Highlands history: convict Joe Wild became explorer

THIS is an expanded version of an article first published in this column in December 2009

On 25 May 1847 Joseph Wild died. He was the first to be buried in the churchyard at the newly built Christ Church, Bong Bong.

Wild had arrived in Sydney as a convict in 1797. He served as assistant to several explorers including Dr Charles Throsby and worked as stockman on the Throsby estate at Bong Bong from 1828 until his death.

On his headstone, still standing today, it states that he was aged 88, but ancestral records indicate he was born in Lancashire, England, in March 1765, which would give him a lifespan of 82 years.

This early pioneer made up for being illiterate by gaining a useful knowledge of the bush and of the indigenous peoples.

Wild was sentenced in 1793 at Chester, England, to transportation for life for crimes unknown and spent several years in a prison hulk before embarking on the Ganges in 1797 enroute to Sydney.

In the early 1800s he took part in various exploratory expeditions as servant to botanist Robert Brown and to Adolarius Humphrey, a mineralogist, and travelled widely with them in NSW and Tasmania.

In 1803 he was a member of Ensign Barralier's party of discovery that trekked south and west, crossing the Wollondilly River before being forced by low rations to return to Sydney.

In 1810 Wild received a ticket-of-leave, and in 1813 was granted a conditional pardon by Governor Macquarie. By this time he had a wife and five children. For a time he superintended a farm on the Hawkesbury but by 1814 was working for Dr Charles Throsby at his property Glenfield, near Liverpool.

In 1815 Throsby sent out a small party including Wild to trek into the Five Islands (Illawarra) district. With the guidance of Aboriginals in the area, they cut a cattle track down the escarpment near Bulli. In December 1815 Wild was made a constable for the Five Islands district by Macquarie.

Wild accompanied Throsby on an expedition to the Wingecarribee River at Bong Bong in 1817. They were guided by 17-year-old, Australian-born Hamilton Hume who had trekked through from Appin with his younger brother and an Aboriginal friend in 1814 and returned with tales of fine pasture land.

Throsby was most impressed with the land at Bong Bong and resolved to establish an estate there.

In 1818 Throsby, Wild and Hume were among those who accompanied Surveyor James Meehan on an official southern expedition to find an inland route to Jervis Bay. They reached the Shoalhaven River but it was in flood and impassable. Throsby and Wild with some Aboriginal guides headed back north along Bundanoon Creek to Meryla Pass, from where they descended into Kangaroo Valley and on to the coast at Jervis Bay. This route was subsequently much used as a bridle path.

The party of Meehan and Hume proceeded southwest and discovered the Goulburn-Mulwarree district.

In his History of the Berrima District, James Jervis relates that Wild was probably the first white man to examine the country behind Illawarra, later referred to as the Yarrawa Brush. Jervis notes that while Throsby's party was on its way through Kangaroo Valley, Throsby made the following entry in his Journal: "An old native with a wife and eight children who came to us at this place tells me this river rises out of a piece of forest ground close at the back of Five Islands mountain which ground I sent Josh Wild to examine about twelve months since. He informs me he met the old man and family there and that the land from whence the river takes its source is a very large piece of forest."

In April 1819 Throsby, accompanied by John Rowley, Joe Wild, John Wait and several Aboriginals, set out from Bong Bong on the first journey from the Wingecarribee country to Bathurst. On 30 April they camped near where Paddy's River joins the Wollondilly. Throsby called the spot "Wallandilli". This is the first reference to the name of the river so well known today. Throsby's party reached the terminal point of the expedition on 9 May 1819.

Throsby informed the Governor of their journey. He suggested the expedition members be rewarded but requested nothing for himself. However, for his services, he received a grant of 1,000 acres, in any part of the country he had discovered. Rowley, Wild and Wait were each granted 100 acres in the Bong Bong district. The three Aborigines each received a plate.

Macquarie decided to open the south for settlement and Throsby was instructed to clear a road.

To be continued

This article compiled by PHILIP MORTON is sourced from the archives of Berrima District Historical & Family History Society, Bowral Rd, Mittagong.

Phone 4872 2169.

Email bdhsarchives@gmail.com.

Web: berrimadistricthistoricalsociety.org.au