John Weston

An issue has been raised as to whether Richard Brooks of Gegedzerick was the son of Capt Richard Brooks of Denham Court. He was the son. The romantic version (told in my youth) was that the child was born as the result of a liaison during Capt Brooks’s shipwreck in 1812, and that he eventually turned up in England with the boy. The truth appears to be that the child was the result of a liaison with a girl of convict origins when Brooks was in Australia. The child was born, I think, soon after he left Australia. When he returned to Australia with Christina and the other children in 1814 he found that the mother had died (possibly at the time of birth) and that his son was a two-year old orphan. The boy was taken into the family and given the name of “Brooks”.

The grandsons mentioned in Capt Brooks’s will are the sons of his son, Henry. Richard Brooks is not mentioned probably because it was not customary in those days to include illegitimate or adopted children in a will. But there is no doubt that Richard Brooks was accepted into the family. When he located Gegedzerick in 1827 (at the age of 15) it is likely that he was accompanied by his older half-brother Henry. The cattle were brought from Turalla at Lake George, up the Numeralla valley. Lhotsky in 1832 listed Richard Brooks as the owner of the vast “Jijedery” station although he was even then only 20 years of age. Lhotsky also accepted that he had then been in possession for 5 years (ie since 1827). But in 1839 Lambie listed the owners of “Jegeydrick” as Henry and Richard Brooks, with Richard being the resident superintendent. Over time Henry faded out, probably pre-occupied with the large amount of land his father left him elsewhere, but his children and grandchildren inter-married with those of Richard Brooks and it seems that possession of Gegedzerick was eventually balanced out in favour of the family of Richard Brooks. As Richard was resident from the start and remained the only brother permanently resident and eventually the sole owner, only his role in Gegedzerick is remembered – but it is more than likely to have been initially a joint venture of the two half-brothers, presumably with the assistance and encouragement of their father.

Further, in the 1830s, the smaller (although still significant) station of Coolamatong was carved out of Gegedzerick for Richard Brooks’s eldest half-sister Christina and her husband Capt T V Bloomfield. The Bloomfields continued to hold Coolamatong even though Christina inherited Denham Court itself. So we may be sure that whatever was in the will, Richard Brooks was not forgotten in the distribution of the family estates and was probably left as well off as, if not better than, the other siblings. He himself must have been very attached to Denham Court and his family – the church he erected at Gegedzerick from 1849 (but not completed until 1860 after his death) was named for St Mary the Virgin after the church erected by John Verge at Denham Court in 1830, and closely follows its somewhat unusual ground plan.

In addition, Richard and Augusta Brooks had estates in the Illawarra, from both Westons and Brookses. After the death of her father in 1826, Augusta’s mother Elizabeth Weston remarried in 1830 – most unsuitably, to a former convict. She fades from the picture thereafter. The young Weston children were largely taken over by their paternal uncle and aunt Capt George Edward Nicholas Weston (who was actually called “Edward”) and Blanche Weston of Horsley. Blanche was a redoubtable woman, a daughter of Colonel George Johnston of the NSW Corps (first officer to land in the First Fleet and deposer of Bligh for which he was cashiered, although the family was later reinstated under Macquarie). Augusta was married from Horsley to Richard Brooks at Parramatta in 1838 and was “given away” by her uncle Capt Weston.

The grant at Illawarra promised to William Weston by Macquarie in 1818 was not actually made until 1842 by Governor Gipps. The grant was then made to Augusta Brooks and her sister Elizabeth Thompson. They named it West Horsley and built the existing house there in 1845 (the house is clearly modeled on Horsley), although the actual estate was divided in two between the two sisters. To this the Brookses added land transferred to Richard from Capt Brooks. The Brookses spent a lot of time there –Richard Brooks died there in 1855.

The two Weston boys John and Charles, appear to have gone to sea at an early age. John Weston is said to have made a number of voyages to India in his youth and his younger brother Charles Weston died of typhoid (I think) in India in 1835, aged only about 15.

Capt and Mrs Weston came to Gegedzerick in about 1840 (if not earlier) no doubt to see where their niece Augusta had settled. Capt Weston established an interest in a run at Jindabyne (called “Willis”), this was taken over by Richard Brooks by 1848. Their daughter Emma Weston married Rev E G Pryce and later settled on Woolway station to the east of Gegedzerick. Capt Weston died in 1856. Thereafter Blanche spent some time at Gegedzerick and Woolway. The Brooks sons had increasing difficulty in managing the huge station and differences were exacerbated when their mother Augusta re-married Edward Torkington (an Englishman who had been brought in to manage Gegedzerick after Richard’s death) in 1863. Blanche became trustee of Gegedzerick and by 1870 (if not earlier) it and Rocky Plain were actually in her name. She had a large influence. She probably assisted her niece in completing the church, the original windows of which were identical with those at Horsley and may even have been made there. She is said to have given the organ to the church (a beautiful instrument – of which the parish is now proposing to dispose, I am trying to oppose this). Both Gegedzerick and Horsley became very well known in the 1870s for the breeding of bloodstock horses – no doubt Blanche had a role in this.

My grandfather and his brothers and sisters, and the Brooks children that I knew as old people, remembered Blanche well as a very old but very kind lady mainly at Woolway but also at Gegedzerick, they called her “Granny Weston” and actually thought she was their great-grandmother – a fact which confused me considerably as a boy, I have only just now got this sorted out.

I am descended from John Weston through his daughter Mary Ann (born 1843) who married my great grandfather Frederick Brown in 1858. Mary Ann’s mother died when she was born, she was brought to Gegedzerick by Augusta Brooks (her aunt) as a child, I think the idea was that she would eventually marry one of the Brooks boys (another sister Charlotte born about 1840 married one of the Pryce cousins). But on a voyage with her father she met Frederick Brown and determined to marry him which she did as soon as she turned 16. They came here to Gegedzerick in 1858 and settled on Gegedzerick Flat where John Weston had first settled when he came here in about 1840 (probably at the same time as Capt Weston and Blanche first came here). I still live here, I am restoring the old house, I think it is about the 3^rd house on this site but there are many traces of the earlier houses. My grandfather was born here and my grandparents lived here from 1916. When I was a child there was a strong “cousinhood” of Brookses, Browns, Clarkes and others – the “old Gegedzerick families”, but that had largely died out by the time I returned here last year with the final passing of the older generation. But I now have the opportunity to sort through what remains here and what information I can glean – it is truly remarkable and much of interest, far more than I can write down here.

Ian Burke
Gegedzerick Flat
Berridale

Leony Power <powerl-at-acr-net-au>and various others
Margaret Weston <wyuna1-at-bigpond.com>

Sylvia Aldred [S.Aldred-at-adfa.edu.au] 19.06.06, 11.07.06, 14.07.06
Leon Weston <wyuna1-at-bigpond.com> 22.11.06

Recompiled from the new Monaro Pioneers database by Ian Harvey: 25.10.07
with additional information supplied by: