- Title
- Entangled region: Newcastle and the Hunter Valley
- Creator
- Cushing, Nancy; McIntyre, Julie
- Relation
- Funding BodyARCGrant NumberLP140100146 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/LP140100146
- Relation
- Journal of Australian Colonial History Vol. 19, p. 1-16
- Relation
- http://www.une.edu.au/about-une/faculty-of-humanities-arts-social-sciences-and-education/school-of-humanities/research/journal-of-australian-colonial-history/jach-volumes
- Publisher
- University of New England, School of Humanities
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2017
- Description
- When the first elections for the New South Wales Legislative Council were held in 1843, Alexander Walker Scott stood as a candidate for Northumberland Boroughs, the seat which would represent Newcastle and the Hunter Valley towns of East and West Maitland. Emphasising his role as an employer of free labour in his saltworks and foundry at Newcastle and tobacco works in Maitland, Scott promised to advance commerce in the Hunter region by supporting the extension of roads, bridges, steam navigation and railways. In Newcastle, Scott won eighty percent of the vote, but the citizens of East and West Maitland preferred a non-resident, Major D'Arcy Wentworth junior, brother of leading politician William Charles Wentworth. In his acceptance speech, Wentworth positioned himself clearly with the pastoral interest which would dominate the new Council, disparaging Scott as 'that patriot of Newcastle, Mr. Mechanism'. Shocked by their disenfranchisement, a public meeting of Novocastrian voters agreed that their town, as a centre of the coal industry, manufacturing and port services was 'strikingly different' from Maitland which was primarily an agricultural market, and called for separate parliamentary representation.
- Subject
- Australian history; Newcastle, (NSW); Hunter Valley, (NSW); Australian politics; labour; William Charles Wentworth; coal industry; manufacturing; port services
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1386500
- Identifier
- uon:32430
- Identifier
- ISSN:1441-0370
- Language
- eng
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