The establishment of a private town in the Cowpastures
The establishment of a private town in colonial New South Wales
The establishment of Camden, New South Wales, the town in 1840, was a private venture of James and William Macarthur, sons of colonial patriarch John Macarthur, at the Nepean River crossing on the northern edge of the family’s pastoral property of Camden Park.
The town’s site was enclosed on three sides by a sweeping bend in the Nepean River and has?regularly flooded?the surrounding farmland and lower parts of the town.
The site of Camden was within the 5000 acres granted to John Macarthur by the?2nd Earl Camden [3.2],?the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, in 1805, while Macarthur was in England on charges for duelling.
Macarthur was a fractious quarrelsome self-promoter who arrived in NSW with his wife Elizabeth and family in 1790 as paymaster of the New South Wales Corps.
The?Corps?(sometimes called?The Rum Corps) was formed in England in 1789 as a permanent?regiment?of the?British Army?to relieve the?New South Wales Marine Corps, which had accompanied the?First Fleet?to?Australia in 1788 to fortify the?colony of NSW.
The town’s site, as part of the Macarthur grants, was located on some of the finest farming country in the colony in the government?Cowpastures reserve?on the colonial frontier.
The grants were part of the dispossession of traditional lands of the Dharawal people by the British settler colonial project and inevitably led to conflict and violence.