Monckton Synnot

Who was Monckton Synnot?

Monckton Synnot was a prominent squatter in Victoria, Australia, the sixth son of Captain Walter Synnot and his second wife Elizabeth, née Houston, and the grandson of Sir Walter Synnot, of Ballymoyer, County Armagh.

Born at the family seat of Ballymoyer, Synnot settled in the colonies in 1836 with his father Captain Walter Synnot and brothers. A year later two elder sons crossed to Port Phillip, followed in 1838 by the next two, Albert and the 12-year-old Monckton. They brought sheep with them and became pioneer landholders at Little River near Geelong, where they remained in various partnerships for about ten years.

By 1852 they had scattered and Monckton, after a brief sortie with Albert to the Californian and Victorian goldfields, was the only one left in the Little River district, as sole owner of the 26,500-acre Mowyong, later called Bareacres. In 1852 he assisted in the rescue of the survivors of the flood at the Wedge’s Werribee Station and rescued the granddaughter Annie Emily Lawrence. On 25 February 1853 at St Kilda, Melbourne, he married Annie Emily Lawrence. He later bought the South Brighton sheep station in the Wimmera where, in 1862, he was a member of the first Horsham District Roads Board, and a councillor in 1862-63.