John Piper

John Piper (20 April 1773 – 8 June 1851) was a military officer, public servant and landowner in the colony of New South Wales. The Sydney suburb of Point Piper was named in his honour.

Background

Piper was born in Maybole, Ayrshire Scotland, son of Hugh Piper, a local physician; his family came from Cornwall.

Military career He was commissioned as an ensign in the New South Wales Corps in 1791, and sailed on the convict ship Pitt, arriving in Sydney in February 1792. In 1793 he was sent, at his own request, to the convict settlement of Norfolk Island, perhaps because of a scandalous love affair. There was certainly an illegitimate daughter born around this time.

Piper was promoted lieutenant and returned to Sydney in 1795; from 1797 to 1799 he was on leave.

Piper was forced to sell most of his property to repay his debts in full. He then moved to his farm "Alloway Bank", at Bathurst and became an important person in the town with visits by Governor Darling and later Governor Bourke. He was chairman of the committee which raised the funds to build St Stephens Presbyterian church. Piper was forced to mortgage the property in the drought of 1838 to 1841, and the subsequent economic depression of 1844 forced the Pipers to leave the property. Piper was saved by his friends who re-established the family to a property of 500 acres, called Westbourne, beside the Macquarie River at Bathurst. Here Piper died on 8 June 1851, and Mary Ann continued to live until her death twenty years later, supported by her numerous children.

Marjorie Barnard claims that "John Piper was a man of his times. He personified the colonial dream." He was an officer during the military rule, a civil servant when New South Wales became a civil state, and a land pioneer during the pastoral age. "He was honourable, generous, and so well loved that he was forgiven things which would have wrecked a stronger man. … He was a master of the bright illusion."