Alexander Berry - Settlement in New South Wales

Settlement in New South Wales

Berry set up a partnership with Wollstonecraft (Berry and Wollstonecraft) and sailed to Sydney, Australia in 1819. Berry sailed as supercargo aboard the 'Admiral Cockburn', leaving England January 1819, and arriving in Sydney in July. "Ship News". The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser: p. 2. 31 July 1819. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2178847. He was shortly followed by Wollstonecraft aboard the Canada. They set up as merchants on George St, in The Rocks area. Berry began to plan a trip to England to expand their commercial connections there. He returned to England with the Admiral Cockburn in February 1820. Wollstonecraft obtained a land grant on Sydney's North Shore in Berry's absence.

Berry chartered the Royal George and returned to Sydney in November 1821 with an "extensive assortment of merchandise" for sale at their George St store, as well as the new Governor, Thomas Brisbane, as a passenger on board.

Berry began to seek out and negotiate for a larger land grant.

In January and February 1822 Berry went with Hamilton Hume and Lieutenant Robert Johnson on a journey of exploration down the coast of New South Wales aboard the Snapper. During the journey he investigated the land in Shoalhaven area.

In June 1822, Berry and Woolstonecraft purchased a small cutter, the Blanche, and Berry returned to the Shoalhaven with Hume and assigned servants (convicts) to develop his land grant there.

While attempting to cross the bar into the river in a small boat, two people drowned, including Davison, who was the boy that Berry had rescued from the 'Boyd'. Given the danger, Berry arranged to drag the Blanche across a sand bar that separated the Shoalhaven River from the Crookhaven River, with the Crookhaven entrance offering a safer passage. Hume then oversaw the digging of a canal through the bar using only hand tools, and constructing the first land navigable canal in Australia.

The partnership was granted 10,000 acres (40 km2) there by Governor Brisbane on condition of providing for 100 convicts (1 per 100 acres (0.40 km2) of the grand). Berry set up the Coolangatta Estate while Wollstonecraft stayed in Sydney to look after business there. Berry later secured two additional land grands of 4,000 acres (16 km2) each. Together with purchases, the size of the estate grew to 32,000 acres (130 km2) in the early 1840s.

Elizabeth Wollstonecraft, the sister of Edward Wollstonecraft, migrated to New South Wales and was married to Berry on 21 September 1827.

His partner, Edward Wollstonecraft, died in 1832., with the entire Coolangatta estate passing to Alexander Berry. Berry then shut the George St stores, and spent most of his time running the Coolangatta Estate. Three of his brothers (David, John and William) and two sisters (Janet and Agnes) migrated to Coolangatta in 1836, allowing Alexander to spend more time in Sydney. David and John managed the estate jointly, and David alone following John's death in 1848.

Alexander's wife, Elizabeth, died in 1845 aged 63, at the Priory; a house owned by George Barney, on what was part of the Crow's Nest estate, where they were living at the time.

Crow's Nest House was completed in 1850 and Alexander Berry lived there until his death.