Parish maps and Thomas Huxley

In an attempt to try to solve the issue of Thomas Huxley and Tom Uglys Point/Bridge, I've been looking at old parish maps. I can easily find the land Thomas Huxley Snr (of purported Tom Uglys Point fame) and Thomas Huxley Jnr owned at Lower Portland Head. I helpfully had a description of the location of the land in letters to and from the Colonial Secretary which I read through the other day at the State Records Centre in Kingswood. The land was described as being right at the junction of the Colo and Hawkesbury Rivers, and this is exactly where I found it. Interestingly, right beside these two plots of land is a parcel of land of 70 acres which was owned by one Thomas Jones. "Thomas Jones" was one of Thomas Huxley's aliases... maybe it was also his, although it could have been a completely different person who just happened to be named Thomas Jones. Below is my hand drawn map based on the parish maps.

Over on the other side of Sydney there are no maps of Tom Uglys Point which show land owned by any of Thomas Huxley's aliases. The land the point is on was owned by a Robert Townson, so it doesn't sound like the point was named after him either. It is possible that the available maps do not cover times when Huxley owned land there, or it is possible the whole story is a furphy!

Incidentally, the way I found these maps was through the NSW Department of Lands. First I looked up the parish name using the name search on the Geographical Names Board website - in the case of Lower Portland Head it was "Hawkesbury". Then I looked at the Hawkesbury parish maps using the Parish Map Preservation Project webpage until I found one which had the junction of the Colo and Hawkesbury Rivers, and there was the name Huxley - Bingo!

Thomas Huxley and Tom Uglys Bridge

In the south of Sydney, on the Georges River, there is a bridge called Tom Uglys Bridge. It was named after Tom Uglys Point, which is found where the northern end of the bridge reaches land.

There is a theory that Thomas Huxley lived in the area and it was named after him, using the pronunciation of the local Aborigines - "Tom Ugly" instead of "Tom Huxley". Whilst this mispronunciation is possible, no records survive that show Thomas Huxley actually lived on the Georges River. All the surviving documentation shows that Thomas Huxley lived and owned land on the Hawkesbury River, which is to the north of Sydney, almost 100kms away.

I was at the NSW State Records Centre the other day and looked at some documentation regarding land that Thomas was requesting to acquire next to the 40 or 50 acres (it is unclear exactly which - the documents appear to contradict each other) that he already had at Lower Portland Head, on the Hawkesbury. He was granted the 40/50 acres by Governor Sir Thomas Brisbane, and he wanted to purchase at least 40 more, next to it. This was granted by Sir Ralph Darling in 1831. There was nothing in the letters to the Colonial Secretary regarding land on the Georges River, only on the Hawkesbury River.

There is a possibility that land was purchased on the Georges River using one of Thomas Huxley's aliases - Jones, Huckles, Oxley, but I have not looked into those - I'll have to save that for another visit to the records centre. On the face of it though, my conclusion is that Tom Uglys Bridge is not named after Thomas Huxley.

My family's shady past

So far, reading through this blog you could be forgiven for thinking that all of my ancestors were law-abiding citizens. However, in Australia, people of British heritage often have convicts lurking in their family trees. It used to be a shameful thing but these days it is seen to be quite a badge of honour. My family tree is no exception, I just haven't gotten around to mentioning them yet!

I can't think of any direct ancestors on my father's side who were convicts, but there are some on my mother's. My husband has way more convicts in his family tree, but this is about my ancestors, so I'm not going to tell you about them!

Mum and Dad were out and about the other day and did some grave hunting. They found the graves of two of Mum's convict ancestors: Thomas Huxley and Ann Forbes. I'm not going to give many details of Thomas and Ann here because many people before me have researched them and you only need to google their names with "convict" for pages and pages of information on them!

Thomas Huxley was born in 1768, in Middlesex England, died 4 Jul 1854, Richmond, NSW. Thomas was transported in the Third Fleet, for stealing a silk handkerchief, on the Salamander. He was buried in the cemetery at St Peter's Anglican Church, Richmond.

Ann Forbes was born in 1768, in England, died 29 Dec 1851, Sackville, NSW. She was transported in the First Fleet, for stealing some cotton fabric, on the Prince of Wales. She was buried in the cemetery of St Thomas' Anglican Church, Sackville.