Mark John Currie Totally Explained

Everything about Mark John Currie totally explained

Captain Mark John Currie RN (later Vice-Admiral) played a significant role in the exploration of Australia and the foundation of the Swan River Colony, later named 'Western Australia'. He explored areas in New South Wales, after which he returned to a post in England. In 1829 he married and left three weeks later for Australia on the 443-ton Parmelia with his wife and servants, arriving at the coast of what was to become the Swan River settlement on the 31st May, 1829. Chief among the other passengers were Lieutenant Governor Captain James Stirling, Colonial Secretary Peter Brown, Surveyor-General Lieutenant John Septimus Roe, botanist James Drummond and their families.
The diaries and paintings by his wife, Jane Eliza Currie, provide a glimpse into the hard life of the first settlers. Her painting Panorama of the Swan River Settlement

shows Fremantle in 1831. From it one can begin to appreciate the magnitude of the challenge faced by the colonists.

Family Background

Mark John was born on the 21st June, 1795, the second of eight children of Mark Currie, Esq of Upper Gatton, Surrey, and Elizabeth née Close. A portrait by Romney of his mother entitled Mrs Mark Currie 1789

is in the Tate Gallery, London. His younger brother, Frederick was created 1st Baronet in 1847 for his services to the Government of India in negotiating the treaties of Lahore and Bhyrowal.
He married Jane Eliza née Wood on 14th January 1829. They had four (possibly more) children. The first two, Jane Eliza (17 January 1830) and Mark Riddell (17 August, 1831) were born in the Swan River Settlement. Albert Purcell (12 September 1837) and Algernon (1840) were born in England.

Career

Early Days

He entered the Royal Navy as a Volunteer, First-Class, at age 12 on the 29th April, 1808, and was posted to HMS Warspite under Captain Blackwood (later Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Blackwood). There he met James Stirling and the two became close and lifelong friends.
In 1822 and 1823, as commander of HMS sloop Satellite, he carried out surveys of channels and port entries on the coast of New South Wales and in 1822 commented critically on the penal colony at Newcastle, reporting "King Lash is master here". He was probably not referring directly to the Commandant of the colony, James Thomas Morisset, but to the number and harshness of the punishments he saw at the time of his visit.
Starting in May, 1823, Currie, together with Brigade Major John Ovens

and experienced bushman Joseph Wild explored the country east and south-west of Lake George in New South Wales. After crossing several rivers and the Goulburn plains they arrived at the east bank of the lake, at about 11 miles north of the southern end. They struck south-south-east and then west across the Limestone Plains through an area ideal for settlement (now Canberra) to an area which Currie named Isabella's Plain after Isabella Brisbane, the infant daughter of the Governor, Sir Thomas Brisbane. Today this is a suburb in the Tuggeranong district of Canberra. They came to the Murrumbidgee River and followed it in a southerly direction, crossing the Umaralla River thinking it to be the Murrumbidgee. There they came to fertile plains which they named Brisbane Downs. Today the aboriginal name Monaro has been restored to the region. It is likely that the fertility of these areas of New South Wales led him to underestimate the problems that would later be faced in the Swan River Settlement.
When he was a midshipman he must have given a good account of himself because, when in 1827 Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Blackwood became Commander-in-Chief, Nore Command, he appointed Currie as his Secretary. The Nore was a naval station at the mouth of the River Thames and for several hundred years one of the most important commands for the defence of the United Kingdom.

The Swan River Settlement

During most of the second half of 1828 Stirling was in London, vigorously promoting his dream of leading a settlement at the Swan River. Initial Government reaction was unfavourable, but his persistence and enthusiasm paid off and by November the scheme had support from Sir George Murray, Secretary for War and the Colonies, and had gained an unstoppable momentum. By this time the team of administrators had been decided and on the 31st December, 1828, Under Secretary Robert W Hay formally appointed Currie as Harbour Master for the new settlement, on no salary. At one time this river was mistaken for the Murray River, which was discovered later the same year.
   The first task of the administrators was to find a site for the principal town. A location on the Swan River was selected and on the 12th August Helen Dance, wife of Captain William Dance of HMS Sulphur, ceremoniously cut a tree to mark the foundation of Perth. Currie was present at the ceremony and later the same day took up his duties, at a salary of 100 pounds, as the first Harbour Master of Fremantle, responsible for pilotage and services at the port. A tent was erected 'for the despatch of business' on the site chosen for the town. This was to provide offices for the Colonial Secretary, the Surveyor General, the Harbour Master, the Civil Engineer and the Commissioners of the Board of Counsel and Audit. The wreck is visible in Jane Currie's Panorama of the Swan River Settlement.
   Currie became the Swan River Colony's first Auditor, appointed 1 July 1831, at a salary of 300 pounds 'because his ability, intelligence and Integrity render him far more valuable to the public in that capacity than as Harbour Master'.
   On the 6th February, 1832, empowered by Parliament through the Order-in-Council officially constituting the colony, a Legislative Council

was formed, comprising the Governor, the Senior Military Officer, the Colonial Secretary, the Surveyor-General and the Advocate-General. On his own initiative Stirling added Currie to the list as Clerk to the Council, as he 'could not find within the colony a person better calculated than the gentleman who now fills it'.

Land Development

Currie was allotted a 32-acre grant of land 3 miles south-west of the present centre of Perth, alongside a wide point in the Swan River known then as Eliza Bay and Point Currie. The Curries left Garden Island on November 2nd to set up their tent on their allotment. Sutherland later changed the name to Crawley Bay in memory of his mother, Maria Crawley. Later still it became Matilda Bay, to honour Matilda Roe, the wife of the Surveyor General. In 1910 the site was acquired by the state and today is the campus of the University of Western Australia

. Point Currie, also known as Pelican Point and J H Abraham's Reserve, is today the home of the Royal Perth Yacht Club, the Mounts Bay Sailing Club

and the 1st Pelican Point Sea Scouts

.
A later settlement was alongside the Swan, 5 miles north of east of the centre of Perth. Here, early in 1831, he built a brick homestead, near the present day Water Street, which he named Redcliff, after the steep red clay banks of the river. Today the area is part of the suburb Redcliffe. A further grant was located about 6 miles north-west of Beverley at the junction of the Avon and Dale Rivers, adjoining a grant made to Stirling. Currie's and Stirling's grants were combined in 1849 to form the Avondale Estate, which was acquired by the state in 1910 and is now the site of the Avondale Agricultural Research Station.
Jane Brook, a suburb of the town of Swan about 14 miles north-east of Perth, takes its name from the brook, a tributary of the Swan River, discovered by Roe in 1829. Stirling named this Jane Brook, in Jane Currie's honour.

Later career

He was promoted to Captain in 1841
   In January, 1854, Rear Admiral Sir James Stirling was appointed Commander-in-Chief China and the East Indies Station and immediately wrote to the Admiralty applying for Currie to be his secretary. They arrived in Hong Kong on the 11th May and the Admiral's flag was transferred to HMS Winchester. Two weeks later news was received from England that war had been declared on Russia and the next day the Winchester led a small squadron northwards along the Chinese coast to make a show of strength and 'to prevent Russian ships of war and their prizes from making use of (Japanese) ports'. Stirling's letters and Currie's diaries record the patient and tactful negotiations with the Governor of Nagasaki to achieve this aim and the events leading up to Stirling signing the first Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty.
   He received two further promotions, to Rear Admiral on the Reserved List in 1862 and to Vice-Admiral in 1867.
   Vice-Admiral Mark John Currie died on the 2nd May, 1874, in Thicket Road, Anerley, Crystal Palace, Surrey. Jane Eliza Currie survived him by two years. In the 1871 British Census she's recorded at 193 Clifton Villas, Beckenham, Kent, on a visit to her daughter Jane Eliza Macrae, who married Robert Campbell Macrae in 1854 and had eight children, the eldest of whom, Mark, later lived at Cranbrook Road, Rose Bay, New South Wales.

Footnotes

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