Obituaries Australia

Charles Barton, n.d.

from Pastoralists' Review, 15 July 1912

Mr. Charles Hampden Barton, of Nanima Station, Wellington, N.S.W., died suddenly in Sydney last month, and his death will leave a big gap in the town and district of Wellington, after having lived there and made himself universally liked and respected during nearly sixty-five years. The late Mr. Barton's father, Mr. Robert Johnston Barton, took up Boree Nyrang, near Molong, in the early thirties, accompanied by Messrs. Docker, father of Judge Docker, of Sydney, and John Bayly Darvall, barrister, of Sydney. Before he came out to Australia he was Lieutenant-Commander in the Honourable East India Company. The late Mr. Charles Barton was born at Boree in 1848, being the third son, and after spending his boyhood on the station, went to Carcoar to school. Later on he became a pupil at the late Rev. Mr. Garnsey's well-known school at Windsor, and in 1868 joined the staff of the Commercial Bank at Sydney. He had a successful banking career, and the fact that by the time he was twenty-eight years of age he had been appointed to open branches at Tambaroora at the time of the gold rush, and at Parkes and Wellington, speaks volumes for his ability. The business of opening a branch bank in those days was no sinecure, and Mr. Barton arrived in Wellington with the requisite coin in a handbag, opening business in a room secured in a private residence. There was no safe, so it was an appointment full of responsibility and anxiety. He took a keen interest in the sporting life of Wellington, and strongly supported the volunteer movement. In 1884 Mr. Barton took a trip to England, retiring from the bank in 1900, after a long and honourable career, and going to live on a portion of the old Nanima Estate. At the general election for the State Parliament in 1908 he was selected as the Liberal candidate for the Macquarie, and was returned.

But it was the late Mr. Barton's enterprise in agricultural pursuits which conferred the most lasting benefit on the district in which he lived. By example and demonstration he proved to farmers that they could grow successfully much larger areas of wheat than they were then doing, and it was really under his guidance that the production of wheat increased so enormously in the district—an increase which had a great bearing on the growth and prosperity of Wellington.

The late Mr. Barton was one of five brothers, only two of whom are now living—Mr. Robert Darvall Barton, of Sydney, who until recently owned Biddenham Station, Queensland, and Mr. Augustus Stirling Barton, of Polly Brewan, N.S.W. He leaves a widow and a family of eight children.