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Henry Dendy Story
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Extracted in the main from the book ‘Henry Dendy and his Emigrants’ written by the late Leslie A Schumer,OBE, Sallas Books 1975.

Henry Dendy was born at Arbinger, Surrey, England on 24^th May 1800. He died at Walhalla, North Gippsland, Victoria, Australia on 11 February 1881. he lies in an unmarked grave on the hillside above the old goldmining town which nowdays is a small tourist attraction. He spent most of his early years on his fathers farm in Surrey, and later became a brewer in Dorking. On 6 January 1835, he married Sarah Weller at Capel. Dendy’s father died in 1838 and left his real and personal estate to his son. The property included farms at Rudgewick in Sussex and at Wooton and Walliswood in Surrey.

Henry Dendy became interested in the Colony of New South Wales after 23 May 1840 when Her Majesty’s Government suspended the sale by auction of Crown Lands in the Port Phillip District and replaced such by a system of selection of sections of 320 acres at a flat rate of One Pound (UK) per acre. His interest grew after August 1840 when the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners offered 8 square miles of land in either Sydney or Port Phillip for 5,120 pounds. He borrowed some money and used his wife’s dowry to put up the required amount on 29 August and was handed personally Special Order No.1 under the seal of the Land and Emigration Commissioners on 19 September 1840.

Dendy sailed for Port Phillip in the ship named York on 9 October 1840, taking with him his wife, their young son Henry and three servants. He also took with him an extraordinary assortment of goods intended it would seem, for setting up a rural homestead. The ship arrived safely in Port Phillip on 5 February 1841. Dendy made several selections of land and eventually agreed on a block of land in Brighton which he would develop. He had in mind for his estate an English Manor with village, church, tenant farmers, agricultural labourers, and himself as the Lord. However, this was not to be. This was Australia, not England. He sold to J B Were, geo Were and Robert Dunsford a half share of the block for 3,000 pounds, a paltry sum. Although he retained a 50 per cent financial interest, his voice was only one of four and, for all intents and purposes, management of the estate passed into the hands of the other parties. 1841 was notable for an economic depression which intensified in 1842. The prices of wool, sheep, other cattle and rural products had fallen affecting the liquidity of many commercial undertakings.

The August 1840 land regulations under which Dendy had purchased his land included provisions that allowed the purchaser an entitlement to import a number of persons of the labouring class for a free passage into the Colony. In Dendy’s case, this was 256 statute adults but he waived his right beyond 100 passengers. As he was not in a position to select the people himself, he appointed Carter and Bonus in London as agents to undertake the selection. Toward the end of 1841, formal arrangements were made for his people to leave England on the earl of Durham on 12 February 1842. A second batch was scheduled for the Platina, sailing on 5 April 1842. Back in Port Phillip, the decline in the economy in 1842 was beginning to impact on Dendy’s financial situation. Dendy’s partners had been adversely affected too and he was to become entangled unhappily in their misfortunes. Inexplicably, Dendy had neglected to plan for his emigrants soon to arrive for his service. And, when they did arrive, he was not in a position to offer employment. This situation came to the attention of the Governor of the Colony and it was agreed that Dendy would take some responsibility for those of his people on the earl of Durham but not for those arriving later on the Platina. Accordingly, most of the emigrants – excluding those that were dispersed elsewhere, were taken to Brighton to start their new lives. Taken is perhaps a misnomer. They had to walk the distance, some 19 miles, on a muddy stump ridden track, following the horse and dray that carried their luggage. Dendy’s dream, the Brighton Estate, was nothing like the cultivated farmland of England. Little had been done to develop the land, and the first priority for the emigrants was to build themselves slab or bark huts in which to live. Most of these slab huts were clustered around where St Andrews Church is now and the area became known as Little Brighton.

Dendy was adjudged insolvent in 1845, but did manage to obtain a discharge in 1846 by agreeing to settle on some of his properties transferred to his wife’s name, on account of her dowry. He moved to Geelong in 1847 and resumed his old trade as a brewer. Whilst there, he took steps to sell what was left of Brighton Park. He sold the brewery in Geelong in July 1849 and took over the license for Christmas Hill station near Yarra Glen, which was 9,600 acres. The land was quite unsuitable for sheep so he surrendered the license in June 1853 and acquired the license for the 57,000 acres Upper Moira station on Broken River near Nathalia which carried 9,400 sheep, 200 cattle and 6 horses. This he sold to two Tasmanians in 1855 and he and his family departed back to England. They returned a year later and settled in Eltham where Dendy carried on a milling business. His wife died on 18 February 1860, aged 57 and was buried at Warringal Cemetary. Dendy, always a generous and religious man, gave half his land at Eltham for the establishment of a Church of England – called St Margarets. In 1865, he became interested financially in a copper mine at Gippsland but this commitment drew heavily on his funds. He sold his Eltham business and moved to Walhalla where the copper mine was located. He died on 11 February 1881 at Walhalla, impoverished and inestate and was buried in a cemetery there without a headstone to mark his grave. Memorials of him exist in Brighton in the names of a park, a street and now a shooping mall and theatre complex. There is also Dendy Cottage up at Walhalla. He was according to the words of his loyal henchman John Booker (recorded in 1990) ‘A good honourable gentleman and a kind master but a poor businessman’.

There is now in Brighton, a growing awareness of Henry Dendy’s contribution to the establishment of that locality. During a 1992 gathering of Henry Dendy’s emigrants at Brighton, memorials were established at St Andrews Church (land for which was given by Henry Dendy), for the unmarked graves of people who died at Brighton in the first years of settlement, and also the Council Offices which list out the names of the families brought out from England by Dendy.