William Ryrie

William Ryrie (1805—1856) was a Scottish-born Australian pastoralist and pioneer settler colonist of the Braidwood district of New South Wales and the Port Phillip District (now Victoria).

Early life

William Ryrie was the eldest son of Stewart Ryrie (1778—1852) and his first wife Ann Stewart. He was born on 9 February 1805, at Thurso, Caithness, Scotland.{{Cite web|title=William Ryrie 1805–1856 – Australian Royalty|url=https://australianroyalty.net.au/tree/purnellmccord.ged/individual/I33716/William-Ryrie|access-date=2021-03-09|website=australianroyalty.net.au}} He came to Australia in 1825, as a free settler, with his father, the new Deputy Commissary General, and the rest of his immediate family.{{Cite news|date=1825-10-20|title=SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE.|pages=2|work=Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 - 1842)|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2184562|access-date=2021-03-14}} His deceased mother, Anne, was the sister of William Stewart (1769—1854), who until 1827, was Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales, under Governor Ralph Darling.{{Cite news|date=1925-04-24|title=MONARO PIONEERS|pages=32|work=Country Life Stock and Station Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1924 - 1925)|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article128646515|access-date=2021-09-21}}{{Cite web|title=Anne STEWART (1775 - 1816)|url=https://www.bellsite.id.au/gdbtree/HTMLFiles/HTMLFiles_09/P55552.html|access-date=2021-09-21|website=www.bellsite.id.au}}{{Cite web|last=Bertie|first=C.H.|title=Pioneer Families of Australia - No.43 The Ryries|url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-372074049|access-date=2021-09-21|website=Trove|publisher=The Home : an Australian quarterly Vol. 14 No. 7 (1 July 1933)|pages=37–|language=en}}

One of his younger brothers was Stewart Ryrie, Junior, who settled at Jindabyne.{{Cite web|title=STEWART RYRIE|url=http://www.monaropioneers.com/ryriesj.htm|access-date=2021-05-07|website=www.monaropioneers.com}} Alexander Ryrie, David Ryrie and John Ryrie were his Australian-born half-siblings.

Work

In 1827, William took up a land grant at Larbert in the Braidwood district, which was named Arnprior,{{Cite web|title=Arnprior {{!}} NSW Environment, Energy and Science|url=https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/heritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=5051467|access-date=2021-03-15|website=www.environment.nsw.gov.au}} after the childhood home of his father's second wife, Isabella Cassels. The grant took over part of the traditional land of Walbanga people, a group of Yuin. By 1833, the Ryrie family were working Arnprior with convict labour. William seems to have jointly managed Arnprior, with his father,{{Cite news|date=1833-09-11|title=RETURN OF ASSIGNMENTS OF MALE CONVICTS MADE IN THE MONTH OFJVLY, 1833.|pages=367|work=New South Wales Government Gazette (Sydney, NSW : 1832 - 1900)|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article230390698|access-date=2021-03-14}}{{Cite news|date=1948-12-14|title=PAST HISTORY OF THE CHURCH|pages=1|work=Braidwood Review and District Advocate (NSW : 1915 - 1954)|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article119380977|access-date=2021-03-14}} who had retired and come to live there in 1829. His younger brother James was granted land at the adjacent locality of Durran Durra. James died in 1840 and his landholding and Arnprior were consolidated.

The Ryrie family were among the proponents and financial backers of The Wool Road.{{Cite news|date=1841-06-29|title=Advertising|pages=3|work=Australasian Chronicle (Sydney, NSW : 1839 - 1843)|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article31732147|access-date=2020-07-26}} William Ryrie had been a member of the exploration party that had first identified a possible route for that road, from Nerriga to Jervis Bay, in 1831.{{Cite book|last=Charles.|first=Snedden, Robert|title=Sassafras : the story of the Post Town at Sassafras Mountain on the old Wool Road in the County of St. Vincent|date=1996|publisher=R C Snedden|isbn=0646259822|location=Duffy, A.C.T.|pages=19|oclc=38411506}}

The Ryrie family attempted, unsuccessfully, to dispose of Arnprior, in 1844,{{Cite news|date=1844-11-30|title=Advertising|pages=1|work=Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954)|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12409880|access-date=2021-01-21}} possibly in relation to Stewart Ryrie's insolvency.{{Cite news|date=1844-03-29|title=WHEREAS the Estate of Stewart Ryrie was, on the 25th day of March, 1844|pages=498|work=New South Wales Government Gazette (Sydney, NSW : 1832 - 1900)|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article230147215|access-date=2021-03-14}} However, well before then, William Ryrie had turned his attention to the settlement opportunities of the Port Phillip District.{{Cite news|date=1840-02-15|title=PORT PHILLIP.|pages=2|work=Colonist (Sydney, NSW : 1835 - 1840)|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article31724574|access-date=2021-01-20}} It may have been that William just wanted to concentrate his efforts on his newer land holdings.

William Ryrie was among the earliest settlers of Port Phillip to take an overland route from New South Wales and migrate south from there rather than from Tasmania.{{Cite news|date=1837-10-06|title=Memorandum on the subject of establishing a Post from Yass to Port Phillip|pages=2|work=Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 - 1848)|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article36857634|access-date=2021-03-14}} In 1837, William, with a party including his younger brothers James and Donald, drove livestock from Arnprior to Yering, near Melbourne. His holding there was known as Yering Station and, in January 1840, it was the site of the Battle of Yering, an armed conflict between Wurundjeri clansmen and troopers of the Border Police of New South Wales.{{Cite web|title=Battle of Yering {{!}} Monument Australia|url=https://monumentaustralia.org.au/australian_monument/display/30552|access-date=2021-03-14|website=monumentaustralia.org.au}}

Ryrie planted, in 1838, what is regarded the first commercial vineyard—0.4 hectares in area—in the Port Phillip District, at Yering. The first vines planted were brought from Arnprior and were later supplemented by cuttings from James Macarthur's Camden Park Estate. Yering's first wines, a red and a white, were made in March 1845. Ryrie's Yering landholding was purchased in 1850 by Paul de Castella, who greatly expanded the vineyards, from the 1850s onward, and is widely regarded as the father of the wine industry in the Yarra Valley region. Despite the impact of phylloxera and decline of the wine industry in the early 20th-century, wine is once again produced at Yering Station.{{Cite news|date=1875-12-11|title=THE YERING DISTRICT.|pages=7|work=Leader (Melbourne, Vic. : 1862 - 1918, 1935)|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article197940589|access-date=2021-03-14}}{{Cite book|last=Halliday|first=James|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/39292062|title=Wine atlas of Australia and New Zealand|date=1998|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=0-7322-6448-0|edition=|location=Pymble, N.S.W.|pages=110|oclc=39292062}}{{Cite news|date=1952-05-03|title=Some Swiss Influences in Australia|pages=14|work=Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954)|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205405134|access-date=2021-03-14}}{{Cite web|title=History {{!}} Yering Station, Yarra Valley|date=20 July 2020 |url=https://www.yering.com/about-us/history/|access-date=2021-03-14|language=en-AU}}{{Cite news|date=1986-12-12|title=Famous wine region re-born|pages=11|work=Australian Jewish News (Melbourne, Vic. : 1935 - 1999)|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article261641519|access-date=2021-03-23}}

=Magisterial career=

Ryrie was appointed as a magistrate in Melbourne in 1840,{{Cite news|date=1840-08-08|title=TO MR. OSBORNE.|pages=3|work=Port Phillip Gazette (Vic. : 1838 - 1845)|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article225005305|access-date=2021-03-14}} but earlier in the same year had been involved in a duel there, with Peter Snodgrass.{{Cite news|date=1951-12-29|title=PISTOLS AT SUNRISE|pages=11|work=World's News (Sydney, NSW : 1901 - 1955)|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article139912130|access-date=2021-03-14}}{{Cite web|title=Duels in Melbourne|url=https://blogs.slv.vic.gov.au/such-was-life/duels-in-melbourne/|access-date=2021-03-15|website=blogs.slv.vic.gov.au|date=16 August 2019 |language=en-US}}

Ryrie became a prominent citizen on the new colony of Victoria, which separated from New South Wales in July 1851.{{Cite news|date=1853-12-27|title=Advertising|pages=11|work=Banner (Melbourne, Vic. : 1853 - 1854)|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article179482282|access-date=2021-03-14}} He was an early member of the Melbourne Club and a founding trustee of the Scot's Church.{{Cite web|title=THE CHRONICLES OF EARLY MELBOURNE.|url=http://arrow.latrobe.edu.au/store/3/4/4/7/9/public/B12604185V1pages108-178.pdf}}

Personal life

William Ryrie married his step-mother's younger sister, Marianne Campbell Cassels, in 1845. The marriage took place at what had, by then, become his father's house, Arnprior, at Larbert.{{Cite news|date=1845-09-27|title=Family Notices|pages=63|work=Examiner (Sydney, NSW : 1845)|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article228062657|access-date=2021-03-14}} William and Marianne had two daughters, Helen and Anne, and one son, John.{{Cite web|title=Helen Ryrie|url=https://www.ancestry.com.au/genealogy/records/helen-ryrie-24-47h261|access-date=2021-03-09|website=www.ancestry.com.au}}{{Cite web|title=Anne Stewart Ryrie|url=https://www.ancestry.com.au/genealogy/records/anne-stewart-ryrie-24-14w40s|access-date=2021-03-14|website=www.ancestry.com.au}}{{Cite web|title=Marrianne H CASSELS (1816 - 1856)|url=https://www.bellsite.id.au/gdbtree/HTMLFiles/HTMLFiles_83/P55613.html|access-date=2021-09-21|website=www.bellsite.id.au}}{{Cite news|date=1931-01-30|title=Death of Mr. J. C. Ryrie|work=Manaro Mercury, and Cooma and Bombala Advertiser|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article119086637|access-date=2021-09-25}}

=Death=

William Ryrie died on 21 July 1856, while visiting Scotland.{{Cite news|date=1856-11-06|title=Family Notices|pages=4|work=Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957)|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article7139584|access-date=2021-03-14}} His wife Marianne died at her home at Burwood, in June 1876.{{Cite news|date=1876-07-01|title=Family Notices|pages=1|work=Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954)|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28399304|access-date=2021-09-21}}

=Legacy=

Ryrie Street, in Braidwood, is named after him, but Ryrie Park is named after his half-brother Alexander Ryrie.{{Cite news|date=1992-11-04|title=Literary appreciation of the rich history of Braidwood|pages=29|work=Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995)|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article126953453|access-date=2021-04-20}} Ryrie Street, a major thoroughfare in Geelong, is almost certainly named after him.{{Cite web |last=Garrard |first=H.M. |date=1854 |title=Map of the town & district of Geelong ... as surveyed in 1848 [cartographic material] ; compiled and published by Macdonald and Garrard of Lloyds Chambers, Geelong. |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/26447852 |access-date=2022-05-11 |website=trove.nla.gov.au}}