George Wyndham (winemarker)

Born in 1801 in Dinton, Wiltshire England,[1] he was the third son of William Wyndham and Letitia, née Popham.[1] Educated at Harrow and Cambridge with the goal to enter the Church of England.[1]

    In 1824 emigrate to Canada traveling with John Galt the secretary of the Canada Company.[1] After passing through Paris, Marseilles, Nice, Genoa,Florence, Rome and Naples during his travels he studied viticulture to learn how to make wine.[2]     He reached Malta where an attack of fever forced him to return to Rome.[2]

   Refusing a post under British government due disagreeing on policies he emigrated to Australia as a farmer.[1]  He decided to work as a Colonial Officer was offered a free grant of 640 acres for every £500 of capital.[2] George and Margaret, with £3,000 which his father had advanced him, together with several servants, their goods and chattels, sheep, cattle, horses, pigs and hounds, set sail on the George from London on 17 August 1827.[2] After a stop in Hobart they arrived in Sydney on 26 December Weeks after arriving in Sydney he brought land in the Hunter Valley.[3]

  He  settled near Branxton  naming his property Dalwood.George purchased the 2000 acres for £1,200 and  renamed it Dalwood after one of his father's farms at Dinton.[2]

According to his diary he grew many crops of maize, wheat, hemp, mustard, castor oil, tobacco, millet and cape barley in 1830.[1] 300 peach, 300 lemon, 2 loquat, 1 olive, 60 fig, 40 quince and pomegranate trees were planted in 1830 and 1400 vines were successfully planted in 1831.[2]     Although George brought a Southdown ram and some ewes with him in 1827, he did not take up sheep raising seriously until the end of 1832 when he purchased a flock of local sheep and sent them to Mahngarinda.

By 1830 George had 70 acres of wheat but lost 60 of them with rust and the 600 vine cuttings.[2] In December, 1831 a devastating hailstorm wrecked the tobacco, maize and vegetables. A week later a bushfire destroyed the grass and much of the post and rail fencing.[2] He grew over 70 varieties of grapes.[4]

In 1830 he planted the Australia's first commercial Shiraz vineyard.[3]   At the time the vineyard was the second largest in New South Wales.[1] Some the Shiraz were producing wine until 1966 making them the oldest wine producing vines in the world.[1]     He won bronze and silver medal in the Paris International Exhibition in 1867[1]     Seen as a pioneer of the wine industry in Australia due to his ability to find the best grapes to suit the local area and conditions.[4]

The labour crisis of 1840 hit Dalwood hard.[1] In 1845 he left Dalwood under the care of the manager.[1]     Him , his family , few livestock and stock men traveled the New England plateau to the Richmond River went to Keelgryrah.[1]     In 1846 recrossed the Dividing Range and took up a property near Inverell named Bukkulla[1]     George took up Collyblu of 40,000 acres on the Liverpool Plains, Bukkulla of 100,000 acres and Nullamanna of 30,000 acres in the Inverell district.[2]

   In 1847 prices increased  and they returned to Dalwood.[1]  Bukkulla was worked in conjunction with the Dalwood vineyard.[1]   His son John who eventually took over management.[4]     Wyndham describes planting and tending his crops, weather conditions, the building and maintenance of his property, and relationships with family, workers and the Indigenous people.[4]

In England he was seen as radical advocating for religious tolerance , parliamentary reform and abolition of the Corn Laws and tithes.[1] He supported the rights of squatters.[1]     Supported Governor Sir Ralph Darling against William Charles Wentworth.[1] He was a  signatory to a petition to seeking the importation of coolie labour.[1]     Campaigned for wine to be served  on trains refreshment wines after receiving a letter  from John L Castnez  with law being changed.[2]  

1828 appointed alternate member of the Legislative Council.[5]  1829 appointed justice of the peace.[5] 1837 elected chairman of the bench in Maitland.[5] He served a magistrate in Maitland  but refused a seat in the Legislative council in 1839.[1]     1842 elected chairman of the Maitland Branch of Australian Immigration Association.[5] 1843 he become a member of Maitland District Council.[5] 1867 became a member of the Hunter River Vineyard Association.[5]

He met his wife Margaret Jay in Italy in 1825.[1] They were married at the Ambassador's Chapel, Brussels on 26 April 1827.[2] The couple had tweleve sons and two daughters.[3] His published writings include The Impending Crisis (Maitland, 1851), and On the Land Policy of New South Wales (Maitland, 1866).[1] He died in Sydney on 24 December 1870 and was buried at a private cemetery on his property at Dalwood.[1]