Hawkesbury R. at Windsor

Windsor, 63 kilometres north-west of Sydney and nestling on the southern side of the winding Hawkesbury River, is one of the most historic towns of Australia’s European settlement. The first white settlers moved into Windsor in the early 1790’s giving it the name Green Hills, although it wasn’t until Lachlan Macquarie’s governorship (commencing in early 1810) that the town and environs of Green Hills (by now renamed ‘Windsor’) started to get a kick-along, progress-wise.

Plaque honouring site of Macquarie’s Govt House at Windsor

The Riverview Shopping Centre in George Street (Windsor’s high street), constructed in 2006, offers up its own acknowledgement of the suburb’s rich historical story. On the centre’s marble effect floor, positioned at regular points, there is an historical timeline, a series of banner inscriptions which identify certain events or milestones in the history of the Hawkesbury district.

Among the little snippets of local historical interest is a reference to Windsor’s own notorious colonial bushranger, George Armstrong. Armstrong – labelled “the terror of the Windsor district” – briefly threatened the safety and well-being of the township’s citizens in 1837[1] (an interesting side-note to this is that nearby Wilberforce – just across the river – was the birthplace of a far more celebrated Australian bushranger, Fred Ward, better known as Captain Thunderbolt).

However it was another historical headline on the centre floor that caught my eye – the banner read “1814 ~ Report given to Governor Macquarie of planned invasion of the Hawkesbury by Napoleon”. I was not previously aware of any reference to a supposed connection between Napoléon and Sydney’s Windsor district, and found the notion an intriguing one.

At the time the Napoleonic Wars were at their height with Britain and its allies moving towards the ultimate showdown with France at Waterloo in 1815. The official who alerted Macquarie to the French danger was Earl Bathurst, Secretary of War and Colonies (Bathurst to Macquarie: 1813 correspondence). Bathurst’s letter warned of the possibility of French attack on the colony, most likely to originate by sea from Broken Bay, down the Hawkesbury River … the target was thought to be Windsor’s granary (Sydney’s “food bowl”), to cut off its supply to Sydney Town[2]. In response, Macquarie, already preoccupied with the task of making Windsor more secure, stepped up the strengthening of the military garrison and boosted the population of free men (including emancipists) in the district.

British intelligence about a planned invasion of the Sydney colony has its genesis in the period’s French maritime expeditions in the South Pacifc, particularly that of Nicolas Baudin in 1802 and 1803. Baudin’s scientific expedition visited Port Jackson in 1802 and it was the activities (and subsequent written record) of the expedition’s naturalist, François Péron, which provided the blueprint for supposed French intentions in New Holland. Whilst there, Péron, under the guise of his scientific activities, engaged in a “freelance spying” exercise[3], collecting information on the nature and defence capacity of the colony. Péron wrote down his observations in a secret report (entitled Mémoire sur les établissements anglais à la Nouvelle Hollande).

Monsieur Péron

Péron claimed to be a government agent and that the expedition’s real purpose was a political mission. The zoologist-cum-spy recommended that France attack the fledgling British colony in New Holland, speculating that the act would incite an Irish rebellion against the colony’s English overlords and elicit resistance from the indigenous population as well. The military strategy advanced by Péron also called for a takeover of the south of Tasmania. The assault on Sydney via the Hawkesbury was one of three invasion routes proposed by Péron[4].

Although Péron’s viewpoint was widely discredited at the time, his memoir has recently been translated into English (from the original) and new research on the subject at Adelaide University (UOA) has thrown up fresh evidence to support the contention of Péron that Napoléon was seriously considering such an attack. Peron’s report (and the reactions to it) demonstrates that Port Jackson/NSW was perceived as a strategic location by both Britain and its enemies. The related UOA research unearthed further evidence that the British South Pacific outpost held a strategic necessity that went beyond the mere penal colony that was stated to be Sydney’s raison d’être[5].

Isle de France 🇫🇷

The perspective of the Sydney colony proffered by Péron (and Napoléon’s later acknowledgement of his views) underscore the displeasure with which the French viewed Britain’s decision to unilaterally annex this great, southern land without consulting other European powers. The new British colony was also seen as posing a potential threat to France’s Indian Ocean island possessions, especially to the French naval base in the Isle de France (Mauritius and its dependent territories)[6].

The British colonialists in Australia did recognise and respond to the threat from France at some level. Concern over French incursions into Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) was intensified by the contemporary activity of French explorers (separate ‘scientific’ expeditions by d’Entrecasteaux, Baudin and Freycinet in the south) – and prompted His Majesty’s government to occupy the south of Tasmania and plant the “Union Jack” on King Island (in the Bass Strait) in fear of French designs on this part of the continent[7].

Bathurst’s “hush-hush” letter to Macquarie (based on information supplied by agents friendly to Britain) also raised the prospect of a joint naval attack by both France and the United States[8]. The plan was for the combined fleet to assemble at Two Fold Bay (Eden, NSW) and then proceed up the Pacific Coast and launch an attack on Sydney from the north (Hawkesbury River). Napoléon’s disastrous Russian campaign and the reverses suffered by the US early in the War of 1812 meant that the plan was never put into practice[9], but the episode served to underline how strategically important the remote, western Pacific colony was for Britain imperial ambitions.

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[1] ‘The Notorious Bushranger George Armstrong’, Hawkesbury Historical Society, (10-Feb 2016), www.hawkesburyhistoricalsocietyblogspot.com.au
[2] ‘Windsor, New South Wales’, (Wiki), http://en.m.wikipedia.org
[3] described by some as an “amateur espionage project”, N Rothwell, ‘Francois Peron’s French lessons in the colonisation of Australia’, The Australian, 05-Apr 2014
[4] M Connor, ‘The secret plan to invade Sydney’, Quadrant Magazine, 01-Nov 2009, www.quadrant.org.au; ‘Napoleon’s Intention to Capture Thompson Square’, (The Battle for Windsor Bridge – Personal Stories), www.rahs.org.au
[5] R Brice, ‘Sacré bleu! French invasion plan for Sydney’, (ABC News, 11-Dec 2012), www.abc.net.au
[6] ibid.
[7] ‘Battle for Windsor Bridge’, op.cit.
[8] At the time (1813), both France and the US were engaged in (distinct but related) wars with Britain, whose navy was blockading the fleets of both countries. Attacking the important colony of Port Jackson made tactical sense to divert the British fleet away from US and French ports, ibid.
[9] ibid.