The Leake family of Rosedale

John Leake, as successful merchant operating in Hamburg, Hull and the North Sea, found that by the 1820s business was declining. With his wife Elizabeth and their family they emigrated to Van Diemen’s Land in 1823. They brought not only a substantial amount of goods, but also a small flock of Saxon merinos. This enabled Leake to select a large grant of 200 acres on the Elizabeth River, near Campbell Town, which he later expanded.

Elizabeth’s management

Elizabeth Leake, Courtesy of the University of Tasmanian Archives.

Once a rough hut was built, Leake returned to Hobart to take up a position as accountant at the Derwent Bank, leaving Elizabeth and the family to run and improve the property. The letters from Elizabeth and a brief diary reveal how difficult life was for her in these early years.

Her problems during this time were two fold: her children and the servants. The boys seemed to be unruly, and absent when she needed their labour on the farm or wanted them for protection. In her diary of 1828 she referred to them as ‘dreadful boys’. To her husband she complains of Edward that ‘I wish not to stop out at night as we are in rather an unprotected state. Robert is obliged to be a good deal after his sheep & when Wm’s away the men below are left to themselves.’ (LI/B8: 24/2/29).

Elizabeth also managed the farm work, undertaking of assigning duties such as ‘Cox digging’, ‘Eversley thrashing’, ‘driven sheep’, ‘cleaned shed and yard’, branded sheep’, (LI/B634). She even notes ‘having become treasurer since you were away, I am become quite mercantile’, (LI/B12, 1850).

Perhaps her gravest concern was the scarcity of domestic labour. ‘One of our greatest drawbacks is the want of respectable female servant – it is almost impossible for those families who study the quiet & morality of their children to endure the Female Convicts & it makes many people only employ men about their household work’ (LI/B524: 1833).

Certainly in the earlier years she had little leisure time, commenting to a friend: ’I am not unfrequently up at five in the summer’ (LI/B524: 1833).

In 1828 a new stone cottage made life more comfortable. In 1830, John Leake resigned his position in Hobart, returning to Rosedale to run the property himself.

Rosedale c.1828 in Lucas, C. (1890) Art and Australia. 17(3). p.276

By contrast, for Elizabeth’s daughter Sarah, adult life was more leisurely: having time to order dinner, pursue pastimes such as reading, writing letters, and playing the piano, and take on charity work in the church. Sarah never married, but instead lived at Rosedale with her brother Charles and his wife Clara Bell. It appears from her diaries that she was responsible for the daily running of the house. This included the servants of the household: usually a manservant, a housemaid or two, a cook and needle woman.

She employed most mornings in a similar way, 'Ordered lunch & dinner, practiced a little & read to Papa as I generally do in the morning’s’ (LI/KI: 31/1/63). Yet amongst these duties, the frequently unwell Sarah was able to take opportunities to lie in bed, sometimes until lunch time ‘Thursday 6th November ordered lunch & dinner & employed myself in my usual way not doing much, a thing much needed to be changed’. (LI/KI)

This was a contrast though to the earlier years at Rosedale when Sarah’s work was vital to the survival of the property. She later calls on these skills when without servants, completing their tasks, or with her new ones, teaching them essential skills. In her diary of 1862, she enters ‘busy showing the new needle woman her work’. (LI/KI: 17/10/62) and later ‘made up butter as the new servant not knowing how to do it’. (LI/KI: 18/10/62).

View of the front of Rosedale, as it is today

The Spinster’s life

Sarah’s position as a spinster in the nineteenth century was certainly much easier than it was for Charlotte Hawkes. With the support of her family, she was an integral part of the household and its functioning, and she was a woman of quit independent means.

Money left by her father, she carefully invested in contributory mortgages. One mortgage of ₤5000 at 8% was to a William Downie who put up as security 2604 acres. Downie later requested a better interest rate, but Sarah was obviously a strict business woman ’I may appear hard, but in my situation and lending what my living depends upon, I have to feel secure in what I am doing’. (LI/K97: 19/1/1874).

She had further investments ion Government Debentures and the Pieman River Tin Mining Co. when she died in 1881; it was as a wealthy woman.

Mortgage document between Sarah Leake and William Downie. Courtesy of the University of Tasmania archives

The Leake Papers are used with the cooperation of the University of Tasmania Archives. Photos were taken with the kind permission of Mr. L. Foster of Rosedale.