The Bligh Camperdown Land Grant

Land grant. 1806. ‘The Bligh Camperdown Land Grant’, bearing the signature of Governor Philip Gidley King. The controversial Camperdown land grant is an early colonial document of prime historical importance.

Bligh arrived in Sydney on 6 August 1806 to assume his appointment as Governor of the colony. However, in an unprecedented move, he did not make his official landing until the 8th, and he was not sworn in as Governor until 14 August. This intervening period, which he spent with the outgoing Governor King at Government House, was to become the centre of a storm of controversy when it was revealed that certain grants of land were made between the incoming and outgoing governors during this time.

The present land grant “for a private residence near Sydney” to be known as “Camperdown” – named after the sea battle in which Bligh had recently distinguished himself – was one of three that Governor King granted to Bligh at this time. The other two were for residences near Parramatta and at Rouse Hill. It would appear that in return for these favours Bligh, soon after he became Governor, bestowed on the former Governor’s wife a substantial land grant of 790 acres entitled “Thanks”. The propriety of these grants first came into question when Macarthur and his friends in the Rum Corps were looking for any evidence to discredit Bligh when they had him held prisoner after overthrowing his government.

Bligh had been appointed governor with the express purpose of stamping out corruption within the colony, and yet he himself appeared to have profited privately from his public office. Bligh’s successor, Governor Macquarie, raised the alarm in Britain to the spurious legality of the grants. He broached the delicate subject with Earl Bathurst:

“When Governor Bligh arrived here in the year 1806 to relieve the late Governor King, A Mutual Interchange of very Important favours took place between them, and among other Grant of Land”.

Macquarie specifically questioned the legality of the Parramatta grant which, as it had been cleared at government expense, should not have been available for granting in any case. Bathurst replied that the grant was indeed illegal and this grant was to be revoked (H.R.A., series 1, vol. viii, P. 339 & 645-6).

Bligh died in 1817, intestate with respect to these parcels of land, but it was not until 1838 (the date of the present Indenture), that Sir Maurice O’Connell, who had married Bligh’s daughter Mary Putland in 1810, returned to Sydney as commander of the forces in New South Wales and made his move to secure the valuable grants for his wife and her five sisters. During the course of his claim the validity of these grants was again questioned. The Governor of the day, Sir George Gipps, reported the findings of a Supreme Court hearing into the claim by O’Connell and Bligh’s daughters to Lord Russell. In a despatch dated 9 March 1840, Gipps drew attention to the fact that the two grants of land at Camperdown and at Rouse Hill, were made under exactly the same circumstances as the disputed Parramatta grant (H.R.A., series 1, Vol xx, P. 558).

The evidence of J.H. Plunkett, the Attorney-General, in respect of all three grants was damning, “the same were obtained by William Bligh by fraud and by unusual and undue means, and by collusion with the said Philip Gidley King, and that they were made contrary to law, and ought not to be binding upon Her Majesty.” (ibid, p. 559). Plunkett outlined the salient points of the case. Firstly that Bligh on arrival in the colony should have assumed office immediately and that the only possible reason for delay was, “for the purpose of colourably carrying into effect a scheme then or previously concerted between them of mutually executing in favour or for the benefit of each other…grants of land within the said colony…an unauthorised, clandestine and fraudulent arrangement” (p. 561). As Bligh should have been Governor on the day of arrival, King had no authority to make the grants, and furthermore, Bligh “was prohibited, debarred, and disqualified by his Commission and appointment as such governor as aforesaid, from accepting and receiving any such grants” (ibid, p. 562).

Plunkett raised the obvious point that it would not be possible to survey these parcels of land within the couple of days following Bligh’s arrival and, therefore, “that, if the said pretended grants were executed upon the day when they are alleged to bear date, they were executed in blank, and did not contain…any description of the premises which they were respectively alleged to convey, and that.. the same was inserted after the pretended execution thereof…and that by reason thereof,…the said alleged grants are null and void” (ibid, p. 563). In short Plunkett alleged that on the 1 August 1806, King had signed a blank deed of grant and that at some months later, Bligh had the details filled in.

Plunkett’s evidence went on to raise other, equally valid reasons, to prove the invalidity of all three grants, however the crown’s threat of a suit of impeachment was averted by the offer of O’Connell to surrender the Parramatta grant which had previously been revoked by Bathurst, but never formally surrendered by Bligh. Thus in 1841 the Camperdown grant passed to Bligh’s heirs who quickly sold it for more than 25,000 pounds.