James Larmer was a government surveyor in the colony of New South Wales. Between 1830 and 1859, he surveyed land, roads and settlements in New South Wales. He was an Assistant Surveyor to the Surveyor-General, Sir Thomas Mitchell, from 1835 to 1855. In 1835, he was second in command of Thomas Mitchell’s second expedition. He is also noteworthy for his recording of Aboriginal words from various parts of New South Wales.
Early life
Larmer was born in Reigate, Surrey, England and arrived in Sydney in October 1829 to take up his appointment as a survey draftsman.
Career
Between 1830 and early 1835, James Larmer surveyed land, roads, streets, coastlines, creeks, rivers, and ridges in what is now greater Sydney, in nearby areas including Broke and Branxton in the Hunter, Brooklyn, Mangrove Creek, Broken Bay and Pittwater around the Hawkesbury River, and in more distant parts including the Abercrombie, Campbells, Belubela, Bell, and Macquarie Rivers. During 1835, Larmer was second in command of Thomas Mitchell’s second expedition, which attempted to follow the Darling River downstream to its confluence with the Murray. Larmer, in command of the main party, left Parramatta and met Mitchell at 'Boree', west of modern-day Orange. The expedition first went overland, then followed the Bogan River, then the Darling from the location of modern-day Bourke. They stopped to the north of the Menindee Lakes, due to the risk of attack by hostile Aborigines, falling short of their objective—but in no doubt that the Darling continued to the Murray—and then retracing their route to return. The connection of the Murray and the Darling, would be confirmed in 1844, when Charles Sturt's third expedition, following a river upstream from its confluence with the Murray, reached the site of Mitchell's last camp. In 1837, Larmer laid out the town plan of Bungendore, in 1838 Queanbeyan, and, in 1839, the town plans of Broulee and Braidwood. In 1840, he surveyed the route of The Wool Road. By this time, he had settled in the Braidwood area, where he was to live for the rest of his life. An economic depression in the early 1840s led to government cost cutting, with surveyors’ salaries being reduced by a third. In recognition of this sacrifice, these government surveyors were allowed to do some private work. Larmer bought land in Braidwood, in 1843, on which he built the Royal Hotel building but was not the licensee of the hotel. His last field notes date from 1859, and it appears that he retired from surveying around that time. He became a Justice of the Peace at Braidwood in 1859 and, with other JPs, presided over cases in the town's Police Court, including some involving relatives and associates of the notorious Clarke brothers and other bushrangers.
The Surveyor-General, Thomas Mitchell, had directed that, where possible, the existing names, in the localAboriginal language, should be used as the official names of localities and landforms in New South Wales, which then also included what is now Victoria and Queensland. This was for pragmatic reasons, rather than stemming from any wish to preserve native cultures; in his journal, Mitchell wrote that, "‘The great convenience of using native names is obvious … so long as any of the Aborigines can be found in the neighbourhood … future travellers may verify my map. Whereas new names are of no use in this respect". Consequently, the surveyors of the colony were among those few settlers who took an interest in local languages. They were also working in places where the local people were still living on their traditional lands and speaking their own languages and dialects. Larmer recorded Aboriginal words and the areas in which these words were used. His work, collated as “James Larmer’s Vocabulary of Native Names” , is one source for fragments of the vocabulary of lost and endangered Aboriginal languages. It is based on his earlier hand-written notes, some dating back to the early 1830s. His lists include words from the Darkinyung, Awabakal, Wiradjuri and Eora languages, and the Dhurga language dialects spoken by the Yuin peoples around Batemans Bay and Ulladulla. There is a list of the Aboriginal language names for land features surrounding Port Jackson.
Family and death
James Larmer married, Martha Stoyles, widow of the licencee of the Royal Hotel, Braidwood, in 1861. They had two daughters, as well as the five daughters and three sons of Martha's first marriage. His younger brother, William Larmer, migrated to Australia in 1853. William was an early pharmacist in Sydney, president of the Pharmaceutical Society, and member of the Pharmacy Board of New South Wales, who after 1865 also became involved in homeopathy. James Larmer died on 5 June 1886, aged 77 years. His grave lies in the Braidwood cemetery. His wife Martha died in 1899.
