William Cox by Richard Cox

Author:Richard Cox [Cox, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rosenberg Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A ticket of leave – the vital pass that enabled a convict to work on his own account

This was indeed a part of the secret of William’s success in dealing with convict employees, though hardly the whole of it: his personality did the rest.

William continued to seek special favours long after Macquarie had left, such as when he asked the new Colonial Secretary, Alexander McLeay, to find him a teacher for his children. On 30 July 1827 he asked for a Robert Turner, belonging to the town gang at Windsor, to be transferred to him for a period ‘as I stand very much in need of a man of his description … he is either a brickmaker or has been accustomed to work in a brickyard’.30 This demand was in spite of the skill being in short supply. Bigge had noted six years before that there were only 17 brickmakers in the entire colony. He commented further that:

Cox got men transferred from working on the roads and obtained services from them gratuitously, which other persons could with difficulty obtain, and must have paid for. Evidence … is very pointed upon this subject and has not been denied by Mr Cox.31

Not surprisingly, William’s skilled workforce aroused envy. John Blaxland was asked by Bigge: ‘Do you know any other persons who have succeeded in obtaining mechanics?’ He replied: ‘I have heard that Mr Cox of Clarendon, Mr Fitzgerald … at Windsor, Mr Meehan, Mr Wentworth’. Blaxland complained that of four he received himself from the Three Bees two were ruptured, one lame and the other incapacitated by old age.32 Samuel Marsden told Bigge that convicts came already assigned to individuals, including ‘To Mr Cox, several’, in spite of having benefited himself. 33 A. G. L. Shaw comments that ‘Only about two dozen “superior settlers” could employ mechanics full time … Marsden had ten, Macarthur was “reasonably satisfied” and so were Cox and D’Arcy Wentworth, though Jamison, Bayly, Blaxland, Howe and Dr Townsend had been aggrieved’.34 D’Arcy Wentworth was similarly accused of misusing his position as a magistrate. Neither side fooled Commissioner Bigge.

At the same time, William was being kept extremely busy at Bathurst, having become a fully accredited expert on expeditions. A short summary of the Colonial Secretary’s correspondence gives an idea of what he was involved in, both at Bathurst and on the Cumberland Plain. In 1816 he constructed a new ‘Western Road’ from Parramatta to Emu Ford, improving access to the mountain road, where he erected new buildings at Springwood. He dealt with an outbreak of hostilities between Aborigines and settlers. He supplied bricks for the new church at Windsor, one of the colony’s most substantial and architecturally notable buildings. On the other side of the mountains he was administering and provisioning government road workers at Bathurst, an activity which continued in 1817.

In March 1817 William was sent by Macquarie to explore the Lachlan River, as already mentioned, and thereafter was responsible over a period of a year for equipping the surveyor John Oxley’s expeditions.

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