James Larner ( 1808 - 1886)

Larmer was an early surveyor working in New South Wales. He arrived in Sydney in 1829 on the Elizabeth, to take up the position of draftsman in the Surveyor General’s department on an annual salary of £150, and an annual increment of £20 until £200 was attained. By 1835 he become assistant surveyor under Mitchell. Between 1830 and 1835, Larmer surveyed land grants, farms, allotments, reserves, roads, streets, coastlines, creeks, rivers, and ridges in what we know as greater Sydney, and in a wider area including Broke, Branxton in the Hunter, Brooklyn, Mangrove Creek, Broken Bay and Pittwater around the Hawkesbury River, and further afield, the Abercrombie, Campbell, Belubela, Bell, and Macquarie Rivers. In 1840 he was responsible for surveying the line of the road from Nerriga to Jervis Bay (Vincentia). The portion of the road in this area runs from the Princes Highway just north of Bewong, past Basin View to St Georges Basin, and on to Vincentia. In 1835 he was appointed on Major Thomas Mitchell, the Surveyor General, second expedition to prove that the Darling River flowed into the Murray.