Otto Baldwin, colonial entrepreneur with wide-ranging interests
Nestled in the shadow of the Watagan Mountains is the 1280-acre estate ‘Mulbring’. It is situated in today’s Mount Vincent and straddles Wallis Creek, just downstream from where it rises under Mount Myall. ‘Mulbring’ was granted to Otto Baldwin by Governor Ralph Darling in 1829 in lieu of his elder brother Edwin.
Map showing the location of Baldwin’s ‘Mulbring Estate’ at Mount Vincent
(Kevin Short collection)
In 1852, Baldwin sold the property to William and Samuel Short for £400. Samuel Short was my great-great-grandfather and William his brother – but who was Otto Baldwin?
Otto was a currency lad, born at Wilberforce on the Hawkesbury to Henry and Elizabeth (nee Carpenter). Henry had been transported in 1791 from the Warwick Assizes in the English Midlands, although Elizabeth came free. Otto was born in 1809, the 5th of 13 children, and he became an important character in the exploration and development of the Hunter Valley and north-western New South Wales. Like his contemporary, George Yeomans, Otto became part of a group of entrepreneurs and pioneer explorers who, with little other than their guile and wits, took a chance and succeeded.
Yeomans and his father-in-law, Benjamin Singleton, became occasional business partners of Baldwin. They and others of convict parentage formed an important tier in colonial society. Because of the circumstances of their births, they were never accepted by the ‘Bunyip’ aristocracy despite their success, but they were ever so important to the development of the colony, which needed people to invest and ‘have a go’.
The three were also involved in exploration including, for example, to find a better route from the upper Hunter across the Great Dividing Range to the rich and fertile Liverpool Plains and the rest of north-western NSW. Baldwin, in fact, was among the first to drive stock across the Great Divide, and he became a significant landholder in the interior as a squatter.
Baldwin and the law
Baldwin’s character was not without blemish, as evidenced by a litany of court appearances as both plaintiff and accused. Charges varied. In 1852, he was charged with a breach of the Masters & Servants Act. In 1856, he was fined 40/- for an assault on a railway guard at Newtown. In 1863, he was acquitted of a charge of public nuisance on account of the discharge of effluent to the river and the odour from his boiling-down works on Oakhampton Rd. In 1867, he was fined 5/- for drunkenness.
He wasn’t always the defendant. In 1852, he had William Tierney charged with ‘unlawfully killing a bullock’ and Samuel Fitzpatrick with ‘abusive and insulting language’ outside Baldwin’s butcher’s shop. One suspects Fitzpatrick’s outburst related directly to the charge against Tierney, although this was not the only occasion Baldwin and Fitzpatrick clashed.
Despite his occasional brush with the law, Baldwin was philanthropic and supported various testimonials and community causes. He became a steward at the Tamworth races and was a part-sponsor of an early cricket match in Maitland in 1845. This story is amusing in that Baldwin’s team was dismissed in five balls without scoring a run. One wonders how many were on each team!
In 1849, he added his name to a petition to re-introduce transportation. In 1852, he joined a cartel to form a steamship company.
Personal and business life
In 1835, Baldwin married Mary Ann Maskey. The union produced two sons and a daughter but sadly no grandchildren. It may not have been a happy marriage as Baldwin lived in a de facto relationship with George Yeomans’ widow, Elizabeth, after George’s death in 1853. Despite this schism, both couples were interred in Campbells Hill Cemetery, alongside their respective spouses.
The overgrown mausoleum of Otto and Mary Ann Baldwin in the Campbells Hill Cemetery
(Kevin Short)
In 1826, Baldwin, in company with George Yeomans, Benjamin Singleton and others, was the first to drive cattle onto the Liverpool Plains, crossing the range via Dangars Pass. They established a large run which they called ‘Yarramanbah’. They were dispossessed of this run when the AA Company traded their Port Stephens estate for what became ‘Warrah’ and ‘Goonoo Goonoo’ stations. Undeterred, Baldwin re-established himself at Boggabilla Station on the McIntyre River in partnership with Yeomans. He also had interests in the Namoi, Patrick Plains and Black Creek districts.
Diniwarindi Station, Namoi River, NSW, 1870
(Flickr - an engraving from Australian Town and Country Journal, 17 January 1871, p19. The Journal includes a lengthy article about the station.)
Diniwarindi was one of the stations established and/or developed by Otto Baldwin and his family members.
He was prepared to take a chance and innovate. The Maitland Mercury reported in 1863 that Baldwin and others had planted experimental cotton crops, the yield of which was exhibited in London.
Otto Baldwin died in 1874, aged 65. He made a major contribution to the development of the Hunter and the interior of the colony with his very wide-ranging business endeavours.
References
Maitland Mercury
Short, Kevin, ‘Our past: Otto Baldwin, colonial entrepreneur’, Maitland Mercury, 6 November 2020.
