D'Arcy Wentworth was an Irish-Australian surgeon and the first paying passenger to arrive in the new colony of New South Wales.
62 Facts About D'Arcy Wentworth
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D'Arcy Wentworth served under the first seven governors of the Colony, and from 1810 to 1821, he was "great assistant" to Governor Lachlan Macquarie.
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D'Arcy Wentworth was born in Portadown, County Armagh, Ireland, the sixth child and fourth son of Martha and D'Arcy Wentworth.
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D'Arcy Wentworth's family had left Yorkshire for safe haven in Ireland after the execution of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, in 1641.
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In 1778, aged sixteen, D'Arcy Wentworth was apprenticed to Alexander Patton, a surgeon-apothecary, in nearby Tandragee.
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D'Arcy Wentworth was seeking an appointment with the East India Company, and as the training of Irish surgeons was not recognised in England, it was necessary to go to London to gain accreditation.
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D'Arcy Wentworth sailed on the mailboat from Donaghadee to Portpatrick in Scotland.
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D'Arcy Wentworth attended Whig party gatherings and race meetings at York, Doncaster and Wakefield with Fitzwilliam, who introduced him to the societies of York and London, their up and coming lawyers, young politicians and aspiring bureaucrats.
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D'Arcy Wentworth accepted the invitation of Percivall Pott, one of his examiners, to "walk the wards" of St Bartholomew's, Smithfield under his direction.
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D'Arcy Wentworth attended lectures by other prominent physicians including John Hunter, and dissections held in the Company of Surgeons' anatomy theatre at the Old Bailey.
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D'Arcy Wentworth waited in vain for a position to become available in the East India Company.
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D'Arcy Wentworth supported himself in London by mastering the art of card playing, gambling at card tables in several inns and coffee houses, but he found many of those who lost to him would simply refuse to pay.
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On each occasion his defaulter either failed to appear to prosecute him, found himself unable to positively identify D'Arcy Wentworth, or sought only to name and shame him.
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D'Arcy Wentworth was to seek out John White, Principal Surgeon, on the Charlotte, who could advise him of any vacancies for assistant surgeons on the Fleet.
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D'Arcy Wentworth learnt that to become a naval surgeon would require further accreditation from the Company of Surgeons.
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D'Arcy Wentworth was on board as a passenger; he had no influence, no position on the ship and no employment arranged in the Colony.
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D'Arcy Wentworth went with them, "to act as an assistant to the surgeon there, being reputed to have the necessary requisites for such a situation".
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D'Arcy Wentworth had worked without a break for six years on the island.
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In Sydney, Hunter allowed several people, including D'Arcy Wentworth, to act as traders, in an attempt to break the power of the Rum Corps officers through competition, and to lower the price of commodities.
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D'Arcy Wentworth planted a dozen young Norfolk Island pines along the ridge line, and built a comfortable two storey house, that he named "D'Arcy Wentworth Woodhouse".
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D'Arcy Wentworth had been friendly with Philip Gidley King on Norfolk Island.
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D'Arcy Wentworth had been friendly with Philip Gidley King on Norfolk Island, but when King took over as governor, he curtailed D'Arcy Wentworth's trading, impounded his trading stock and sent him back to Norfolk Island.
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Captain William Bligh, who succeeded King, had D'Arcy Wentworth court martialled for disrespect, the result of conflicting instructions given by the Governor.
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On 20 February 1810, he ordered that D'Arcy Wentworth remain as Principal Surgeon, pending instructions from London.
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D'Arcy Wentworth was effectively the Treasurer of the Colony, responsible for receiving revenue raised from government activities, including three-quarters of all customs duties, fees collected at the port and town of Sydney, licensing fees from markets, inns, hotels and breweries, and the licences "recently issued to publicans for vending spirituous liquors".
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On 11 August 1810, D'Arcy Wentworth was made a member of the Court of Civil Jurisdiction.
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D'Arcy Wentworth appointed D'Arcy Wentworth Chief Magistrate and Superintendent of Police.
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D'Arcy Wentworth had the respect and trust of the Aboriginal people in Sydney, they could take their grievances to him as Police Magistrate and could look to him for support and redress.
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One of D'Arcy Wentworth's achievements was the construction of new hospital for Sydney.
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D'Arcy Wentworth made lifelong friends among his fellow surgeons and colleagues in the Colony, but he remained detached from its social castes and allegiances.
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D'Arcy Wentworth had the Sydney Gazette print books of notes, labelled Police Fund, with four different Sterling values: two shillings and sixpence, five shillings, ten shillings and one pound.
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Campbell, Macquarie's secretary, was elected the bank's first president; D'Arcy Wentworth was elected president in 1825.
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D'Arcy Wentworth listed for Castlereagh the men who gave the most liberal assistance to government and conducted themselves with the greatest propriety, whom he had: "admitted to my table",.
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D'Arcy Wentworth, working close to Macquarie, became an easy target for much of the venom directed towards the Governor.
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In May 1818, D'Arcy Wentworth had submitted his resignation as Principal Surgeon.
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On 23 October 1819, three weeks after James Bowman, D'Arcy Wentworth's replacement, arrived with Commissioner Bigge, he retired as Principal Surgeon.
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D'Arcy Wentworth had served 29 years as a surgeon in New South Wales, ten of those as Principal Surgeon.
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In March 1820, D'Arcy Wentworth resigned as Superintendent of Police, and six months later, he resigned as Treasurer of the Police Fund.
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D'Arcy Wentworth continued to serve and advise Macquarie's successor, Governor Thomas Brisbane.
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D'Arcy Wentworth remained Treasurer of the Colonial Revenue until the arrival of his replacement, William Balcombe, in April 1824.
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D'Arcy Wentworth served as Superintendent of Police until Captain Francis Rossi arrived to replace him on 19 May 1825, when he retired altogether from public life.
42.
On 26 October 1825, D'Arcy Wentworth presented an Address of Farewell to him on behalf of the Emancipists.
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D'Arcy Wentworth arranged the Official Farewell Dinner for the Governor, with one hundred guests, at the Woolpack Inn in Parramatta on 7 November 1825.
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D'Arcy Wentworth sat beside the Governor at the dinner, but he was ill and he retired early.
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Under Darling, no longer an officer of the Crown, D'Arcy Wentworth was free to promote the cause of the Emancipists and trial by jury, and he became their figure head and leader.
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D'Arcy Wentworth initially led the protagonists supporting freedom of the press, a fully elected representative government for the Colony, and no taxation without representation.
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William D'Arcy Wentworth became the voice for representative government for the Colony and for Governor Darling's recall.
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On board the convict transport Neptune D'Arcy Wentworth entered a relationship with a convict girl, Catherine Crowley.
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D'Arcy Wentworth remained his partner in the Colony until her death at Parramatta in January 1800.
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In 1807, Fitzwilliam, appalled by reports of Bligh's behaviour towards D'Arcy Wentworth, applied to Viscount Castlereagh, Secretary of State for the Colonies, for him to be given leave of absence to return to London.
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In late July 1808, D'Arcy Wentworth finally received permission from Lord Castlereagh to leave the Colony, allowing him to return to England, but it had come too late.
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D'Arcy Wentworth knew Bligh's anger would be directed at him; he believed he would be arrested and charged with treason when he arrived in England.
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D'Arcy Wentworth resolved to remain in the Colony and see out the storm from a safe distance.
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D'Arcy Wentworth was weeping, she had been cruelly beaten by her husband and was afraid to return home, even to her own child.
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D'Arcy Wentworth took pity on her, he gave her shelter for the night and next morning returned her to the house of her employer, William Gore, the Provost Marshall.
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When D'Arcy Wentworth returned Ann to the Gore's house, he asked about her situation.
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D'Arcy Wentworth was called to attend Macquarie, as stress and despair affected his health.
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In 1821, D'Arcy Wentworth leased "D'Arcy Wentworth Woodhouse" in Parramatta and moved to his farm "Home Bush".
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On Saturday, 7 July 1827, a cold winter morning, D'Arcy Wentworth died of pneumonia at "Home Bush".
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D'Arcy Wentworth left two mature sons, William Charles and D'Arcy, children of Catherine Crowley, and seven children with Mary Ann Lawes, three sons and four daughters; their fourth son was born in 1828.
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D'Arcy Wentworth named her in his will as: "my dear friend Ann Lawes the mother of seven of my children".
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The Sydney Gazette acknowledged D'Arcy Wentworth had "studiously devoted the best part of his eventful life to the service of its public, he was loyal from principle, and indefatigable in his public career; a Patriot in whom were blended the political virtues of loyalty and independence".