mrs Yaldwyn had had enough of bush life at Barfold and pressured her husband to build a house in Melbourne. He commissioned Robert Russell the government surveyor who had a practice in Melbourne as an architect and surveyor.

In July 1839 their neighbour, Henry Munro was speared and William Yaldwyn administered aid by removing a piece of the man’s shirt which had lodged in the wound.

In late 1839 Yaldwyn moved his family to Melbourne leaving John Coppock in charge.  Then a short time later Yaldwyn sold Barfold to Thomas Thorneloe.

John Coppock went on to run a hotel at Little River and later became a squatter in the Mallee. He died at his Albacutya station on 30th June 1865.

William Yaldwyn was appointed among the first police magistrates of Melbourne along with Lonsdale, James Simpson, Foster Fryans and six others. (2) pg 54.

He was also on the committee to improve Melbourne’s water supply and was one of the first subscribers to the Melbourne Club.

Yaldwyn played in a cricket match in Melbourne on 30th march 1839, the bachelors against the marrieds and entered horses in the first race at Flemington on 3rd March 1840. (2) pg 54.

He also purchased blocks of land in Melbourne at the 15th April 1840 land sale.

In 1841 Yaldwyn took his family back to England as well as some mementos to amuse his family friends back home. He took many native animals including three emus, one of which jumped overboard and drowned, two sugar gliders, six kookaburra, a possum, six platypuses and an assortment of parrots.

Yaldwyn said the animals, ‘took time and patience to capture however, determination and money will accomplish much.’ (2) pg 62.

The platypus needed special care and a keeper was employed to watch over them day and night and feed them and supply fresh water. Sadly they deteriorated in the tropics and were dead before reaching the equator.

Much of the collection died during the voyage and the remainder was transported to Blackdown house where the parrots and kookaburra were a favourite with his children. When they were away at school he would write details of the birds.

Yaldwyn lost money on his venture to the colony but selling when he did was better than waiting another year. The following year a terrible recession hit the colony and prices tumbled. Sheep and cattle and land were worth little.

Mrs Henriette Yaldwyn was delighted to be back in England as she disliked the harshness and crudity of the colony.

Yaldwyn was getting further into debt and had borrowed money to help run Blackdown House. In 1843 the Yaldwyn’s spent their last Christmas at Blackdown House and soon after leased a house near London near where the children attended school.

Yaldwyn then began planning another voyage to Melbourne, this time in charge of 21 Pentonville convicts who would be given a pardon if they consented to go to the colony and not return. Yaldwyn still had his house in Melbourne which he’d let out as a girl’s school. He intended to look at selling it when he arrived.

Travelling with Yaldwyn was his sister-in-law, Caroline Bowles who had become engaged to James Simpson of Melbourne who had been a fellow magistrate.

Yaldwyn brought with him a collection of English birds which Georgiana McRae remarked upon in her journal.

William Yaldwyn then set sail for Sydney sharing the voyage with Judge James Donithorne, who had been Ebden’s partner at Carlshrue station when Yaldwyn owned the adjoining Barfold.

Shortly afterwards, Yaldwyn returned to England with two cases of bird specimens. This would be more successful than taking live animals as he had done previously.

When Yaldwyn returned he had to face down rumours that he had left his wife and run off with his sister-in-law. It took time to explain he had merely escorted Caroline Bowles to Melbourne so she could marry James Simpson.

The lure of gold was too much of a temptation for Yaldwyn and he returned to Australia in August 1852 bringing his eldest son with him. They came prepared with a covered wagon suitable to live in during their campaign.

They arrived on 9th December 1852 and headed for the Ovens diggings near Beechworth. Yaldwyn snr camped one night at Violet Town and wrote to his daughter, “the number of people on the road is truly astonishing, a most motley group. He added, your brother William is highly pleased every evening, in killing possums, sugar gliders and all sorts of curious night birds.”

Another letter mentions the situation in Melbourne being extraordinary with hundreds of people arriving daily with no place to cover their heads, the prices of all necessities exorbitant, such confusion, drinking, and money flying about in great plenty and news from the gold fields cheering.

The Yaldwyn’s were shocked by, ‘the insolence of the lowest order of people is unbelievable.’

The situation on the gold fields was too abhorrent for the Yaldwyns and after a short time, they departed and arrived home less financial than before.

Yaldwyn survived on annuities and seemed never to have earned a wage by any kind of labour. His wife died in 1856 and Yaldwyn then inherited his wife’s annuity of 300 pounds per year for the rest of his life. He sold the annuity for 10,000 pounds and set off for Australia with his two eldest children.

Yaldwyn intended to engage in pastoral pursuits and placed Nowranie station on the Billabong Creek NSW under offer. Upon inspection, it appeared too dry and unappealing and they headed back to Melbourne.

Yaldwyn then headed to Brisbane and purchased two properties, Taroom station on the upper Dawson River 240 miles from Brisbane and Bendemere on the Yuleba creek.

Yaldwyn was again on the frontier. His stations were poorly improved and remote. The Aboriginal people of the area were numerous and did not like the intrusion on their land of squatters and sheep.

The sheep were cared for just as they had been at Barfold. The flocks were cared for by shepherds in outstations who received supplies by ration cart once a week.

It was a tragic inevitability that conflict was going to occur. One year after Yaldwyn arrived at Taroom his neighbours at Hornet Bank were murdered.

Hornet Bank station was in the hands of 23-year-old William Frazer, whose father had recently died. His mother was 43 and William had eight younger siblings.

Historian Johnathan Richards found reason to believe William Frazer and his brothers were in the habit of raping the Aboriginal girl’s belonging to the Iman people. (5)

Johnathan Richards’ book The Secret War, page 23, “A Mr Nichol who used to be in the native police said that Mrs Frazer [sic] repeatedly asked him to reprove her sons for ‘forcibly taking’ the young maidens and that in consequence, she expected harm would come of it that they were in the habit of doing so notwithstanding her entreaties to the contrary.”

Mr Nichol emphasised it was common knowledge the ‘Frazers [sic] were famous for the young gins’.

Young Willie Yaldwyn was in his early twenties, the same age as his neighbour William Frazer. It is impossible to believe the Yaldwyn family did not know about the Frazer boy’s sexual exploitation of Aboriginal girls.

Young William Yaldwyn later wrote of the events that led up to the killing of the Frazer family yet his version has no mention of the raping of Aboriginal girls (2) pg 101

He wrote the Frazers were in need of cheap labour so encouraged Aboriginal people to do the work. Soon many Aboriginal people were camped near the homestead. This caused problems so William Frazer ordered the Blacks to leave and when this did not happen he broke the weapons of the Blacks and shot their dogs.

Two months later, the Iman attacked the Frazer homestead between one and two o’clock in the morning of 27 October 1857. Those in the house were Martha Frazer, eight of her nine children, Henry Neagle (their tutor), two white station hands who lived in a hut 1 km from the station, and Jimmy, an Aboriginal servant. The evening before the attack, Jimmy, persuaded to collaborate, had killed all the station dogs. By all accounts, the Iman initially intended to kidnap one of the Fraser women but things got out of hand after the first Frazer to confront them was killed. The attackers killed the men, castrated Neagle, raped Martha Frazer and her two eldest daughters, clubbed them and the remaining children to death, and speared to death the two station hands as they arrived to wash up before retiring for the night.

The only survivor was fourteen-year-old Sylvester “West” Frazer who, after being hit on the head with a waddy, had fallen between the wall and bed. The Aboriginals were distracted by the arrival of the two station hands, allowing Sylvester to crawl under his mattress and remain concealed. Sylvester later ran “without hat or boots and in a terribly bruised state” 12 miles (19 km) to nearby Cardin Station and raised the alarm.

Upon receiving news of the killings William Henry Yaldwyn immediately rode to Hornet Bank. The squatters of the neighbouring stations applied to Yaldwyn, who was a magistrate as well as a squatter, for advice and assistance. Yaldwyn refused their request and they buried the bodies without any official investigation being held. (3)

If Yaldwyn had ordered an investigation it would have quickly deduced the killing of the Frazer family was due to the Frazer boys raping Aboriginal girls. Mrs Frazers’ worst fears were realised. She had told Mr Nichol of the native police she expected harm to come of it, and sadly it did.

William Frazer declared on his mother’s grave that he would kill those responsible and he carried out his threat. There was a report in circulation after the murder that Wiliam Fraser had a license to shoot blacks for a full twelve months from the date of the murder as a measure of justice for the crime committed. There is nothing to show that he was given this right by the New South Wales Government, and it is certain that no Government would allow him that right. It can be taken for granted that Frazer would carry out this act of revenge as the blacks in those days were regarded by many settlers as vermin—the same as dingoes. (3)

William Henry Yaldwyn was a neighbour and a magistrate. He could have prevented hundreds of deaths of Aboriginal people but he chose not to.

William Frazer continued killing randomly wherever he found Aborigines. He shot an Aboriginal jockey at the racetrack in Taroom and after two Aboriginals accused of being involved in the massacre were found not guilty, he shot both dead as they left the Rockhampton courthouse. It was reported that after Frazer shot an Aboriginal woman in the main street of Toowoomba because he claimed she was wearing his mother’s dress, two policemen spoke with him briefly before saluting and walking away. This incident reinforced a local belief that the government had given Frazer twelve months’ immunity from prosecution, during which he was free to avenge the massacre of his family. In 1905, Frazer was asked if he had an authority, to which he replied “I never asked and never received such an authority but felt I was justified in doing so.” (4)

Young Willie Yaldwyn later wrote, “It were perhaps wiser to relegate to oblivion the dealings of our pioneers with the natives…” He wrote of the reprisal killings with enough detail to believe he was there.

Young Willie Yaldwyn wrote the squatters unanimously resolved to give the ‘niggers a lesson’… and ‘this band of white warriors had their reputations at stake’….all niggers were one to them and if dark of skin they were anathema (hated).  (2) page 100.

The truth is the Frazer boys were rapists and murderers and they and their neighbours got away with it.

William Henry Yaldwyn’s attitude to the Aboriginal people killed in the aftermath leaves one with a feeling of hopelessness for the Aboriginal people whose lands he took. The Waterloo Plains massacre need never have happened. Aboriginal people on Barfold were shot at, starved, and the women sexually violated. When they fought back they were massacred. After the Barfold massacre, Yaldwyn immediately went to Melbourne and became a police magistrate officiating in cases like those of Merriman and Harlequin. He was friends with Captain William Lonsdale, acting superintendent of Melbourne.  Yet he was the kind of man who said no investigation was necessary when the Frazer family was murdered. He did not want an investigation that would show the squatters’ sons were habitual rapists of young Aboriginal girls.

When the first Queensland Parliament opened, only eight Legislative Councilors attended, among them was William Henry Yaldwyn.

He became involved in horse racing at Ipswitch and was eventually awarded a pair of golden spurs.

In 1862 Yaldwyn sold Taroom station and headed back to England. However, the sale defaulted and only part of the price was paid so Yaldwyn returned to Australia to see what had happened. Yaldwyn had to wait while finances were put right and during this time his health failed. He died in September 1866 and was buried in Sydney.