16 Facts About Gregory Blaxland

Gregory Blaxland was an English pioneer farmer and explorer in Australia, noted especially for initiating and co-leading the first successful crossing of the Blue Mountains by European settlers.

Early in 1813 Gregory Blaxland, who needed more grazing land, obtained the approval of Governor Lachlan Macquarie for an attempt to cross the Great Dividing Range, known as the Blue Mountains, following the mountain ridges, instead of following the rivers and valleys.

Gregory Blaxland secured the participation of William Lawson and William Charles Wentworth in the expedition, which was successful and enabled the settlers to access and use the land west of the mountains for farming.

In February 1823 Gregory Blaxland published his Journal of a Tour of Discovery Across the Blue Mountains in which he wrote:.

Gregory Blaxland was engaged during the next few years in wine-making.

Gregory Blaxland had brought vines from the Cape of Good Hope and found a species resistant to blight.

Gregory Blaxland's diaries show that he had a clear grasp of the scale upon which agricultural and pastoral activities would be profitable in Australia.

Gregory Blaxland then had to dispose of his livestock, and joined the colonial opposition to Macquarie, and in 1819 sharply criticized his administration to Commissioner John Thomas Bigge.

Gregory Blaxland visited England in 1822 taking with him a sample of his wine.

Later the same year, Gregory Blaxland was awarded the silver medal of the Royal Society of Arts for the wine he had brought to London.

In January 1827 Gregory Blaxland was elected by a public meeting with two others to present a petition to Governor Darling asking that "Trial by jury" and "Taxation by Representation" should be extended to the colony.

Gregory Blaxland successfully petitioned the Colonial Office for a drawback on the import duty on brandy imported into the colony and 'actually used in the manufacture of wine'.

Always a man of moody and mercurial character, Gregory Blaxland devoted his colonial activities almost entirely to the pursuit of his agricultural and viticultural interests.

Gregory Blaxland suffered great personal loss with the early and untimely deaths of his second son, youngest son and wife along with others quite close to him in rapid succession, which bore very heavily on his heart.

Gregory Blaxland committed suicide on 1 January 1853 in New South Wales and was buried in All Saints Cemetery in Parramatta.

Gregory Blaxland was appointed to the New South Wales Legislative Council and served there from 1863 until his death in 1884.