Clayton family papers, photographs and other material

fonds

1800-1944

Textual Records, Graphic Materials, Photographs, Drawings, Watercolours, Prints, Objects

9680026

0.16 metres of textual material (1 box)
15 photographic prints
9 photographs
9 drawings
3 watercolours
3 aprons
1 seal
1 medical kit
1 print - engraving

The Claytons were a well-established family of engravers in Dublin. Samuel Clayton (ca. 1777-1853) was convicted of forgery and transported to NSW in 1816. Using his connections within the NSW Freemason community, and being a skilled engraver, he quickly established himself in Pitt St, Sydney, advertising for business. Two months after his arrival, he was commissioned to engrave copper plates for the first bank notes in Australia. With very few other engravers in the colony, Samuel's skills were highly sought after. Samuel received his Certificate of Freedom on 29 September 1824.

Samuel Clayton is also known as the Father of Freemasonry in Australia. After seeking permission to be admitted into military lodges in Sydney, and being received as a visitor to the 48th Foot and Lodge 218, he was given permission in 1818 to form a civil lodge and on 6 January 1820, the Grand Lodge of Ireland issued warrant number 260, allowing Samuel Clayton and his friends to establish the first regular lodge of Freemasons in Australia. It was constituted on 12 August 1820 and called the Australia Social Lodge 260.

Samuel's only child, Benjamin (1805-1854) worked as an assistant to Dr William Bland in 1826 before returning to Ireland to qualify as a doctor. He qualified in 1829 and also received a qualification in midwifery from the Dublin Lying-in Hospital. Benjamin returned to Australia in 1830, settling first at Windsor and advertising his services as a surgeon and man midwife at Windsor, Richmond and on the Nepean and Hawkesbury. Benjamin married Fanny Broughton in 1834, a well-respected, established and influential NSW family. Benjamin acquired land on the Lachlan River near Camden and named the homestead Baltinglass in memory of his birthplace in Ireland. The family then moved further south and lived at Collingwood, near Yass, in a house built by Hamilton Hume, a cousin of Fanny's. Benjamin was a magistrate, an agriculturalist and vigneron and worked as the only doctor between Goulburn and Yass. In 1848 he won a gold medal for an excellent red wine at the Australian Botanic and Horticultural Exhibition.

The family moved back to Sydney in 1853 and Benjamin was gifted a gold watch and a testimonial acknowledging the community's regret at seeing Benjamin leave the area. The family settled in Balmain before Benjamin's untimely death aged 49 in 1854.

References:
The Sydney Gazette 15 February 1817, 15 August 1818, 7 October 1824.
Sydney Monitor, 12 June 1830.
Goulburn Herald, 30 December 1848.
Samuel Clayton: forger, freemason, freeman by Margaret Smith, Anchor Books, 2017.
Masonic influence in the settlement by Jennifer Lambert Tracey, PhD thesis, University of Canberra, 2007.

From the Murgatroyd estate in Young, by descent from Nancy Clayton to her son Michael Murgatroyd.

Series 1: Clayton family papers, correspondence and other material
Series 2: Clayton family portraits and miniatures
Series 3: Samuel and Benjamin Clayton pictorial works and realia with Clayton family photographs

This collection is arranged into three series by format.