Augustus Alt

Augustus Theodore Harman Alt (1734 – 9 January 1815) was a British soldier (though possibly born overseas), engineer and surveyor. His father Jost Heinrich (anglicised to Just Henry) was Hessian and entered the service of the Landgrave in Sweden as writer to Major-General Ernst Hartmann von Diemar. Just Henry moved with von Diemar to London in 1725 as Registrar, then became successively Secretary and Private Secretary, then Counsellor, Minister and, in 1760, Privy-Counsellor until his death in 1768. The title 'Baron' was never awarded by the German Emperor even though a grant of arms was later awarded his family by the British. More likely it was a family nickname that he and several generations of male descendants chose to use. Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel) was a medium-sized German state that was strategically located between the main part of Prussia and the Prussian provinces of Westphalia in western Germany and now no longer exists. His Scottish mother, Jeannetta Preston, was a daughter of Sir John Preston of Prestonhall, Cupar, Fife. Her maternal line was Elphinstone, the family being attainted Jacobites, something which caused her marriage to Just Henry in 1729 to be kept 'heimliche', or private. Augustus was the third eldest of at least seven children, four boys and three girls, and possibly nine if another reported brother and sister are included.

By 1755 Augustus was Ensign in the 8th or King's Regiment of Foot. In 1757 as Lieutenant he accompanied Sir John Mordaunt's expedition to Rochefort, France. From 1760 during the Seven Years War he served as ADC to General Henry Seymour Conway, and appears to have liaised with Prince Ferdinand. He ended up at the siege of Kassel in 1762, returning with the regiment in 1763, thereafter assisting it to build roads in Scotland until 1764. During late 1777 he helped raise the 72nd Regiment of Foot (Royal Manchester Volunteers) and served with that regiment at the Great Siege of Gibraltar, being appointed assistant Engineer there by Governor George Eliott in 1779. In 1781 he joined Colonel James Francis Erskine in trying to raise a battalion of Swiss Chasseurs for service with the East India Company. The venture was stopped by the Swiss authorities with Augustus and fellow officers being jailed for several months. In 1785, he was engineer for another thwarted venture with Erskine to assist the Polish adventurer Count Maurice Benyovszky found a settlement in Madagascar. In 1787, he was appointed Surveyor of Lands for the new Botany Bay colony and sailed on the ship Prince of Wales with the First Fleet under Commodore Arthur Phillip (later Governor of the colony). They arrived at Botany Bay in mid-January 1788 and shortly after moved to Port Jackson, landing on 26 January 1788.

Soon after his arrival in New South Wales Augustus laid out the settlements of Albion (later Sydney), Parramatta and Tongabby (later Toongabbie), as well as surveying early land-grants and compiling the records of these. Ill health incapacitated him early on and he had asked to be relieved in 1791, although he did not retire from active duty until 1797. He was officially relieved on half-pay in 1802 and succeeded by his deputy, surveyor Charles Grimes.

At first, in his official capacity as Surveyor-General, he lived in the town of Sydney, then for many years afterwards on a large land grant, 'Hermitage Farm', at Ashfield about seven miles west (and now an inner western suburb). It is said that he moved to Parramatta c1810, or a little later. He died there on 9th January 1815. He had two children, Lucy and Henry, by convict Ann George but never married her. Ann died in 1814. Lucy died as a teenager in 1806. Henry, aged 17, left the colony at the end of 1815 on the ship Northampton bound for China, but nothing further is known of him. Augustus is buried at the Anglican St. John's graveyard, Parramatta, with a table monument giving full, if slightly incorrect, biographical details set down later by his nephew Matthew Bowles Alt, son of Just Alt, long-time rector at Mixbury, Oxon.

References

• Australian Encyclopædia, 1912 (third edition revised 1927). Sydney: Angus & Robertson (p.53)
• Bernard T. Dowd, 1966. 'Alt, Augustus Theodore Henry (1731–1815)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol 1, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1966, pp 11–12.
• Paul-Alan Johnson, 1988. 'Augustus Alt: The Life of Australia's First Surveyor-General to 1788'. Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, vol.74, pt.1, June: pp.11-21.
• Mollie Gillen. 1989. The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet, Sydney: Library of Australian History.
• Paul-Alan Johnson, 2008. 'The Planning, Properties and Patriarchy of Surveyor-General Augustus Alt'. Journeys: Journal of the Ashfield and District Historical Society, No. 17. Ashfield, NSW: pp.25-62.
• See also the sections ‘1786-1867 Background’ and ‘Herman Theodore Augustus Alt’ in Terry Kass, 2008. Sails to Satellites: The Surveyors General of NSW (1786-2007). Bathurst NSW: NSW Department of Lands, pp. 2-3, 7, 49-59.

External links

• Reference and article (cc-by-sa) on Alt, Augustus in the Dictionary of Sydney