Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Dumaresq (c. 1792-1838) was a military officer of the era of the Napoleonic Wars, colonial government official, and early colonial settler of New South Wales. He was associated with the Upper Hunter Valley and Port Stephens, and was one of the first to take land around Armidale.
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Early life and military service
Dumaresq was the son of John Dumaresq, a Shropshire colonel, and Anne Jones. He attended the Royal Military College, Great Marlow, and became a military officer. The Dumaresq family has strong connections with the Channel Islands, particularly Jersey.
Henry joined the 9th Regiment. He served in the Peninsula War—he was wounded at Villa Muriel—and at New Orleans in the War of 1812, and then at the Battle of Waterloo, during which—while a Captain on the staff of Lieutenant General John Byng as aide-de-camp—he was severely wounded at Hougoumont. Although wounded and not revealing that wound, he rode across the battlefield to deliver a vital message, on the morale and ammunition supply of the Hougoumont garrison, to the Duke of Wellington. He then collapsed, fell from his horse, and was placed in the care of the Duke's personal surgeon. He was promoted to Brevet Major for his actions at Waterloo and, two years later, was made a lieutenant colonel. Unusually for the time, Dumaresq earned his promotions, through zeal and courage, without need of purchasing his commissions. A musket ball remained lodged in his lungs for the rest of his life.
New South Wales
He was the brother-in-law of Ralph Darling. When Darling was appointed Governor of New South Wales, in 1824, Dumaresq was already serving as Darling's Military Secretary in Mauritius.
He was appointed Darling's Private Secretary, and arrived in New South Wales, five months before Darling, to prepare for Darling's arrival. He was subsequently appointed clerk of the Executive Council. His brothers, William and Edward, also followed Darling and their sister, Eliza, to Australia. William went to New South Wales, but Edward went to Tasmania—then called Van Diemen's Land—where he became acting Surveyor-General, in 1825.
Darling had been appointed with the objective of restoring discipline to the penal colony, after what was seen by the British government of the time as the relatively lax rule of the two previous Governors, Lachlan Macquarie and Thomas Brisbane. As such, he had the support of the 'Exclusives' faction in the colony, who had sought to undermine Brisbane's administration.
Darling tended to rely upon like-minded military men for his administration, and it was soon subject to criticism for nepotism and favouritism. This criticism could not be stifled, as Darling's predecessor, Thomas Brisbane, had ended press censorship, creating in effect press freedom before Darling arrived in 1824. Darling's subsequent attempt to control the press through new legislation failed, because the Chief Justice, Francis Forbes, advised that the measures were not compatible with the laws of England.
The Dumaresq brothers, Henry in particular, became a lightning rod for criticism of Darling's administration. He fought a duel with barrister and newspaper editor Robert Wardell in 1827, over an article in Wardell's newspaper, The Australian, titled "How-e to live by plunder", with both men leaving uninjured.
Dumaresq had arrived in the colony as a single man. His sister, the Governor's wife, Eliza Darling, tried unsuccessfully to arrange a match between Dumaresq and her friend, Fanny Macleay, daughter of Alexander Macleay. Later in 1827, he went to England, where he married Elizabeth Sophia Butler-Danvers, half-sister to the 5th Earl of Lanesborough. He and his new wife returned to New South Wales, in 1829, bringing with them a royal charter for an expanded Legislative Council. The couple had four daughters and three sons. A visitor to the colony in 1832, Edmond de Boissieu, of the French ship La Favorite commanded by Cyrille Laplace, recorded prevalent gossip in the colony that Dumaresq was having an affair with Mary Jones, the wife of the Sydney merchant, Richard Jones.
Later career and death
Upon the retirement of Edward Parry, Dumaresq was appointed the Chief Commissioner of the Australian Agricultural Company. In 1834, he was still in that position, when he died after a very short illness, at Tahlee House, near Port Stephens, on 5 March 1838. His early death was attributed to his war wound. He was buried at his property, St Heliers, and he is commemorated by a plaque in the church of St John the Evangelist at Stroud.
He was survived by his wife and children, and two brothers, William and Edward, both of whom remained in Australia. William assumed responsibility for running Henry Dumaresq's landholdings. Within a few years, his wife, Elizabeth Sophia, returned to England, taking her children with her.
Legacy
Dumaresq is still remembered for his heroic contribution to the defence of Hougoumont and the ultimate victory at Waterloo.
The family name Dumaresq appears in the naming of features in the north of New South Wales and the south of Queensland, including Dumaresq (a locality) and its former railway station, Dumaresq Creek and on it Dumaresq Dam, Dumaresq River, Mount Dumaresq, and the former Dumaresq Shire.
His property St Heliers, near Muswellbrook, which in Dumaresq's time was worked using convict labour, is now a prison farm, St Heliers Correctional Centre. Dumaresq's original St Heliers homestead was demolished in the 1850s. The current homestead at Saumarez was built after Dumaresq's time and, of his buildings there, only an old stables remains.