Talk:D'Arcy Wentworth

Biography assessment rating comment
The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- KenWalker | Talk 07:49, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Ken, Can someone please review the 'Private Life' section, in particular about Jane Austen as I can find no source to support this. Roy Scherer (talk) 23:11, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Uh... what happened to my previous discussion?! - Ta bu shi da yu 13:13, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Oh, didn't notice I'd made a typo! - Ta bu shi da yu 13:14, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hello, our family are Wentworths. Still here in Portadown, I’d love to hear from yous. Simmamon (talk) 06:06, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Wentworths family.
If anybody reads this. My name is Steve Sinnamon. My grandmother died a few years back, and it was there at the funeral I found out why Wentworth is still to this day a traditional family name being passed down with every generation. My 7 year old nephew is named Seth Wentworth Sinnamon, my brother is named Gary, Wentworth Sinnamon and my uncle is simply Wentworth Sinnamon and so on and so on. Our family are still here in Portadown. If any of my Australian family ever sees this please get in touch. It Would be wonderful to hear from yous. The tradition of keeping the Wentworth name was silly to me as a kid, But having grown up and now learned the story and history I’m so pleased, and proud that the name lives on after what is around 300 years!! Our relatives must have been something special! My email address is sinny1977@gmail.com Simmamon (talk) 06:02, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Jane Austen fiction/conspiracy posting
It appears that the ISBN for the book listed as a reference for the Jane Austen portions of the article is malformed (? I'm not an expert at this, but it doesn't work on most of the sites I tried) but is intended to reference this book: https://www.worldcat.org/title/jane-austen-darcy-wentworth-vol-1-folly-is-not-always-folly/oclc/968703249&referer=brief_results The cited webpage appears to be by the same author as the book, and both contain a great deal of content that falls well outside of mainstream Jane Austen scholarship. In good faith, I'm inclined to believe that both sources are intended as fiction and that someone mistakenly cited them here as fact. At any rate, the sources don't seem to fall under Wikipedia's criteria for reliable sources, especially since all the information in question comes from the same source with no peer review, and runs counter to the mainstream. Unfortunately I'm unable to attest to any of the rest of the article, which very well may have similar problems.

The article states that D'arcy and Jane were married at Gretna Green in September 1789. What documentary evidence is there for this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Plerdsus (talk • contribs) 05:44, 1 December 2022 (UTC)


 * That Austen content is obvious fiction. I'm moving it here, as it is entertaining but can't stay in the article.  There may be some fact in it but I am not making an effort to determine what it may be.  Zaslav (talk) 03:47, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

In September 1789, D'Arcy Wentworth and Jane Austen, invited by Earl Fitzwilliam, attended a huge garden party at Wentworth Woodhouse in honour of the Prince of Wales. After the event, the couple left for Scotland, where they were married under Scottish law, that unlike England, did not require parental consent or the posting of marriage banns. After their return to London at the end of October, Wentworth was arrested and held at Newgate on suspicion of highway robbery. Tried and released on 9 December 1789, three days later he went to Portsmouth to arrange their passage to New South Wales on the Neptune.

Jane and D'Arcy spent Christmas with her family at Steventon, in Hampshire. Reverend Austen agreed to legalise their Scottish marriage, to marry them under English law, by special license. When James, his eldest son, arrived home from Oxford and reported what he had read in the London papers about Wentworth's trial, Reverend Austen changed his mind. He convinced Jane her relationship with D'Arcy would damage her family's reputation and the future prospects of her five brothers. He persuaded her to remain at home. Her family closed ranks around her, she remained confined within their orbit.

Neither Jane Austen nor D'Arcy Wentworth ever remarried. He remained the fixed star in her firmament and the inspiration for much of her writing. She named him Mr Darcy, Fitzwilliam Darcy, in Pride and Prejudice, the story of their meeting and romance; John Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility, where she told of her breakdown and grief when he had disappeared from her life; and Captain Wentworth, in Persuasion, where she imagined his return to England and to her.

D’Arcy Wentworth sailed from Portsmouth on 17 January 1790. The day before, her brother Henry reflected his family’s anger in a piece he wrote for The Loiterer, at Oxford. He applauded:"the world for getting rid of its superfluous inhabitants, both Poets & Pickpockets Prudes & Prostitutes, in short all those who have too much cunning or too little money…shipped off with the very first cargo of Convicts to Botany Bay"

Following Jane's rejection, on board the convict transport Neptune Wentworth entered a relationship with a convict girl, Catherine Crowley. She remained his partner in the Colony until her death at Parramatta in January 1800. Their son William Charles was born at sea on the Surprize, standing off Norfolk Island in a violent storm on 13 August 1790; a daughter, Martha, died at four months, during an outbreak of fever carried by the Third Fleet; two more sons followed, D’Arcy, born in 1793, and John in 1795.

D’Arcy Wentworth made numerous attempts to return to England from Norfolk Island and from Sydney. In September 1800, he entrusted a letter to Governor Hunter, returning to England, to deliver to his wife in Hampshire. On 13 October 1801, Captain John Hunter delivered the letter to Jane Austen in Bath, opening a correspondence between the couple that continued until her death in 1817. In 1802, Wentworth sent his two eldest sons, William and D’Arcy, to school in England, intending to follow as soon as he was able. In 1805, from Norfolk Island, banished by Governor King, he sent his youngest son John, to join them.

In 1807, Fitzwilliam, appalled by reports of Bligh’s behaviour towards D’Arcy Wentworth, applied to Viscount Castlereagh, Secretary of State for the Colonies, for him to be given leave of absence to return to London. Fitzwilliam wrote again the following year, to inform Castlereagh that Wentworth had been: suspended from the duties of his office & consequently from its emoluments, this devoted man is retained a prisoner in the Colony.

Bligh named D’Arcy Wentworth as one of the twelve ringleaders of the Rum Rebellion, declaring them to be in a state of mutiny and rebellion He wanted them arrested and charged with treason. he forbad them leaving the Colony under any circumstances, proclaiming that ships’ masters would take them, at their peril.

In late July 1808, Wentworth finally received permission from Lord Castlereagh to leave the Colony, allowing him to return to England, but it had come too late. Bligh was under house arrest in Government House, his rage undiminished, and plans were under way for him to return to England. All those involved in the Rum Rebellion anticipated harsh repercussions. Wentworth knew Bligh’s anger would be directed at him; he believed he would be arrested and charged with treason when he arrived in England. He expected no leniency. He replied, I am under the painful necessity of declining to avail myself of the leave granted me, until the result be known. He wrote to his wife, telling her the approval for his leave had been given, but with great regret he had decided not to apply to return to England at this time. He resolved to remain in the Colony and see out the storm from a safe distance.

In 1809, after eight years of correspondence, their long held hopes of being reunited had come to nothing. Jane Austen moved to Chawton Cottage that year, determined to devote herself to writing. From 1811, she sent her husband a copy of each of her novels as they were published. At the end of April 1818, he received a parcel of books, not addressed by her hand. Opening Persuasion, he read that Jane was now mouldering in the grave, it was devastating news. Reading her story of his imagined return to her, he recognized her anger, her frustration and despair.

Wentworth entered a period of grief and dark reflection: he lost his energy, he was tired, his health began to trouble him. He decided to withdraw from his commitments. On 5 May 1818, after a conversation with Macquarie, he submitted his resignation as Principal Surgeon. By July 1820, he had resigned from all his public offices, other than a weekly attendance on the bench at Parramatta.

Wentworth’s hopes for a quiet retirement were disrupted by the arrival of Commissioner Bigge, who asserted his authority over the Governor, attacking him and his administration. Wentworth was called to attend Macquarie, as stress and despair affected his health.

In 1821, Wentworth leased Wentworth Woodhouse in Parramatta, and moved to live at his farm Home Bush. By 1823, he had acquired 17,000 acres of land, that he used to produce meat for the Colony just as he had done on Norfolk Island. In the early 1800s, he had bought a prize stallion named Hector, imported from India, from Arthur Wellesley, later Duke of Wellington. When Hector arrived, there were fewer than three hundred horses in the Colony, by 1821, there were more than four thousand. With his prize sire, Wentworth bred carriage horses and racehorses, Hector was the great foundation sire of Australian Cavalry horses known as Walers, for New South Wales. The first exports of Walers, as light cavalry horses, began in 1816. In the First World War around one hundred and sixty thousand Walers were sent overseas, between 1861 and 1931 almost half a million were exported.

Vandalism on this site
May I suggest those who persistently vandalise this site and authors of the fiction/conspiracy posts read the sources listed in the references. They can be found on Amazon and in a range of libraries, national, university and local, around the UK, in other English-speaking countries and non-English ones such as Japan and Brazil. DetachedPeices (talk) 13:17, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

A word to the vandals
"Anybody who has the temerity to write about Jane Austen is aware of two facts: first, that of all the great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness; second, that there are twenty-five elderly gentlemen living in the neighbourhood of London who resent any slight upon her genius as if it were an insult to the chastity of their aunts." Virginia Woolf, "Jane Austen at Sixty," Nation and Athenaeum, 34, 1923, page 433-4. DetachedPeices (talk) 13:26, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

This needs a major cleanup
Quite apart from all the Austen-related edit warring, this article needs a major general cleanup. The prose is bordering on purple in places, there is a lot of irrelevant content that has nothing to do with Wentworth (e.g. the first three paragraphs of the Governor Darling section don't have anything to do with him at all), and to be quite honest the bits about his relationship with Macquarie read more like fanfiction than an encyclopedia. Wentworth was an interesting character who ought to have a good article about him, but this ain't it. 81.174.149.183 (talk) 14:44, 22 January 2024 (UTC)


 * My I suggest to the cabal that routinely deletes sections of this article that they read the sources referenced in the footnotes before declaring them and the article unreliable. DetachedPeices (talk) 10:17, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I've read it. It's nonsense. 81.174.149.183 (talk) 19:03, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * What is the 'it" you have read 81.174.149.183? DetachedPeices (talk) 04:56, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
 * To be honest it looks as though the entire section on Wentworth's public life in Australia could do with pruning - about half of it seems to be irrelevant to Wentworth! Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 09:07, 27 February 2024 (UTC)