Community change and leadership in early Colonial Australia: a case study of Deerabbun-Mulgrave Place, New South Wales, 1793-1845

Abstract

This thesis seeks to clarify the contribution to society made by the little-recorded residents from humble British backgrounds in the Deerabbun-Hawkesbury Valley between 1793 and 1845. It is set against the dismissive versions presented by the well-recorded and praised gentlemen and officer elites. The research offers original findings about the influential role of these ordinary people, which is significant given they are generally not shown in records as capable of positive agency. As a methodology, a small part of the writings of the renowned 1930s economist and historian, Joseph Schumpeter, has been used. Schumpeter believed that the way to study agency was through change and leadership, in the formation of major trends. Finding the starting point of each trend and how that first movement grew as a wave of the innovation, has proven an insightful methodology and as an analytical tool, has shown those at the forefront of change, including ordinary natural leaders who gained no historical credit. The thesis looks in detail at the trends accepted as major: the gaining of farms, grazing animals or establishing urban shelters; and accepting a second mature generation, pastoralism and technology. As almost every trend involved land expansion by the British, the Aboriginal clans became marginalised, resulting in increasing aggression between the two cultures. An intensive study of records has revealed an unrecognised pattern in the colonial history of New South Wales whereby ordinary settlers were a major, highly functioning unit within the society of the time. In all the trends investigated except one, the elites and ordinary settlers ran on parallel paths. The gentlemen started change with wealth and privilege, the ordinary settlers by innovation of existing resources in a new way, extended and developed with equal importance and separateness. The trend to complex technology was followed by the latter group alone. The trends that were begun and followed by those from humble beginnings, proved vital for the functioning of the colony as a whole, yet have been under reported or unheeded until now.

Date of Thesis submission	2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Western Sydney University
Supervisor	Bridget Brooklyn (Supervisor) & Carol Liston (Supervisor)