Robert Forrester, First Fleeter

by Louise Wilson

Sydney’s early history abounds with tales of men and women behaving badly. Those who were convicts are usually portrayed as ignorant, unskilled, lazy, rum-soaked, ne’er-do-wells of greedy or dishonest character, with a few rare exceptions. This dismal scenario of those first decades is tediously re-cycled, with depressing implications. Did the European settlement of Australia really start in January 1788 with nothing but the dregs of society, sent from England with the First Fleet? Was there a different side to the story?

At first glance, Robert Forrester’s character fitted the glib stereotype. He was caught up in a ‘scam’ in London. He was charged with drunkenness and insolence in Sydney. He was the first man in Australia who appeared before a court enquiry into the murder of an aborigine. His legal wife, and then his second ‘common law’ wife, disappeared from the records.

Delving beneath the surface, another picture emerged. Things were not quite as they seemed. He might even have been ‘a decent bloke’.

The hero of this story was illiterate, and left no diaries or personal correspondence. Several paragraphs in court records record his words, and only two letters about his affairs, penned on his behalf in the last year of his life, have been found. Yet determined detective work has recreated his adult life, using the voluminous government records of the times.

Robert Forrester was one of the first convicts who chose to become an Australian. He did not give up his supreme effort at the Hawkesbury, when others did. He raised his family ‘to habits of industry’. He was able to attract three women as partners, at a time when men vastly outnumbered women in the fledgling colony of New South Wales. His family loved him.

His is the story of a life fully-lived, filled with action and adventure. On the frontier of settlement beside the Hawkesbury River, his struggle was the Australian version of ‘how the west was won’. His life demonstrates the economic impact on an individual of floods, fire, famine and the NSW Corps, creating one of the first ‘Aussie battlers’. He has thousands of descendants, most of whom do not know the real story of this life.

A tightly-focused, very readable and engrossing biography
of Robert Forrester, this book illuminates the life events and
character of an individual convict who helped to found the
modern nation of Australia.

442 pages, Paperback

First published January 27, 2009

About the author

Louise Wilson/Louisa Valentine married young, expecting to have one husband and three children, but life messed up those plans. The complications of family life provide a rich resource for her as a writer.

Louisa Valentine's themes so far? A love triangle. A secret baby. Infertile couples. Unconventional heroines. Star-crossed lovers longing for something - and someone - seemingly out of reach. Second chances. Her latest book is Still Waters Run Deep.

Writing as Louise Wilson she has also published prize-winning non-fiction books, including Margaret Flockton: A Fragrant Memory and Sentenced to Debt: Robert Forrester, First Fleeter.

Website for both author names is https://www.louisewilson.com.au

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Reviews

[Kathy Watkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading about a forebear is an interesting journey and Louise Wilson's book about First Fleet Robert Forrester is filled with so much information about the man and his time in our early history. So glad of her comprehensive research and now looking even more forward to reading her recently published 'Sentenced to Debt'... enlarging on his tale with even more stories about the man and family.

[Judith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent book by Louise. In the same vein as 'Southwark Luck', but preceding it. Also excellently researched and so much more than a family history. It also traces the life and family of this arrival of the First Fleet in the Hawkesbury region, whereas Southwark Luck follows the life of Robert's daughter Ann, and her husband Charles Homer Martin.
It is a blow by blow desciption, with flood after relentless flood. If you have an interest in early Australian history and the families that helped make Australia, this book is for you. Such hardy pioneers who carved out a life for themselves in a new country.

[Red Horse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meticulously researched, this detailed account of First Fleet convict Robert Forrester sheds a fascinating light on the man, and the times in which he lived. Living at the first settlement at Sydney Cove, then on Norfolk Island, then back again to a small-holding on the Hawkesbury - Forrester was a participant in and witness to events that would eventually shape an entire nation.
Forrester's life therefore provides a fascinating prism through which to examine the earliest days of the Australian colonial experiment, and also serves as a useful corrective to the usual rags to riches fairytale. His life was, in fact, full of setbacks and hardships and Wilson captures these with clarity and sympathy both. Highly recommended.

[Louise Wilson]

Out of print. Totally revised and reprinted in 2020 as 'Sentenced to Debt: Robert Forrester, First Fleeter'.