James Ruse

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James Ruse (born August 9, 1759 in Launceston , Cornwall , Kingdom of Great Britain , † September 5, 1837 in Campbellton , New South Wales ) was a convict, farmer and landowner who was deported to Australia with the First Fleet in 1787. He became famous there because he was the first farmer and the first private landowner on the Australian continent to successfully farm .

Convict life

Little is known about James Ruse's early life other than that he was already a farmer in Cornwall. In 1782 Ruse was sentenced to theft of two clocks for transportation in Africa for a period of seven years. He was then imprisoned for five years on the prison ship Dunkirk , which was moored near Plymouth . When the Australian convict colony was founded by the British, he arrived with the First Fleet on the convict transport ship Scarborough on January 19, 1787 in Botany Bay in what is now Sydney . In July 1789, after his sentence ended, Ruse was allowed to cultivate land and grow wheat and maize with the permission of the first Governor of New South Wales, Arthur Phillip . Attempts by other Europeans to farm on Australian soil had failed and there was a threat of famine. The agriculture of the first settlers failed for many reasons, because the convicts had insufficient knowledge and no experience in it, they did not have sufficient seeds , no agricultural implements, no plow and there were also no animals that could pull them. In addition, the poor soil that the Europeans found near Port Jackson was unsuitable for agriculture. Phillip supported Ruse in many ways with provisions, clothing, seeds and also provided help with clearing a small area on which he was also allowed to build a hut. Ruse not only worked hard, he also fertilized the soil with the ashes from the slash and burn area of the cultivation area, thereby improving the quality of the soil. He threw the straw from a first harvest in a heap so that it would rot and was used for fertilization the following year. The Ruse farm was called the Experiment Farm . As early as February 1791, Ruse Phillip was able to prove that he had grown enough food to survive for himself and his wife, whom he married on September 5, 1790 and with whom he had seven children. Phillip was enthusiastic about his concept and recommended it to others. He transferred the small piece of land to Ruse in April 1791, which was the first real estate transfer to a private person in Australia.

Real estate dealers

In October 1793 James Ruse sold his land to the military doctor John Harris (1754-1838) for £ 40. In January 1794 he was one of 22 settlers who were given land on the fertile soils of the Hawkesbury River in southwest Sydney . In June 1797 he was given 16 acres of land which he sold for £ 300 nine months later. In 1797 he was tried and convicted of commercial gambling on his premises. In 1800 he bought 8 hectares of land that was mortgaged in March 1801. Then his traces are lost. His son reported in May 1801 that his father had found work on a ship. In 1809, Ruse bought farmland at Bankstown , which suffered a great loss in value from the Hawkesbury River flooding. In 1819 he bought 40 acres at Riverstone and more land at Windsor. After 1819 he is said to have been awarded the rum or fell ill, whereby he lost his fortune, and then worked as an overseer on a farm.

Aftermath

James Ruse Drive Bridge , which over the Parramatta River leads

An agricultural high school , the James Ruse Agricultural High School in Carlingford , a suburb of Sydney, is named after James Ruse , James Ruse Drive and the James Ruse Drive Bridge in New South Wales.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert Hughes: The Fatal Shore. The epic of Australia's founding . Knopf, New York 1987. ISBN 0-394-50668-5 p. 106
  2. ^ Robert Hughes: The Fatal Shore. The epic of Australia's founding. Knopf, New York 1987. pp. 96-108. ISBN 0-394-50668-5 . Pp. 106-107.
  3. ^ Watkin Tench: A complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson (PDF). In: University of Sydney Library (Ed.), 1998. London, 1793. Chapter X.
  4. ↑ a b B. H. Fletcher: Ruse, James 1759-1837 . In: Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1967
  5. ^ Robert Hughes: The Fatal Shore. The epic of Australia's founding . Knopf, New York 1987. ISBN 0-394-50668-5 p. 107
personal data
SURNAME Ruse, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British-Australian convict, landowner, pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1759
PLACE OF BIRTH Launceston , Cornwall , Kingdom of Great Britain
DATE OF DEATH September 5, 1837
Place of death Campbellton (New South Wales) , New South Wales