Born in Rosehill (Parramatta) in January 1801, John Batman was the third of six children[1] for William and Mary Batman (or Bateman), and the first to be born in Australia. William (a "Cutler", originally from Yorkshire but working in London) had received a free trip, courtesy of the receipt of some stolen potassium nitrate[2], but Mary had to pay passage for herself and their two children on the 'Ganges', which arrived in June 1797.
William's sentence finished in 1810, by which time he had established his timber-yard and was gaining (or, perhaps, regaining) a respectable reputation. After finishing school, John was apprenticed to a Blacksmith, by the name of James Flavell, in Castlereagh Street in Sydney. Unfortunately for John, Mr. Flavell had a liking for other people's possessions, and he found himself out of work at the end of October 1816.[3] John's bearing witness against his employer didn't look too good on his resume, so he left Sydney and apparently knocked around the country for a few years picking up experience in farming, when he wasn't accompanying his mate Hamilton Hume on one of their jaunts of discovery.
During November 1821, John and his brother Henry advised the public they were leaving town "in the Brig, Queen Charlotte,or by some other early opportunity."[4] At the time, no one could leave the colony without advertising the fact. The brothers went to Van Diemen's Land, where Henry set up as a wheelwright, and John took out a grazing lease. Within a couple of years, John bought a property, the 600-acre 'Kingston', at the foot of Ben Lomond, which was expanded over the years until, in 1835, 'Kingston' covered nearly 7000 acres.
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