Family C-10: Betty

The successful and prolific Betty family descends from a mare now called Old Betty, probably imported from England by D'Arcy Wentworth some time between 1811 and 1820, and possibly bred at the great Yorkshire stud of William Wentworth, the 4th Earl Fitzwilliam. Old Betty's breeding is not recorded.

Dr. D'Arcy Wentworth (c.1762-1827) was born in Portadown, Ireland. From a relatively impecunious Irish branch of the illustrious and ancient Wentworth family, he received medical training while serving as an ensign in the First Armagh Company of the Irish Volunteers, and furthered his medical education and developed some wild ways in London, where he came up before Old Bailey twice on various charges, including highway robbery. The second time he took -- or was appointed to -- a post as assistant surgeon for The Neptune, a Botany Bay-bound convict ship, and he arrived at Port Jackson in June of 1790. He served in various medical posts, eventually rising to principal surgeon of the Civil Medical Department, in 1809, and later served as a superintendent of police at Sydney, also dabbling in politics and emerging as a prominent businessman in the rapidly developing town.

Beginning with a grant of 147 acres of land at Parramatta in 1790, by 1821 Wentworth had received or purchased 17,000 acres in Cumberland county; his house at Parramatta was named Wentworth Woodhouse, after the grand mansion at the historic family seat in Yorkshire. The location of his first bloodstock stud, called Home Bush, was near the early Homebush racecourse, which is now the site of the Stadium Australia in central Sydney, but by the mid-1820s the principal stud had been moved to a 2,750 acre estate called Fitzwilliam Place (now Wentworthville) at Toongabbie Creek, which was inherited by the doctor's second son, Major D'Arcy Wentworth.

The famous imported Persian/Arabian stallion (Old) Hector, responsible for much of the early running stock in Australia, was at Wentworth's Home Bush in 1812, and died there in 1823. Other stallions at Home Bush included Jock, and Grey Galloway. It was either Old Hector, or a son of his, Wentworth's Young Hector, when bred to the imported Old Betty, got Betty around 1818-19, the taproot mare of this family.

Betty's only known thoroughbred offspring was Camilla, born around 1829, by imported Bay Camerton. She was established as a broodmare in the Manilla Stud at the Diniwarindi station of 30,720 acres near Manilla, NSW, owned by Harvest and Otto Baldwin, whose father, Henry (c.1770-1843) had been transported to Sydney in 1791 for stealing, and emancipated seven years later. The Baldwin family became influential breeders of thoroughbreds, and of high quality shorthorn cattle, flourishing throughout the 19th century under the guidance of Otto's nephew, Charles Baldwin (1829-1906), who imported many English stallions important in early Australian breeding, including Yelverton (imported 1862, by Gemma-di-Vergy - Deceptive), The Drummer (imported 1874, by Rataplan - My Niece), Marvellous (imported 1877, by Blarney - It's Curious), and Viceroy Cup winner Metal (bred in England, imported from India in 1889, Sterling - Fair Vestal). Other stallions at the Baldwins' stud, which was called Durham Court Stud from 1885 onwards, included two New Zealand-bred horses from the Musket sire line: Havoc (Nordenfeldt-Frailty) and Machine Gun (Hotchkiss-Rubina).

As a foundation mare at the Baldwin stud Camilla (1829) bred four foals of note: Commissioner and Porus, both good racehorses, and two daughters, Violet, and a mare by Scratch. The latter, in-bred to Bay Camerton and Hector, established a good family of stakes winners through her unnamed daughter (1849, referred to as the Waterloo Mare) by Waterloo, who bred the excellent runners Talleyrand (1856, winner of the AJC Grand Handicap and other races) and The Pitsford (1862, winner of the AJC Champagne Stakes and other races), and three daughters that bred on, but this branch eventually fell into obscurity.

Violet, born in the early 1840s, produced four good daughters that continued the family line for a number of generations, all of which appear to have been developed for several generations at the Baldwin stud before dispersal throughout Australia: the branch descending from her daughter Camilla (1848) is still active, and the line from Blossom (1854) has produced over 80 stakes winners to the present. Recent winners in this family include the good gelding Willoughby (1990), winner of six graded stakes, including the WATC Railway Stakes (1600 meters), and the VRC Blamey Stakes (1600 meters), and four other races, Leica Falcon (2001), who won the 2400 meter Presentation Stakes, and Australasian Oaks winner La Volta (1994) and her relatives.

Notable Descendants