Edward Wollstonecraft

Edward Wollstonecraft (, ; 1783 7 December 1832) was a successful businessman in early colonial Australia, settling in what is now Sydney. He was the nephew of the early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and cousin to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Life Edward Wollstonecraft was born to a London solicitor of the same name, the eldest brother of Mary Wollstonecraft. One of the reasons the young man sought to build a life away from England was to escape the notoriety which attached to his aunt, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. In 1812, while travelling from Lisbon to Cadiz, he met Alexander Berry, with whom he later formed a trading partnership, intending to operate in the colony of New South Wales. The two men shared lodgings in Cadiz while the city was under siege; they also lived together in London from 1815 to 1819, with Wollstonecraft's sister Elizabeth as part of their household; the couple eventually married. Wollstonecraft arrived in Sydney on board the ship Grenada on 31 August 1819. He received a land grant from Governor Lachlan Macquarie for 2,000 acres (8 km²), 500 acres (2 km²) of which were located on the north shore of Port Jackson running from what is now to the foreshore. A warehouse was erected in George Street, Sydney, under the name of "Berry and Wollstonecraft". In 1822, Wollstonecraft and Berry were granted 10,000 acres (40 km²) of land on the Shoalhaven River (now the site of Coolangatta Estate) on the condition that they took responsibility for a hundred convicts. They built Australia's first canal there, with the assistance of Hamilton Hume and a party of convicts. The 209 yard long canal was completed in 12 days. The crops farmed at Shoalhaven included native cedar and tobacco, which were sold at considerable profit both to the growing colony at Sydney and for export. The property at Shoalhaven grew to 40,000 acres (162 km²) under Berry's management, while Wollstonecraft looked after business in Sydney.