| Honorific Prefix: | The Honourable |
| William Wentworth | |
| Office1: | 4th President of the New South Wales Legislative Council |
| Term Start1: | 24 June 1861 |
| Term End1: | 10 October 1862 |
| Deputy1: | George Allen |
| Predecessor1: | William Westbrooke Burton |
| Successor1: | Terence Aubrey Murray |
| Office2: | Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council |
| Term Start2: | 3 September 1861 |
| Term End2: | 10 October 1862 Life appointment |
| Term Start3: | 1 June 1843 |
| Term End3: | 1 April 1854 |
| Constituency3: | City of Sydney |
| Predecessor3: | Position established |
| Successor3: | Henry Parkes |
| Birth Name: | William Charles Wentworth |
| Birth Date: | 8 1790 df=yes |
| Birth Place: | Aboard HMS Surprize, Cascade Bay, Norfolk Island |
| Death Place: | Merley House, Wimborne, Dorset, England |
| Burial Place: | Wentworth Mausoleum, Vaucluse, New South Wales |
| Monuments: | Statue in Great Hall, University of Sydney |
| Nationality: | British (colonial Australian) |
| Other Names: | William Charles Wentworth |
| Education: | Barrister-at-law |
| Alma Mater: | |
| Occupation: | Lawyer, Pastoralist, Politician |
| Spouse: | Sarah Cox |
| Children: | 10 |
| Mother: | Catherine Crowley |
| Father: | D'Arcy Wentworth |
| Resting Place: | Wentworth Mausoleum, Chapel Road, Vaucluse, New South Wales |
William Charles Wentworth (August 179020 March 1872) was an Australian statesman, pastoralist, explorer, newspaper editor, lawyer, politician and author, who became one of the wealthiest and most powerful figures in colonial New South Wales. He was among the first colonists to articulate a nascent Australian identity.
Wentworth was the leading advocate for the rights of emancipists, trial by jury and representative self-government; he led the drafting of New South Wales' first self-governing constitution establishing the Parliament of New South Wales. The establishment of Australia's first independent newspaper by Wentworth and Robert Wardell led to the introduction of press freedom in Australia. A backer of secular and universal education, he participated in the creation of the state education system and legislated for the creation of Australia's first university, the University of Sydney. His views took a strong conservative turn in the 1840s, with Wentworth ending his previous support for free migration and expressing more restrictive views on voting rights, though he moderated the latter upon becoming President of the Legislative Council in 1861. Throughout his life, he promoted the subjugation of Aboriginal Australians. Wentworth consistently advocated for Australian nationhood both in Australia and Britain, and gained credit from Sir Henry Parkes for his advocacy of self-government; a key figure in Australian and New South Wales history, he is widely commemorated.
Wentworth, Gregory Blaxland and William Lawson led the 1813 expedition across the Blue Mountains, the first successful British traversal of the region.
William Charles Wentworth was born on the vessel HMS Surprize off the coast of the penal settlement of Norfolk Island in August 1790 to D'Arcy Wentworth and Catherine Crowley. Catherine was a convict while his father, D'Arcy, was a member of the aristocratic Anglo-Irish Wentworth family, who had avoided prosecution for highway robbery by accepting the position of assistant surgeon in the colony of New South Wales.[1]
Due to his mother being a felon and his conception being out of wedlock, confusion has existed around the exact date of William Wentworth's birth. His father, however, acknowledged him as a legitimate son and he became a part of colonial society as a Wentworth family member.[2] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
As a young boy William Wentworth moved from Norfolk Island to Sydney with his parents and younger brothers in 1796. The family lived at Parramatta, where his father became a prosperous landowner. His mother died in 1800.[1] In 1803, William and his brothers Dorset and Matthew, were sent to England to be educated at an exclusive school run by Alexander Crombie in Greenwich.[9]
Wentworth failed to gain entry into both the East India Company College and the Royal Military Academy and with his career prospects blunted, he returned to Sydney in 1810. He rode his father's horse Gig to victory at Hyde Park in the first official horse races on Australian soil.[10] [1]
In 1811, he was appointed acting Provost Marshal by Governor Lachlan Macquarie, and given a grant of 1750acres of prime land along the Nepean River which Wentworth named Vermont.[1]
See main article: 1813 crossing of the Blue Mountains. In 1813 Wentworth, along with Gregory Blaxland and William Lawson, led the expedition which found a route across the Blue Mountains west of Sydney and opened up the grazing lands of inland New South Wales. Wentworth kept a journal of the exploration which begins by describing the first day of the journey:
On the Eleventh of May our party consisting of Mr. Gregory Blaxland, Lieutenant Lawson and Myself with four servants quitted Mr. Gregory Blaxland's farm on the South Creek and on the 29th of the June Month descended from the Mountain into forest land having travelled as nearly as I can compute about 60 Miles.[11]
In the journal, Wentworth describes the landscapes they were exploring:
A country of so singular a description could in my opinion only have been produced by some Mighty convulsion in Nature.In his 1823 epic Australasia, Wentworth once again references what he saw on the expedition:
Hail mighty ridge! that from thy azure brow
Survey'st these fertile plains, that stretch below
The town of Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains commemorates his role in the expedition. As a reward he was granted 1000acres.[1]
In 1814 Wentworth continued his adventurous lifestyle by joining a sandalwood-getting voyage to the South Pacific aboard the Cumberland under Captain Philip Goodenough. This vessel reached Rarotonga where conflict with the local people resulted in five of the crew being killed. Wentworth was nearly killed himself but with the aid of a pistol was able to flee to the Cumberland which sailed back to Sydney.[12]
Wentworth returned to England in 1816 where he studied law at the Magdalene and Peterhouse colleges at Cambridge University. He became a barrister and was admitted to the bar in 1822.[9]
In between studying and writing, Wentworth also travelled to Europe, spending much of his time in Paris. He formulated an idea of establishing himself as a leader of a pastoral aristocracy in New South Wales and attempted to arrange his marriage with Elizabeth Macarthur, the daughter of the highly influential colonist John Macarthur. Wentworth however failed in this attempt after arguing with the Macarthur patriarch over his convict heritage and a loan.
Wentworth became involved in literary pursuits, and by 1824 had published a number of notable works. He had created a minor stir in 1816 by anonymously publishing a satirical verse attacking the Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales, George Molle. In 1819 he published a book entitled: A Statistical, Historical, and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and Its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land. In this book Wentworth advocated for an elected assembly for New South Wales, free press, trial by jury and settlement of Australia by free emigrants rather than convicts.[13] It served as the source material for the first theatrical play set in Van Diemen's Land (modern-day Tasmania), the bushranging melodrama Michael Howe the Terror! of Van Diemen's Land, which premiered in London in 1821.[14]
In 1823 he also published an epic poem Australasia, the first book of verse by a native-born Australian poet,[15] which contained the lines:
And, O Britannia!... may this—thy last-born infant—then arise,
To glad thy heart, and greet thy parent eyes;
And Australasia float, with flag unfurl'd,
A new Britannia in another world![16] As well as describing the scenery Wentworth saw in the Blue Mountains, the poem featured a romanticised portrayal of the lifestyle of Aboriginal Australians.
Wentworth returned to Sydney in 1824, accompanied by fellow barrister Robert Wardell. He actively campaigned for the introduction of self-government and trial by jury in the colony by establishing with Wardell The Australian newspaper (not to be confused with the present-day paper of the same name), the colony's first privately owned paper. Governor Sir Thomas Brisbane realised there was little point in continuing to censor The Sydney Gazette when The Australian was uncensored and so government censorship of newspapers was abandoned in 1824 and the freedom of the press began in Australia.[17] With an editorial leaning toward the rights of ex-convicts (known as emancipists), the paper was in frequent conflict with Governor Ralph Darling, who attempted unsuccessfully to have it banned in 1826.[18] Wentworth also became a director of the Bank of New South Wales in 1825.[19] [20]
Of The Australian, with its liberal sensibilities, one contemporary who commented on flogging and other harsh punishments administered to convicts in New South Wales went on to say:
Wentworth's support for the rights of emancipists pitted him against the opposing exclusives. During a public meeting held on 21 October 1825 in tribute to the outgoing Governor Brisbane, Wentworth expressed a hope “to deprive them of their venom and their fangs”. He successfully proposed a motion to request Brisbane lobby Westminster for “the immediate establishment” of trial by jury and “Taxation by Representation.” Of his call for an elected legislature, Wentworth noted “there are colonists of … very great influence at home who are inimical to the establishment in New South Wales of the British Constitution”. Wentworth and Wardell opined in The Australian:
Public meetings open the eyes of the people—shew them their own strength—moral as well as physical and convey to their reasoning faculties truths, to which, but for them, they might remain strangers. Public meetings expose the irresistibility of the people, if they firmly and legally claim their political due.The death of Private Joseph Sudds in November 1826 inflamed Wentworth, prompting him to demand Governor Darling's recall. Sudds and Private Patrick Thompson had broken the law in an effort to be discharged. Darling, seeking to make an example of the two, sentenced Thompson and already-ill Sudds to seven years' hard labour with the unusual additional punishment of being chained from the neck for the entirety of their sentences. Wentworth described Sudds' death as "murder, or at least a high misdemeanour".[21]
In 1827, Wentworth's father, D'Arcy Wentworth, died and William inherited much of his highly valuable assets and property, becoming one of the wealthiest men in the colony. He purchased land in eastern Sydney at Vaucluse and built a mansion named Vaucluse House, which he moved into from Petersham. Wentworth also acquired property in Homebush and in 1827 he received a grant of 12,000 acres of prime land along the Hunter River at Luskintyre.[22] On 26 October 1829, Wentworth married Sarah Cox, a convict-descended currency lass who had been represented by Wentworth in her successful 1825 breach of promise lawsuit against Captain John Payne. The proceeding was the first such case in Australia. William and Sarah had previously named their daughter Thomasine in honour of Sir Thomas Brisbane. A love poem from William to Sarah appeared in The Australian three days prior to their marriage. Carol Liston, biographer of Sarah Wentworth, noted that her commissioning of various domestic duties was fundamental to the success of her husband and children.[23]
In 1830, the Imperial Parliament incorporated Wentworth's legal argument that convicts could only be removed from assignments if to their benefit, and required the Governor to consult the Executive Council before doing so. This followed protracted conflict between Governor Darling and reformists including Wentworth, involving Darling's reassignment of the foreman printer for The Monitor to a road gang,
Wentworth expanded his property holdings, obtaining large pastoral grazing licenses throughout New South Wales. In 1832 he acquired land at Gammon Plains and in 1836 he bought the Windermere estate expanding his Hunter River holdings. In the 1830s he formed partnerships with Captain Thomas Raine and John Christie in taking up land along the Macquarie River from Narromine to Haddon Rig. In the 1840s with John Charles Lloyd, he acquired further massive landholdings along the Namoi River and at Manilla. In the Murrumbidgee River region, Wentworth employed Augustus Morris to establish huge squatting licenses in his name.[24] [25] [26] [27]
Some of these properties were immense and became famous as highly valuable sheep and cattle stations. These included the 120,000 acre Yanko property, the 200,000 acre Tala station, the Wambianna cattle property and the Galathra and Burburgate holdings. Wentworth was able to obtain most of these vast accumulations of land for only the £10 annual squatting fee, and after stocking them, was able to sell the properties for considerable profit.[28] [29] [30] [31]
In 1839, Wentworth led a consortium of Sydney speculators in an attempt to acquire large amounts of land in New Zealand from the resident Ngāi Tahu people. In exchange for paying chief Tūhawaiki a lump sum of £100 with an annual payment of £50, as well as £20 upfront and £10 annually for the other chiefs, Wentworth laid claim to 8 million hectares which amounted to around a third of the entire New Zealand land mass. This included the third of the South Island purchased by Edward Gibbon Wakefield from Te Rauparaha, an enemy of the chiefs Wentworth dealt with. The deed, 1000 words long, was written in dense legal jargon. Governor George Gipps intervened and prevented the transaction from proceeding, openly accusing Wentworth of an outrageous and immoral fraud against the Māori. This heightened the fierce enmity between the squatters and Gipps, with Wentworth, now a leading member of the "squattocracy", swearing "eternal vengeance" against Gipps for his interference.[32]
During the 1830s, Wentworth continued to push his professed ideals of free emigration, trial by jury, rights for emancipists and elected representation. On 29 May 1835, a meeting chaired by Wentworth discussed Henry Lytton Bulwer's proposal for a colonial committee to be formed which would act through a Parliamentary Advocate, for which Bulwer nominated himself, to represent New South Wales. The meeting resolved to raise £2,000 to fund the position by establishing the Australian Patriotic Association. During the meeting, when one speaker complained about the membership fee of £5 for directing members, Wentworth reportedly remarked that "Ignorance and poverty went together.” Wentworth committed £50 to the organisation.
The association was established by Wentworth and ex-convict William Bland and is believed to be the first political party in Australia. While it began as a broad church, division soon grew over the rights of emancipists, augmented by Wentworth drafting two bills for the association proposing not just representative government but also the repeal of all restrictions on trial by jury. However, by 1840 the political climate in New South Wales had changed and with Wentworth becoming one of the wealthiest and most powerful landholders in the colony, his views became very conservative.
In 1842, the British government passed the Constitution Act for New South Wales which allowed for elected representatives to outnumber those nominated by the Crown in the Legislative Council of New South Wales. The following year, 24 members were elected by eligible land-holding male citizens of the colony. Although these changes seemed to democratise governance in New South Wales, it in fact markedly increased the influence of the wealthy land-holding squatters due to the prerequisite of owning at least £2,000 worth of land in order to be a candidate.[33] [34] [35] Wentworth was elected to the Council in 1843 for Town of Sydney and soon became the leader of the conservative party, opposed to the liberal-minded members led by Charles Cowper.[36]
Wentworth positioned himself in government as a vocal leader for the wealthy squatters and landowners. He vehemently opposed any reforms that threatened the status of this "squattocracy" class and was instrumental in the removal of Governor Gipps in 1846 who wanted to fund free emigration to the colony through additional tariffs on squatting licences. With Gipps out of the picture, Wentworth was able to facilitate the passing of the Squatters' Act of 1848, which allowed for very favourable long-term pastoral leases to be handed out to the squatters.
Convict transportation to the colony ended in 1840 and with it the squatters lost a very cheap source of labour to work on their properties. Wentworth no longer approved of free European migration to fill the void as this was more costly. With other members of the squattocracy such as James Macarthur, Wentworth advocated for the introduction of indentured Chinese coolie labour and procured them as servants at his Vaucluse mansion and on his grazing properties. Wentworth advanced each coolie six Spanish dollars for passage from China, to be paid back over a five year labour contract. He had them punished with jail terms of hard labour for absconding. On one occasion, an interpreter for the Chinese workers verbally abused Wentworth following the sentencing of one of the workers, and was subsequently charged by Wentworth for absconding, and as such was sentenced to two months' imprisonment with hard labour.[37]
During the trial, Wentworth quipped that the prisoners ought to be forced to work on treadmills. In 1851, he argued for the death penalty, arguing that "hardened felons, convicted of repeated grave offences would be punished best by death" and that such punishment would be "more reformatory in its effects" than any other. In light of these sentiments, The Australian, the progressive paper that Wentworth was no longer associated with, stated in the early 1850s that Wentworth's opinions were then worth nothing.[38]
During his time leading elected conservatives in the Legislative Council between 1843 and 1854, Wentworth led agitation for the local control of Crown lands and revenue.
In 1848, Wentworth proposed the establishment of "a Congress from the various Colonial Legislatures" to legislate on "inter-colonial questions" in response to a suggestion from Earl Grey for a "central authority" for the Australian colonies. This preceded Australian federation in 1901.[39]
Wentworth chaired a public meeting establishing the Hunter River Railway Company in April 1853.[40] The company devised the railway line between Newcastle and Maitland, though it ran into financial trouble and was bought by the Government during construction.[41] [42] Wentworth foreshadowed the line's extension to Scone up north and Sydney down south; the line ultimately developed into the Main North line connecting Sydney and Brisbane.[43] [44]
As a young writer in 1819, Wentworth saw Aboriginal Australians as occupying "the lowest place in the gradatory scale of the human species."[45] He wrote:
Thirty years’ intercourse with Europeans has not effected the slightest change in their habit; and those even, who have the most intermixed with the colonists, have never been prevailed upon to practise any of the arts of civilized life ... Frequent attempts have been made to divert them from their vagrant propensities, and to adopt some of the fixed occupations of social man; but except in one or two instances, these attempts have been utterly unsuccessful.
In 1820, Wentworth noted that the outbreak of smallpox decimating Aboriginal communities around Sydney was retold in traditional songs.[46] He romanticised the lifestyle of Aboriginal Australians in his 1823 epic Australasia. In 1827, Wentworth was the defence counsel for Lieutenant Nathaniel Lowe who was accused and acquitted of shooting dead an Aboriginal prisoner. He argued that Englishmen were justified in punitively killing Aboriginal people as the law had an "inability" to punish them and therefore did not exist to protect them, whom he described as being "one degree just above the beasts of the field — possessing no understanding beyond a confused notion of right and wrong, and that is all."
We could not, according to any principles, have assumed any right of sovereignty over them; they are the free occupants of the demesne or soil; it belongs to them by law of nations, anterior to any laws which follow from human institutions ... there is no right of empire among them, no Chieftain in a condition, from their vagabond state, to make a treaty with the head of any civilized government. If there be no public compact of this sort, there can only exist a tacit compact among individuals, which goes no further than to say, we will be at peace with you if you keep peaceable with us, and that compact would be sufficient to authorize the gentleman at the bar to punish any of these natives who violated this compact, in any way he might think fit.[47]In 1844, there was a push to reform the judicial system to allow evidence to be given by Aboriginals. Wentworth was vociferous in his opposition, claiming that the evidence given by "this savage race" would be comparative to the "chatterings of the ourang-outang," and would enable them to "wreak their revenge on the unfortunate white man".[48] When the issue was brought before the Council again in 1849, he referred to the proposal as "most fatal to the natives themselves [and] most cruel to the white inhabitants." He simultaneously referred to the hangings of the perpetrators of the 1838 Myall Creek massacre as "judicial murder" – it was reported in his obituary that "the Crown was thought by Mr. Wentworth, and by many more, to have strained the law against those who slew the savages," with their executions "bitterly and even fiercely resented by Wentworth, and ... perhaps, never forgiven or forgotten."[49] While arguing against the proposal, Wentworth remarked:
...remember when the Cowpasture tribe made an inroad upon the settled lands, and on that occasion what was the course adopted by the Government? The military were ordered out by the Government—they opposed these savage marauders, and a slaughter, numerically considered very inconsiderable, ensued. But the force of the bullets and bayonets of the English forces prevailed, and peace and quiet was for ever obtained. It was not the policy of a wise Government to attempt the perpetuation of the aboriginal race of New South Wales by any protective means. They must give way before the arms, aye! even the diseases of civilised nations—they must give way before they attained the power of those nations.In 1849, Wentworth supported the establishment of a Native Police force, believing "it would be the most powerful, perhaps, the only means, of averting those collisions between the blacks and the border settlers which had hitherto unfortunately existed." The first Commandant of the Native Police for the northern districts, Frederick Walker, was a personal friend of Wentworth's who also managed his immense property at Tala on the Murrumbidgee.[50] [51]
When the Wentworths sailed to Britain in 1862, their Aboriginal servant Bobby travelled with them. Bobby returned after finding the winters too cold, Sarah Wentworth remarking that “He is naturally so clever and sensible that I hope he will be content to go back to Vaucluse.”
Wentworth was a strong supporter of universal and secular education. He became a shareholder in the newly-opened Sydney College, a secular boys' school, in 1835.:28 He was involved in the establishment of state primary education, supporting in 1844 the introduction of "Lord Stanley's system of national education" used in Ireland, modified so that:[52]
...instead of the clergy and pastors of the several denominations being allowed to impart religious instruction in the schools, the children be allowed to be absent from school one day in every week exclusive of Sunday, for the purpose of receiving such instruction elsewhere...Wentworth's amendment passed and National Board of Education was established in 1848 following a change of governor; schools were established for both sexes.[53] [54] Wentworth was also key to the establishment of the University of Sydney, one of the first public, non-denominational and secular universities in the British Empire.[55] [56] It came about when Wentworth and Sir Charles Nicholson, a graduate of medicine from the University of Edinburgh Medical School, tabled a plan to expand the existing Sydney College – of which Wentworth was on the governing council – into a larger university. Wentworth argued that a state secular university was imperative for the growth of a society aspiring towards self-government, and that it would provide the opportunity for "the child of every class, to become great and useful in the destinies of his country".[57] [58]
I see In this measure the path opened to the poor man to the highest position which the country can afford him. So far from being an institution for the rich, I take It to be an institution for the poor. ... I trust that, from the pregnant womb of this institution will arise a long list of illustrious names—of statesmen—of patriots—of philanthropists—of philosophers—of poets and of heroes, who will shed a deathless halo, not only on their country, but upon the University which called them into being.[59]
He promoted access on the basis of merit rather than religious or social status. Speaking in the Legislative Council in September 1849 advocating for the establishment of a university, Wentworth argued that:
No doubt on the subject of education great and deplorable apathy had existed in the colony; but while he wished not to excuse the community from their share of the blame, he must confess that this apathy seemed to him to be more chargeable on the Government than on the public. If it was the duty of the governments of other colonies to provide education for the people, that duty became infinitely more imperious here. If it was the duty of the State to instruct the free and virtuous population of those colonies, how much greater the necessity to enlighten the tainted population of this ... In this colony, therefore, of all others, it was the paramount duty of the Government to provide for the instruction of the people, and to reclaim it from the mood taint attaching to it, by elevating and enlightening the minds of its inhabitants.[60]On the university's secular mandate, Wentworth declared:
Clergy ... ought to be excluded altogether from ... [its] management ... its gates must be open to all whether they were disciples of Moses, of Jesus, of Brahmin, of Mohammed, of Vishnu or of Buddha.Sydney newspaper The People's Advocate in October 1849 praised Wentworth for his efforts to establish the university, remarking that:
It is always a gratification of the highest order to behold a repentant sinner making some great and signal atonement for the errors of his past life ... Without broadly asserting that Mr. Wentworth is precisely in the position of the youthful sinner referred to, we think we can perceive in some of his recent actions evidence of a latent consciousness of not having discharged, his duty to his country, and of a desire to make some expiation for his culpable neglect, not to use a stronger term.[61]It took two attempts on Wentworth's behalf before the plan was finally adopted, culminating in the passage of the University of Sydney Act 1850 (NSW) on 24 September 1850. Wentworth was among the first members of the university's senate.[62]
Wentworth helped endow the university, and donations from Wentworth funded the establishment of the Wentworth Medal in 1854 and the Wentworth Fellowship in 2020.[63] [64] The 1972-built Wentworth Building is named after him, and a statue of him stands in the Great Hall.[65] [66]
Well before Wentworth led the creation of the first self-governing New South Wales constitution, he advocated for representative government in the colony. In his 1819 book, Wentworth wrote:
Every community which has not a free government is devoid of that security of person and property which has been found to be the chief stimulus to individual exertion and the only basis on which social edifice can repose in a solid and durable tranquility.In April 1851, Wentworth established a committee to formulate a motion against the perceived inadequacies of the Australian Colonies Government Act. The "Declaration and Remonstrance" declared, among other things, that "the Imperial Parliament has not, nor of right ought to have any power to tax the people of this Colony," and that "plenary powers of legislation should be conferred upon and exercised by the Colonial Legislature ... [and] no bills should be reserved" for the Imperial Parliament unless they affected the Empire. Sir Henry Parkes later wrote of Wentworth that "His Declaration and Remonstrance is so important as one of the foundation-stones of the fabric of our constitutional liberties."In 1853 Wentworth chaired the committee to draft a new constitution for New South Wales, which was to receive full responsible self-government from Britain. His draft provided for a powerful unelected Legislative Council and an elected Legislative Assembly with high property qualifications for voting and membership. He also suggested the establishment of a colonial peerage drawn from the landowning class. He described people without property as "idiots, unfit to have any voice" in parliament. This draft aroused the bitter opposition of the democrats and radicals such as Daniel Deniehy, who ridiculed Wentworth's plans for what he called a "bunyip aristocracy". The draft constitution was substantially changed to make it more democratic, although the Legislative Council remained unelected.
Wentworth's constitution committee also proposed a General Assembly of the Australian Colonies to legislate on intercolonial matters, including tariffs, railways, lighthouses, penal settlements, gold and the mail. This was the first outline of the future Australian Commonwealth to be presented in an official colonial legislative report.[67] Wentworth had proposed a "Congress" of the colonial legislatures in 1848.
In 1857 while in London, Wentworth produced a draft Bill proposing a confederation of the Australian colonies, with each colony given equal representation in an intercolonial assembly, a proposal subsequently endorsed by his General Association for the Australian Colonies. He further proposed that a 'permissive Act' be passed by Parliament allowing the colonies of Australia or any subset of them which was not a penal settlement to federate at will. Wentworth, hoping to garner as broad support as possible, proposed a loose association of the colonies, which was criticised by Robert Lowe. The Secretary of State subsequently opted not to introduce the Bill stating it would probably lead to "dissension and discontent," distributing it nonetheless to the colonies for their responses. While there was in-principle support for a union of the colonies, the matter was ultimately deferred while NSW Premier Charles Cowper and Henry Parkes preferred to focus on liberalising Wentworth's squatter-friendly constitution.
Wentworth retired from the Legislative Council of New South Wales in 1854 and sailed for England in March of that same year. With the rise of free immigration during this gold rush period, his continued advocacy for indentured labour and a colonial peerage system made him an unpopular figure. He was heckled, hissed at and had his speech interrupted by the public during his departure ceremony at Circular Quay.[68]
Once in England, he founded the "General Association for the Australian Colonies", whose object was to obtain a federal assembly for the whole of Australia.[9] He refused several offers of honours, including for a baronetcy, and was a member of the Conservative Party and the Conservative Club. He returned to New South Wales for a brief period in 1860-61 to lead the New South Wales Legislative Council, but otherwise remained in England at his Merly House estate. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society.
Upon becoming President of the Legislative Council, Wentworth agreed with Premier Charles Cowper that the Council should be elected and that the Robertson Land Acts should pass, despite the opposition of squatters. This opposition had culminated in the resignation of the previous speaker on the last sitting day of the prior Council. Wentworth's proposal for an elected Legislative Council with high property qualifications and a proportional representation quota system turned out to be too liberal for Cowper, who let it lapse, preferring reasonable appointees to popularly elected members.
Wentworth died on 20 March 1872 at Merley House, Wimborne, Dorset, in England.[69] His combined wealth at the time of his passing was £170,000 . At his request his body was returned to Sydney for burial. He was given the colony's first state funeral on 6 May 1873, a day declared by the governor as a public holiday. Around 65,000 people lined the route of the funeral procession to Vaucluse where Wentworth was buried. The Wentworth Mausoleum was soon after constructed over his grave, overseen by Wentworth's wife Sarah.[70] [71]
On 26 October 1829 at St Philip's Church, Sydney, Wentworth married Sarah Cox (1805–1880). Sarah, the daughter of two convicts, Francis Cox and Frances Morton, had been represented by Wentworth in her successful 1825 breach of promise lawsuit against a certain Captain John Payne.[72] William and Sarah had seven daughters and three sons::24-25
In 1830, he fathered a child, Henry, out of wedlock with Jamima Eagar, the estranged wife of Edward Eagar. Wentworth had supported her with money and a house on Macquarie Street after Edward abandoned her.
Wentworth financially supported his various half-brothers and sisters from his father and Anne Lawes, paying for their education.:26
The towns of Wentworth and Wentworth Falls, the federal Division of Wentworth in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, the Wentworth Falls waterfall, Wentworth Avenue in the Canberra suburb of Kingston, and the Wentworth Shire were named after him.[74] [75] [76] [77] Wentworth Park in Sydney's Inner West was named after Wentworth in 1882.[78]
The University of Sydney Wentworth Medal was established in 1854 from a gift of £200 from Wentworth. It was initially presented to the best essay in English prose and now rewards "an outstanding essay addressing a nominated question."[79] The Wentworth Fellowship, a postgraduate research scholarship within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, was established in 2020 from an 1862 donation by Wentworth.[80] The Wentworth Building, built in 1972 to accommodate the University of Sydney Union, is named after him. The Wentworth Institute of Higher Education, established in 2010, is named after Wentworth.[81]
A large portrait of Wentworth was erected in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1859 following a motion from Sir Henry Parkes. The original Legislative Council room in New South Wales Parliament House now adjoining the Legislative Assembly chamber was in 2013 named the Wentworth Room after D'Arcy and William Charles Wentworth.[82]
Wentworth's estate in Vaucluse became Australia's first official house museum, established as such in 1915.[83] He is recognised in the name of the Wentworth Memorial Church, built in honour of servicemen and women of the Second World War. The church and the adjacent Wentworth Mausoleum fall within the former boundaries of Wentworth's estate.[84]
Historian Manning Clark described Wentworth as "Australia's greatest native son," which Jeremy Stoljar SC writes "seems to have been a description of Wentworth's standing in the colony at the time – specifically, at about the time of Wentworth's marriage in 1829".[85] K. R. Cramp of the Royal Australian Historical Society refers to Wentworth as "Australia's greatest son" in his booklet William Charles Wentworth of Vaucluse House, first published in 1918. Robert Lowe referred to the unselfish devotion to his nation by "this great son of Australia".[86]
Wentworth's clash with Darling was dramatised in the TV series The Patriots (1962).[87]
In 1963 he was honoured, together with Blaxland and Lawson, on a postage stamp issued by Australia Post depicting the Blue Mountains crossing,[88] and again in 1974 on the anniversary of the first newspaper publication.[89]
A statue of Wentworth, sculpted by Pietro Tenerani of Rome, stands at the University of Sydney.[90] Another statue of Wentworth is located on the exterior of the Department of Lands building in Sydney.[91] A bust of him was unveiled in Coronation Park, Wentworth Falls in 2016.[92]
