As mentioned in earlier newsletters, those emigrants brought out by the Macarthurs as agricultural labourers to Camden Park Estate were required, under their agreement, to remain in the Macarthurs' employ for three years, after which they were encouraged to become tenant farmers on the estate.

Many of the leases which the Macarthurs arranged with their tenant farmers have survived and can be found among the Macarthur Papers collection held in the Mitchell Library. In addition, the collection also contains, albeit also incomplete, the Macarthurs' accounts of rental payments made by each tenant and various other miscellaneous documents which provide useful information about the tenant farmers and their farms. Unfortunately, no leases survive amongst the Macarthur Papers for Henry, Sampson, Isaac or William Norris. Similarly, while I have obtained various maps of Camden and the estate, none of these provide any detail on the sections leased by the Norris family. However, information about Sampson and Isaac's tenancies can be found amongst the other papers. On the other hand it appears that William was never a tenant on Camden Park Estate. Of course, Henry Norris did not become a tenant, having died in 1839, before his three years service for the Macarthurs had been completed.

The Macarthurs' accounts for Sampson Norris suggest that Sampson remained in the direct employ of the estate, principally as a sawyer, until April 1844. It appears that shortly after this, in 1846, he bought half allotment No 10 Section 9 within Camden Village. The accounts show that the half allotment was transferred from William Buchan, who was a stone mason in the village, for £12. However, after paying interest on the allotment to the Macarthurs for over three years at 10% per year, Sampson transferred title to the allotment to James Wheeler:

Camden 27th Decr 1849

Gentlemen,
Having parted with any interest in the half of allotment No 10 Section 9 in Camden Village to Mr James Wheeler, I have to request you will take notice thereof & make out the Conveyance in his favour. I am, Gentlemen,
Your obedt Servant
S. Norris
his X mark

J. & W. Macarthur Esquires
Camden Park

The next extant reference to Samson is in a "Terrier of Farms" dated 1854. It lists Sampson on the Great South Road, south of Camden village. The farm consisted of a total of 60 acres, 32 acres 2 roods of arable land and 27 acres 2 roods of grass land. Annotated next to Sampson's name, in the margin of the terrrier, are the words "transferred to tenant from 1 Apr 1855." I am not sure what exactly is meant by this note.

As we know, Sampson was drowned the following year, 1856. Between this date and 1862 when his widow Sarah remarried John Beverley Prest, there are several references to a farm (or farms) being leased by Sarah, and presumably worked with the help of her children.

In two cases (ML A4203), her farm is referred to as No. 17 on the Macarthurs' map of the estate. The first document also describes the farm as being "west of the Great South Road and South of Oaks Road" with a 16 year lease at no fixed annual rent; in the second document the farm is described as being in the "S.E. portion" of the estate, having a lease of 15 years, again with no fixed annual rent. It also describes the farm as having 15 acres of cleared land and 66 acres of uncleared land for a total size of 81 acres.

A third document, which could be either earlier or later than the previous two, records Mrs Norris on Section No. 15 on the map and located "West of Great South Road and South of Oaks Rd" with 16 years of lease to run, at no fixed rent.

While Henry and Sampson Norris's families were in Camden from the late 1830s, Isaac Norris did not arrive in NSW until July 1849. Nevertheless, according to one uncorroborated document he became a tenant on the estate as early as 1851. The 1854 Terrier of farms lists Isaac on the Great South Road leasing 60 acres, probably adjacent his brother Sampson's farm. However, the first complete record of his tenancy dates from 1856 when Isaac accepted a lease on Section Nos 116 and 119 of the Camden Park Estate, containing 87 acres and located on the east side of the Great South Road. The lease was for 15 years commencing on 1 October 1856, and with rent becoming due on 30 September each year.

From the leases held in the Macarthur Papers it appears that the Macarthurs arranged many long term leases around this time. The leases were of a standard format and prepared by Holden and McCarthy and printed by Reading and Wellbank, Printers, Bridge Street, Sydney.

Typically, the Macarthurs' leases were devised so that the tenant paid a minimal amount in the first year, with payments incrementally increasing each year to correspond with the increasing cultivation and productivity of the land as the tenant cleared and farmed it. Only after five years or so would the full rent become payable. Isaac may also have had such an arrangement, although the accounts for the first four years of his lease are missing, if indeed there were any.

For Isaac, the rent was initially set at £30 per annum but was reduced to £25 per annum from September 1868. In 1866, an adjustment in the form of a special quarterly payment was made so that all future rental payments became due in December each year. At the end of the 15 year lease period Isaac's lease reverted to a yearly tenancy, with payments due every six months. The conversion of long term leases to yearly tenancies during this period was common, because it gave the Macarthurs more flexibility in these difficult times. Isaac's tenancy continued thereafter until 1 January 1887 when Thomas Dunk took over the lease of the farm. In all, Isaac Norris farmed the same 87 acre farm for over 30 years.

The Macarthur Papers record Isaac Norris's rental payments from 1860 until his last payment in 1885. The accounts reflect the good years and bad years experienced by Isaac. In some years he was unable to pay the total amount due and was forced to make only a partial payment. In other years, such as 1865, he was unable to make any payment at all. On a number of occasions (1863, 1867 and 1869), the Macarthurs, as landlords, granted Isaac a remission, or waiver, on part of the rental due. In 1865, Isaac gave a horse and three cows as part payment of his rent.

Isaac was not alone in his difficulties. According to Alan Atkinson, in Camden (p.98):

Stem Rust and flooding were endemic throughout the 1860s. By the end of the decade wheat acreage was less than a quarter of the area of 1861. At Camden Park the farmers planted about 10 acres (4 hectares) each on average...Oats was becoming the principal crop and most farmers also put in several acres of barley and rye. At Camden Park they also depended more than they had done on their livestock, which meant giving more land to pasture. In order to do this holdings had to be increased in size... Abandoned farms were handed over to neighbours for use as grass paddocks, so that the total number of tenants declined from 167 in 1862 to 120 in 1869...The failure of the crops meant that the landlords could not reasonably expect to get their rents in full. In 1861 they remitted a third of the money due on farms submerged in the recent floods. In 1862 they remitted half of all rental income that year.

In that year, Isaac sowed 30 acres of wheat, but it was a total failure with absolutely no grain harvested nor hay produced. His son in law, Charles Clout, faired only slightly better, producing 20 bushels of wheat and 2 tons of hay for his 38 acres sown. "In some cases remissions continued for years. In 1867 after disastrous flooding the landlords wrote off more than £2000 among forty individuals", including Isaac Norris.

After the death of Henry Norris in 1839, his widow Caroline married Henry Sharpe, another labourer on Camden Park estate. Henry Sharpe also eventually became a tenant farmer to the Macarthurs, and his wife and Norris step-children would have helped him on the farm. The 1854 Terrier of Farms lists Henry on a 52 acre farm known as Meadside, located on the Great South Road. Elsewhere, Henry's Meadside farm is described as having 22 acres of arable and 3 acres of grass for a total of 25 acres. This may have been Section No. 18 on the map, located west of Great Sth Road and North of Oaks Rd, not far from Camden Village, having, in about 1860, 7 years of lease to run at £16 annual rent.

About the same time (1860) Henry is also listed on Section No. 120 on the map, located on the S.E. portion of the estate and east of the Great South Road, probably adjacent to Isaac Norris's farm. This farm is described as having no acres cleared, 37 acres uncleared, for a total of 37 acres. The lease was for 10 years at an annual rent of £14. In the 1862 season, Henry sowed 20 acres for a yield of 30 bushels of wheat.

Sources:

1. Macarthur Papers [held in Mitchell Library], MSS ML A4189, A4190, A4203, A4204, A4205, A4206, A4207, A4209-A4216, A4218, A4220.
2. Camden, Farm and Village Life In Early New South Wales, Alan Atkinson, OUP, 1988.