William (Faithfull) Faithful, Free Settler "Pitt" 1792

Three wives: Susannah Pitt 1804. Margaret Thompson 1821. Maria Bell 1843.

http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~garter1/faithful.htm William Faithfull was born in HampshireEngland in 1774. Rumour has it that he ran away from home because his mother had died and his father had remarried. He was said to have wanted to serve in Spain. This wish was not fulfilled and he joined or was seconded to the New South Wales Corp. Private Faithfull arrived in Australia as a single man aged 20 years with the second detachment of the NSW Corp on the ship Pitt on 14 February, 1792. He was a servant to Captain Foveaux

In 1793 he was involved in a famous pig shooting incident which involved fellow soldiers Eady, McKellar and Quartermaster Thomas Laycock. The owner of the pig, William Boston, sued for compensation of £500. Captain Johnson eventually awarded Boston £1 compensation.

In 1793 the Shah Hormuzear arrived from Calcutta with 100 Bengal sheep.This cargo had been financed privately by some of the officers of the NSW Corp and it was now distributed amongst them John Macarthur and Captain Forveaux were knownto have received some of these sheep which they inter breed with their existing Merinos previously brought from Capetown in South Africa

Apart from the incident with the pig William Faithfull’s service with the Corp was unremarkable and trouble free. He left the army in 1799 at the age of 25 years and was given a grant of land of 25 acres at Petersham Hill. He also became manager of the land granted to Captain Forveaux when this man left the colony in 1799. Forveaux also gave Faithfull half his flock of sheep, together with his Bible and pocket watch. Due to his industry and hard work William Faithfull was also granted another 25 acres at Petersham and by the time he married in 1804 was a moderately successful farmer and grazier.

On 21st November1804, in St Johns Church, Parramatta he married Susannah Pitt. Governor King gave permission for the marriage. Maybe this was because Susannah’s father was deceased and the Governor was standing in as her guardian. Susannah had arrived in the colony with her widowed mother and 6 siblings from Wimbourne in Dorset. This family was connected through marriage to Lord Nelson and George Matcham of the East India Company so had influential friends to recommend them to Governor King who met them at the ship on their arrival in Sydney.This marriage also eventually made him related to Quartermaster Thomas Laycock as Susannah’s brother married Elizabeth Laycock, daughter of Thomas.

In 1808 William Faithfull received a grant of 1000 acres at Liberty Plains (Homebush) ‘in consequence of Lord Nelson’s recommendation in favour of his wife, lately Miss Pitt’.This land was eventually intersected by the new road to Liverpool and William Faithfull sold 300 acres of this land and exchanged the rest for 600 acres in the Minto district. At the same time he acquired 500 acres near Richmond and settled there and he called the property Jordan Hill.Three years later he exchanged the land at Minto for an estate of 700 acres adjoining Jordan Hill.

William and Susannah had 4 children, only 3 survived to adulthood.In 1828 their eldest son William Pitt Faithfull was granted land just outside Goulburn which became the famous sheep breeding property Springfield. This grant was disputed by Captain Terrence Murray, who had been paymaster to the 48th Regiment in England before becoming a free settler in NSW.Murray was said to have been granted the land by Governor Macquarie but William Pitt Faithfull won the dispute and Springfield was in the hands of the descendants of William Faithfull until December, 2004 when it was auctioned.

Susannah Faithfull died in 1820 at Richmond and William married Margaret Thompson of Liverpool on 27 November 1821 by whom he had 2 more children.Only the daughter Helen survived and went on to marry Thomas M P Wilshire.William’s second marriage occurred in strange circumstances as on 26 September, 1821 the following statement appeared in the local paper

William Faithfull of Richmond in this territory maketh oath that he is single and unmarried and under no contract or promise of marriage to anyone except to Mrs Lucy Wood of Richmond, widow, to whom this deponent is desirous of being united in the Holy State of Wedlock according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England.

What makes this situation doubly strange is that Lucy Wood was formerly Lucy Pitt, sister of the late Susannah Faithfull.

William was again widowed in 1842 when Margaret died at Richmond.William himself died at Richmond in 1847 and his property at Richmond was left to his two sons.William Pitt Faithfull was by this time well established at Springfield and the sheep from Richmond were divided between the brothers and their sister and step sister.George Faithfull never married but became the first land owner in Wangaratta, Victoria, where he died 1. William Faithful had married Susannah Pitt on 21 November 1804. 2. Married Margaret Thompson of Bringelly on 21 November 1821. 3. Married Maria, daughter of Archibald Bell, on 13 June 1843. Buried St Peters Cemetery Richmond with three wives.

http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/faithful-william-2035 William Faithful (1774-1847), soldier and settler, arrived in New South Wales as a private in Captain Joseph Foveaux's company in the New South Wales Corps in the Pitt in February 1792. In 1795 he was sued by John Boston after being ordered by Quartermaster Thomas Laycock to shoot one of Boston's pigs which was trespassing on Foveaux's land. Both Laycock and Faithful were found liable for damages. On his discharge from the army in 1799 Faithful was employed by Foveaux in the management of his farms, and when Foveaux left the colony in 1801 he settled part of his flock on his former manager.

Faithful became a farmer on his own account when he received a grant of 25 acres (10 ha) at Petersham Hill in May 1799, and a further 1000 acres (405 ha) at Liberty Plains from Foveaux in November 1808. This second grant was made in consequence of a recommendation by Lord Nelson in favour of his wife Susannah, a daughter of Mrs Mary Pitt, née Matcham, and a relation of Nelson. Macquarie regranted the land at Liberty Plains in 1811, but Faithful later exchanged it for better land at Jordan Hill. He became a prominent settler in the Richmond district, gradually extending his holdings so that in 1828 he owned 2190 acres (886 ha). In November 1834 he received a grant of 100 acres (40 ha) near Goulburn.

In 1864 four of his grandsons held off the bushrangers Ben Hall, John Gilbert and Dunn at Springfield, for which they received a gold medal from the government of New South Wales.

http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/faithful-william-2035