An Exploring Party in New South Wales.

A very rare early print from J. Atkinson’s, &quotAn Account of the State of Agriculture and Grazing in New South Wales&quot. James Atkinson, JAMES (1795-1834), settler and author, was born in ‘middle-Kent’, England. He arrived in Sydney in the Saracen in May 1820 and in July succeeded Michael Massey Robinson as principal clerk in the colonial secretary’s office at a salary of �60. He obtained two grants of land totalling 1500 acres (607 ha), and located them in the newly settled Bong Bong district, naming them Oldbury after his father’s estate and Mereworth after a Kentish town. Both grants were issued in 1822, but Oldbury was occupied during 1821 and he resided there after he resigned his government post in July 1822. In 1825 he returned to England where he wrote An Account of the State of Agriculture &amp Grazing in New South Wales &#8230 (London, 1826). In 1826 he visited Saxony with Charles Macarthur to buy sheep, and published ‘Remarks on the Saxon Sheep Farming &#8230’ in the Australian Quarterly Journal in 1828. He returned to Sydney in the Cumberland (1826). Ref: Australian Dictionary of Biography With excellent original hand colouring.