In 1838, at the age of sixty, Wiseman died. The obituary that Mum had mentioned was indeed flowery, describing him as ‘a very old Colonist, much respected by all the old hands of the Colony as a warm-hearted industrious man’.
Now that I’d read the letter to his brother-in-law, I went back through some of the business correspondence, and found that there, too, I could sometimes hear his tone of voice. This letter was written in 1828:
I am at present awkwardly situated, my stable is left in an unfinished state—the carpenter whom I employed has decamped and like all the other scoundrels of his description who leave their employers when they get in their debt, so did he after getting in mine—he is a free man therefore I shall take out a warrant for his apprehension if I can possibly trace him out. As I am suffering a serious inconvenience by the fellow leaving my stable unfinished, I humbly beg leave to intrude on your kind intercession that I may be allowed a carpenter for the space of three months from Government.
Whatever else he was, Wiseman was no shrinking violet. I was struck by how often he was in the position of defending himself against various kinds of accusations: of defrauding the government, bribing officials, supplying rotten food to the convicts on the road-gangs, of not looking after his assigned servants properly. He always had an answer:
I never received a fortnight’s service from that man he was always sick and when sent back from the hospital he told me he was then not able to work and I immediately returned him to Government so I consider Sir the slops I gave him were more than his due…no servants in the colony are better fed and clothed than mine and they are the only men in the neighbourhood that attend divine service with a clean and decent appearance.
Wiseman had a long and difficult relationship with Percy Simpson, the local magistrate. Wiseman’s son, who lived not far away in Wollombi, was accused of stealing a horse, and Solomon was forced to appear in court to give evidence:
Mr Wiseman said that the mare belonged to a damned scoundrel who had spread a report that his (Mr Wiseman’s) son had stolen a mare belonging to him and had her in the Wollombi—that he had told the man where to go and get the mare and then rushing out of Court in a violent manner giving a most contemptuous look at the magistrate said that if he had known what business he was sent for, he would not have come…
The magistrate admonished him for the contemptuous manner in which he treated the Court…Mr Wiseman again interrupted the court in a rude and violent manner by saying ‘I won’t stand here listening to your nonsense’… adding that he never affronted a gentleman in his life, he had been 25 years in the Colony but a gentleman he had never affronted. The Magistrate said your conduct to me now on the bench has been most insulting. Mr Wiseman replied I never insulted a gentleman. No! A gentleman I never insult.
I was starting to get a feel for him. Irascible, defensive, unyielding. An entrepreneur who was confident of his own power in the situation, ruthless in using it. And with a snobbery that distinguished between a real ‘gentleman’ and a pretender.
Percy Simpson was foolish to take on Wiseman—had he forgotten that Wiseman was his landlord? A long correspondence ensued—accusation and counter-accusation—over rent not paid and expiry of the lease. In the end Wiseman insisted that Simpson leave his premises but when the magistrate, who had a large family of young children and an invalid wife, begged for more time, Wiseman relented:
In consideration of the delicate state of health of your Lady Wife and your purse, and young family, children, servants etc as I would not be thought capable of turning you out under the heavens…it being impossible to procure even a shed in this neighbourhood for any amount of money, that I am happy to take an opportunity of saying you may remain in your present residence without rent until the month of May…by which period you must be provided with other quarters.
Was it that he didn’t want people to think he was capable of turning someone out ‘under the heavens’? Or was he genuinely sympathetic? Did he remember at such moments what it had been like in Butler’s Buildings, in that life where no one would help you?
I pored over their exchange. I could hear Percy Simpson clearly: vain, self-important, a windbag. But Wiseman swam in and out of focus, now a good man, now a bad one. Now an innocent man unjustly accused, now a scoundrel.
What did others make of him? The Reverend Thomas Atkins’ parish included Wiseman’s place. Atkins described him as ‘a notorious emancipist, self-designated The King of the Branch...Solomon Wiseman, although illiterate, was a man of considerable natural ability, and deeply read in the corruption of human nature.’
I found myself catching fire with indignation. ‘Notorious’? ‘Deeply read in the corruption of human nature’? How dare this pipsqueak say that!
Then I learned that Atkins had swallowed a glamorised version of Wiseman’s crime: a story that he was transported for smuggling on the shores of Dover rather than pinching timber on the muddy old Thames.
Justice Roger Therry, on his circuit, also visited Wiseman, and took a kindlier view of him as: ‘a person of great natural shrewdness and of considerable prosperity; for he was then engaged in the fifth year of a contract with Government, for supplying provisions to convicts who worked upon the roads, that brought him a net income of from £3000 to £4000 a year’. Therry also believed the smuggling story, but added, ‘in the Colony his conduct was industrious, and his character for probity irreproachable’.
But my hackles rose again when the judge took the opportunity to have a bit of fun at Wiseman’s expense:
In literary attainments of any kind old Solomon was sadly deficient…He condoled with General Darling, who paid a visit to his beautiful place, by informing him frankly that his Excellency, by his measures, had lost all his population (meaning popularity) in the district. On inquiring from him the name of a curious bird that attracted Archbishop Polding’s attention, Solomon replied—‘Your Grace, we call that the laughing jackass in this country, but I don’t know the botanical name of the bird’. The climax of his intelligence was, however, crowned by another reply he made to Dr Polding. Solomon attached this meaning to the words ‘Protestants and Romanists’, that the former were Englishmen, and the latter either denizens of Rome or descendants from Romans who had early emigrated to England. With this impression, and in the belief that the Catholic Archbishop was a Roman, he said—‘I am very sorry to tell your Grace that there’s a great down upon the Romans in this country.’ ‘I don’t think so,’ said his Grace (thinking of course that Solomon meant the Roman Catholic portion of the community). ‘I have received great kindness,’ his Grace added, ‘from persons of all religious denominations here.’ ‘Oh my Lord, ’tis a fact, I assure you. There’s a great down upon the Romans.’ ‘And why should there be?’ inquired his Grace. ‘Because, my Lord, the English people never will forgive Julius Caesar and the Romans for invading their country.’ After this answer the Archbishop was dumbfounded, and quite incapable of further discussing the topic with so erudite a critic of historical events.
How dare this silvertail, with his nice education paid for by Daddy, mock a man who’d had to drag himself up by his own bootstraps?
But this exchange made me wonder about Wiseman and his attitude towards the Aboriginal people. If he’d been thinking about the Romans invading Britain, did he draw a parallel with what he himself was doing?
Another account described Wiseman without judging him. It was written by Baron Charles von Hugel, a German botanist, diplomat and army officer:
I was anxious to meet Old Wiseman, but did not know quite how to set about it. He was known to be most hospitable to people he knew, but rather eccentric with strangers, as I was told by Capt. McCumming. However, chance favoured me. As I approached the house, I found a number of men standing there together and, when I came up to them, I asked after Crawford’s Inn. An elderly man pointed the way, but added: ‘You seem to be a stranger in these parts; if you care to accept the hospitality of my house, I would be able to make you more comfortable there after a long day’s journey.’ I thanked him and accepted, and asked whether I had the pleasure of speaking to Mr Wiseman. He confirmed this and asked me whether I were not the Baron who had come on the Alligator, and I confirmed this...
After the meal, Old Wiseman came back and asked me if I required anything further. I answered him, nothing whatsoever, except that, if it did not keep him away from some other better entertainment, I would appreciate his company. Sit down, I said, and let us talk a little about the colony. The old man stood still for a moment, then he said: ‘You are a stranger, I would not like to deceive you. I am an emancipist.’ ‘I know that,’ I replied. ‘I knew that when I came into your home, and when I accept a man’s hospitality, his company must needs be agreeable to me too.’
Wiseman: Not everyone thinks as you do. A lot of people are pleased to accept Old Wiseman’s comfortable rooms and stay a few days in this beautiful district, but avoid and despise Wiseman himself.
Myself: I can’t believe that. You are probably imagining things. I know your house is a favourite place for young couples to spend their honeymoon.
Wiseman: Yes, one couple spent their honeymoon here—Mr [Deas] Thomson after he married Miss Bourke… I arranged an apartment for him in my house as best I could and, on the day of the marriage, he arrived here in the evening. But we can’t really speak very highly about the way in which our hospitality was received. The young wife did not address a single word to us during her whole stay here, and when they left, and Mrs Wiseman wished her a pleasant journey, she turned her head away without replying and did not even wave as they drove away…
I could cite a number of other instances of this kind… and I therefore keep my children away when I have reason to fear a humiliation for them. You must pardon me (he said with deep emotion) if perhaps I do not use the right words or am less polite to you than I should be. But I am a seaman and paid little attention to fine manners in my youth, and you don’t learn them here.
Ah! This was another Wiseman, a man of sensitivity, of feeling, and those contradictory images started to come into focus. So much made sense now: his quickness to anger, his defensiveness, his single-minded pursuit of wealth. This was a man who—day after day, year after year—had to deal with the humiliation of being despised as an ‘emancipist’ and mocked by the likes of Atkins and Therry. This was a man who, even though he had made good on the other side of the world, could not escape the English class system. I warmed to the Baron for treating Wiseman with courtesy, and for leaving such a long and vivid account of him for me to read.
There were two more things to see: a picture of Wiseman, and one of his house. I’d put off looking at them. I somehow wanted to come at them in a roundabout way. I wanted to know everything else before I met Wiseman face to face. I chose to look at them in private, at home on the internet, rather than in the library.
I was pleased that a portrait of Wiseman had survived. It was more than I’d have hoped for. But, sitting in my workroom listening to a child go past on a squeaky tricycle beyond the hedge, waiting for the image to appear on the screen, I was apprehensive.
I’d had the experience in my twenties, when I was researching a film project about consumer protection, of being asked by a businessman how much a new Holden Commodore cost. It was a test: he knew I wouldn’t know. I’d stammered out some ludicrous figure. There I was, calling myself a writer, trying to do a film about consumers, and I didn’t know the first thing.
I had a feeling Wiseman would have been like that. Tough, shrewd, worldly, aggressive—he’d have eaten me for breakfast. He’d despise my soft-handed life, twittering around putting a word here, a word there, making little stories about not very much.
When the image popped out onto the screen it gave me a fright. He was standing at a table, looking directly at me. A telescope rested along one hand. The fingers of the other were interleaved in the pages of a book. He was wearing a dark tailored coat, a white shirt with a high collar, some kind of dark bow at the neck.
And the face—big, powerful, pronounced chin, tight-held mouth. The force of his will! He came right out of the picture, dominating, unyielding. Eyeing the painter as if to say, Don’t muck around with me, mate.
It was a spooky feeling to be looking him right in the face. Almost more real than I could handle. He frightened me.
Then the house: ‘Wiseman’s villa’, circa 1835, unknown artist, watercolour.
The top half of the picture was filled with a high ridge of rocks and grass with a few scattered shrubs, all soft greens, soft browns, a landscape of wash and daub. The bottom half showed a formal garden, surrounded by a stone wall higher than a person. And, slap bang in the middle, a two-storeyed house that must have been drawn with a ruler: severe, symmetrical, floating in the soft blur of the hill behind it.
Thames lighterman turned gentleman. The book is a nice touch for a man who couldn’t read.
The picture was full of details that said I am rich: some high-stepping fine-boned horses, a line of fat cows, yards full of pigs, workers doing various things with all this livestock, a couple of carriages coming down the hill.
A woman in a long blue dress was walking in the garden. If the picture was done in 1835, this was Sophia.
And when I peered closely I could make out a man in a blue coat sitting on the verandah, taking his ease, legs apart, a servant bending over him: Mr Wiseman, new-hatched gentleman, lord of all he surveyed.
After all this research I was the world authority on Solomon Wiseman. Whatever he’d left behind to prove that he once lived on the earth, I’d found.
But my work didn’t seem finished. I felt I’d hardly started.
Was it because I needed to know more about Wiseman? How much more? I wondered what it would take for me to feel I had enough. Was there any way a search like this would ever end? Or would finding out more and more about Solomon Wiseman become a hobby, compulsive but useless?
A whole other part of the story remained hidden, too: the part that was the answer to the question I’d been faced with on the Sydney Harbour Bridge a year earlier. What happened when Wiseman encountered Aboriginal people, up on the piece of land where he’d built that fine stone house?
After four or five months’ work in the archives I was no closer to an answer. In the hundreds of pages of documents by and about Wiseman, there was absolute silence on the matter of the original inhabitants.
I’d once asked Mum about the Aboriginal people on the land that Wiseman took up. She said she wasn’t sure, but she thought that, by the time Wiseman had arrived there, they’d all gone.
Wiseman’s villa, with its high stone wall, blank back and cleared surrounds.
I’d accepted it then without really thinking about it, but now I did the sums. Wiseman went to the Hawkesbury around 1817. That was about three decades after the First Fleet sailed into Sydney Harbour. Was it possible that they’d all gone, already, from a place so remote you could only get to it by boat?
The silence about the Aboriginal people in the documents about Wiseman could have meant anything. It could have meant that they were all gone. Or that they weren’t gone, but that nothing happened significant enough to write down. Or that the things that happened were events no one wished to record.
There were no Aboriginal people in ‘Wiseman’s villa’. Just the house, the horses, the man on the verandah. But beyond Wiseman’s high white wall, beyond that almost-bare hillside, was a gesture towards the bush that lay beyond Mr Wiseman’s hundred acres. In the picture it was hardly there: a smudge like smoke on the page.
If they’d been anywhere, that’s where the Aboriginal people would have been: out there in the bush. I had to move the eyeline along, re-frame the scene. I had to put them back into the picture.
First, though, I needed to see the picture properly: not these smears of watercolour, but the place itself.