George Yeomans, entrepreneur of early Maitland
A residential subdivision in Metford sports a number of streets named after pioneer settlers. Two of them are incorrectly spelt!
The first is ‘Schanck Dr’, a major thoroughfare named after John Schancks, designer of the government sloop Lady Nelson which in 1801 brought the first known Europeans to what was to become the Maitland area. The ‘s’ has unaccountably been left off the street’s name.
The second case is ‘Yeoman Ave’, which connects Schanck Drive to Dumaresq Parade. Dumaresq Parade was named after the Dumaresq brothers, brothers-in-law to Governor Ralph Darling and one-time owners of the toll bridge over Wallis Creek. Henry Dumaresq later became Manager of the AA Company holdings at Port Stephens and on the Liverpool Plains. Yeoman Ave is named after George Yeomans, but again, the ‘s’ is missing from the name of the street.
Street signs for Yeoman Avenue and Schanck Drive, Metford
Yeomans the man
George Yeomans was a currency lad, born at Wilberforce on the Hawkesbury River in 1801, the third son of John Yeomans and Mary Cassidy. John Yeomans was a former convict, found guilty at the Warwick Assizes of housebreaking. He had arrived in 1791 on board the Britannia and he married Mary in 1798 at Sydney.
George Yeomans first appears in the public record in 1826 when he became a ‘settler’ at Patricks Plains. This is doubtless where he met and then married, in 1827, Elizabeth, the 15-year-old daughter of Benjamin Singleton. Their names appear in the Hexham register of Christ Church, Newcastle.
Benjamin Singleton was a man of substance and note, having accompanied John Howe in 1819 on his epic journey of exploration along what later became the route of the Putty Rd from the Hawkesbury to Patricks Plains. His enduring legacy is his name given to the town of Singleton that evolved at Patrick Plains.
It was during this initial settlement period that Yeomans became an explorer who, along with his brother Richard, Otto Baldwin, William Osborn and John Upton, discovered Dartbrook Pass, a second route across the Liverpool Range to the interior of the colony. Together these men became squatters, establishing ‘Yarramanbah’ on the Liverpool Plains only to have the property ceded to the AA Company in 1833. Undeterred, Yeomans, in partnership with Baldwin, re-established at Boggabilla Station on the McIntyre River.
Yeomans in Wallis Plains/Maitland
In 1827 Yeomans leased the Angel Inn from Molly Morgan, thus becoming Maitland’s first licensed publican. As a serving convict, Molly was ineligible to be a licensee. Yeomans was among the first of the free settlers to appreciate the potential of Wallis Plains and effectively became one of its first genuine entrepreneurs. In September 1827, his entrepreneurial flair was obvious when he advertised his ‘beautiful White Blood Race Horse, Blanket’, the standing fee of ten guineas a not-insignificant amount.
The Monitor (Sydney), 13 September 1827, p7
In 1828 Yeomans was thanking patrons in the Sydney Gazette for patronising his coastal trader, the 21-ton Monitor, then plying between Sydney and Wallis Plains. By that year he was a coastal trader with a Sydney agent and he was a publican, a horse breeder and a squatter. He had even dabbled, in partnership with Singleton, in ship-building: the Monitor was built at Wallis Plains. This was a man not yet 28 years old!
It was, however, as a hotelier that George Yeomans is best remembered. As well as the Angel Inn, he either built or leased the Woolpack Inn (1828), The Sportsman (1834) and finally the Northumberland (1842). All were on High St, West Maitland. The Northumberland was to become the West Maitland Hotel, the place visiting dignitaries stayed at when they came to the area.
An engraving of part of High St near the Angel Inn, which Yeomans leased from Molly Morgan
(The Illustrated Sydney News, 31 March 1855, p142)
Publican’s licence for the Northumberland Hotel, 1846
(Ancestry.com.au copied from NSW State Archives Publicans’ Licences)
One of eight publicans’ licenses recorded for George Yeomans in the NSW State Archives Publicans’ Licences Index. The earliest, in 1834, is for The Sportsman. There is one in 1844 for the Northumberland.
Note that the licence reproduced here was signed by Edward Denny Day.
Domestically Yeomans owned three lots in central Maitland. The first was Lot 147. It was 36 acres and bounded by Regent, Steam and Elgin streets and today’s Ken Tubman Drive. This included a part on which St Mary’s Church was built in 1838. The second (Lot 142) was immediately to the south and bounded by Steam St and Elgin St, the extension of Regent St and a line of the surveyed but unmade Walker St. These two lots abutted Mary Hunt’s (Molly Morgan’s) holding. Lot 142 was bisected by the railway in 1858 after Yeoman’s death. Yeomans and his wife Elizabeth named their holding ‘Maitland Grange’ which gives explanation to the naming of the house built in 1894 by Elizabeth in Ballard St. This later became the long-time family home of the well-known Scobie family. Lot 142 incorporates the area now known as the Rally Ground.
The third holding was the 5-acre lot originally granted to William O’Donnell and bounded by West, Elgin and Bulwer streets and the river, and near the site of today’s Belmore Bridge. This was extremely valuable commercial land on which there was a public wharf.
George Yeomans died in 1853 aged 52 years, after a remarkable and very full life. He is interred in Campbells Hill cemetery.
References
Short, Kevin, ‘Our past: George Yeomans, major player in early Maitland’, Maitland Mercury, 24 July 2020.
Sydney Gazette
