To encourage marriage among the free classes, Governor Darling, who presided over the Colony from 1825 to 1831, established a ‘marriage portions’ scheme for the ‘daughters of men of respectability of the Colony’. Once engaged—or ‘promised’—in marriage, daughters of clergymen, mid-level officials and other groups who lacked inherited wealth but had standing in the community, could register for a marriage portion land grant.
Among the entries in the Port Macquarie Small Debts Register is one of Port Macquarie’s more notable residents - Dr Charles Lamonnerie Dictus Fattorini, rumoured to be the illegitimate son of Napoleon Bonaparte.
This volume shows returned soldiers clearing the land, constructing houses, and carrying out farming activities on soldier settlements established following World War 1. The photos also feature their families and cottages in which they lived.
The Soldier Settlement website: A Land Fit For Heroes? contains 195 case studies using a variety of sources including those held by us and the returned soldiers’ digitised personnel files held by the National Archives of Australia. The case studies are often incomplete and the information generally dates to the early 1930s. There were over 9,000 soldier settlers in New South Wales and this small sample has been extracted from our voluminous files.