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Richard Ridge, Convict, Trader and Bailiff in Early Colonial NSW – by Louise Wilson
Product details
Paperback: 347 pages
Publisher: Louise Wilson
ISBN: 9780980447873
Trim size: 250 x 176 mm
Synopsis
“What did bailiffs do in early colonial Australia? Find out here!”
Richard Ridge was the cousin of a Viscountess when he was born in Oxfordshire in 1766. But, in 1791, he arrived with the Third Fleet as a convict in the penal colony of New South Wales. Literate and numerate, once free, he earned money by carting goods, surviving the clutches of the NSW Corps and their cronies. The colony’s civil court transactions revealed his active trading activities.
Along the way he managed to win the respect of some powerful men in Sydney. By 1807 he was employed as the bailiff, an officer of the court, spending much time on horseback, delivering writs and seizing assets of debtors, as ordered by the court. This tough position exposed him to financial risks, and also physical risk from disgruntled debtors.
Richard’s boss was the Provost Marshal, William Gore, who’d arrived in Sydney with Governor Bligh in August 1806. In that role, Gore enforced the arrest of John Macarthur. Richard became caught up in the upheaval leading to the Rum Rebellion by the NSW Corps in January 1808, and its aftermath. Later came the legal battles between Governor Macquarie and Sydney’s unimpressive bunch of lawyers, also impacting Richard’s employment.
At the Hawkesbury, where Richard settled, he endured relentless floods. As a constable in the 1820s he dealt with men competing for land in the newly-opened wilderness area along the Colo River.
Richard was a protector type. He rescued three damsels in distress: Mary Cunningham/Carroll, Jane Poole and Margaret Forrester. His two daughters born to Mary and Jane were raised by their feminist mothers; he was a protective parent of his eleven children with his young wife Margaret.
Richard Ridge was ‘ridgy-didge’, Australian slang for a genuine, straightforward person. He triumphed over incredible adversity during his busy, challenging and adventurous life.
