A good, early grant by Macquarie as fifth governor, with the signatures of Goulburn and Antill.

A good, early grant by Macquarie as fifth governor, with the signatures of Goulburn and Antill.

Henry Oliver received forty-five acres of land in Hunter's Hill, one of very few grants made in this region in the first decades. His land was "bounded on the north west side by a line bearing east thirty degrees north thirty eight chains; on the south east side by a line bearing south thirty five degrees west thirty seven chains, fifty links to the Road opposite Fitton's East Corner, and on the south west side by the Public Road". The district of Hunter's Hill at this time indicated a far greater area than the peninsula we know by the name today. The area granted to Oliver would now border the suburbs of Killara and Lindfield.

A grant of land in this area is especially interesting as Hunter's Hill became one of Australia's earliest if not the first official suburb, subdivided in the 1840s for villas and cottages in wooded allotments; much still remains of this plan today.

This land grant is on vellum, with a good signature by the governor, and is complete with Macquarie's seal of the colony of New South Wales. When this grant was issued in 1821, Macquarie had already lost his fight against John Thomas Bigge, the royal commissioner and the man who forced his resignation as governor. History has treated Macquarie more fairly since: the colony can be seen to have enormously prospered under his leadership from 1810 to 1822, and it is now celebrated as the Age of Macquarie and the period when New South Wales found its independent entity.

The witnesses to this grant were Frederick Goulburn, the first official Colonial Secretary, who arrived in the colony in December 1820; Henry Antill, a firm friend and aide-de-camp to Macquarie, at this time governor of the Bank of New South Wales, a vocal supporter of the emancipists' cause and concerned with the welfare of orphans and Aborigines; and Hector Macquarie, the governor's nephew.