He sailed to make his fortune and he did!
A man who travelled to Australia to try his luck and who was lucky indeed!
JAMES NORTON (ESQ)
James was born in Hastings Sussex England on the 27
July 1795 the third son of John Norton and his wife Mary (nee Bradford). He
received a legal education and was admitted to practice as an attorney and thus
was known as Esquire.
He sailed as Captain’s Clerk in the “Maria” that
arrived in Sydney in September 1818 with the aim of making his fortune as a lawyer
– at the time only four other solicitors were practicing in the town. His
father, a brother and three sisters followed him to Sydney the following year
and the family received a large grant of land in the Mulgoa district on the
Nepean River. James also was granted a separate land title that he farmed. His
youngest sister, Emma, married the explorer John Oxley in August 1822.
In the meantime, his
legal practice flourished and in 1826 he created Australia’s first law firm
when he took William Barker into partnership. James was counsel for the Crown
in many prominent cases before the legal profession in NSW was divided in 1929.
His eldest son, James Norton Jr. became a lawyer and was articled in the same
law firm.
James, in his first
year in the colony, became an active member of a committee to form a savings
bank. On the 10th of January 1824 he married Jane, the daughter of
Alexander MacKenzie, a cashier of the Bank of NSW. They went on to have 10
children and in 1834 he bought Elswick, a 30-hectare property on Parramatta
Road in Leichardt. He developed a large garden of roses, bamboos and gardenias,
a pond full of eels, an orchard and just to add that touch of elegance,
peacocks roamed freely. A row of cottages was built on the property to house
the convict servants. James won several prizes for his flowers and plants at
the Australian Floral and Horticultural Society Exhibition in 1841 and was known
as one of Australia’s earliest botanists.
Jane, his wife, died
on the 23rd of March 1840 at Elswick and in early 1843 James married Marian
Backhouse and together they went on to have 5 children.
James was a
shareholder in the Australian Agricultural Company and a director of the Bank
of Australia from April 1826 until its collapse in 1843. He was also director
of the Bank of NSW from February 1823 until May 1826, when he resigned. He was
nominated to the first Legislative Council on the 16th of September 1856
and framed many legal bills. Due to ill-health, he took little part after 1859,
and his term of five years lapsed on the 13th of May 1861.
James Norton died of
lupus on the 31st of August 1862 at Elswick, and six months later
Marion and the children set sail for England where she settled, dying there in
1879.
Norton Street
Leichardt was named after him and the large estate of Elswick was eventually
subdivided into hundreds of blocks of land.
The vault that
incudes James and many family members was reinterred from Devonshire Cemetery in
1901 and occupies a prominent area in the Old Anglican area near the No. 1
Mortuary Train Station.
James Norton was a man who came to Australia to make
his fortune and so he did. So, the next time you wander down Norton Street
Leichardt give a nod to James for his many achievements!
For today’s references I have leaned heavily on the
Australian Dictionary of Biography entry, ancestry.com, Australian Royalty,
Wikipedia and others
If you have any further insights into James, his
family or Norton Street please feel free to add them below or at the Group
Facebook page found under
Rookwood Cemetery Discoveries
Or send me a personal message via
Until next time
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