Blaxland

This Sydney artwork commemorates Gregory Blaxland (1778–1853), one of the pivotal figures of early Australian colonial history. In 1813, together with William Lawson and William Charles Wentworth, he completed the first recorded crossing of the Blue Mountains, opening the Australian interior to European settlement. Less celebrated is Blaxland's involvement in the 1808 Rum Rebellion, in which he was among the signatories to the order arresting Governor William Bligh — the same Bligh of Mutiny on the Bounty fame. He is also credited as a founder of Australia's cattle industry and its first commercially successful viticulture. The memorial marks a colonial figure whose legacy remains genuinely ambivalent.