Maria LockPrint Page

The plaque commemorates Aboriginal landowner, Maria Lock (1805 - 1878).

Maria was a well educated woman and married Dicky, son of Bennelong but he died. On 26 January 1824 Maria married Robert Lock (1800 - 1854), an illiterate, convict carpenter who had been assigned to work on the construction of the new Native Institution buildings at Black Town (Blacktown) in 1823. The marriage was the first officially sanctioned union between a convict and an Aboriginal woman.

The legacy of Maria`s education became evident in March 1831, when she petitioned Governor Darling for her deceased brother Coley`s (Colebee) grant at Blacktown, opposite the Native Institution. Maria kept petitioning and in 1833 another forty acres was granted to her at Liverpool in Robert`s name. She received Colebee`s thirty-acre (12.1 ha) grant in 1843. When she died in 1878 her lands at Liverpool and Blacktown were divided equally among her surviving children, and were occupied by her descendants until about 1920, by which time the freehold land was considered to be an Aboriginal reserve (Plumpton), and was revoked by the Aborigines Protection Board.

Location

Details