(Surveyor) John Mann

John Mann (1819 – 1907)

John Mann arrived in Sydney in March 1842 from England, where he had trained as a surveyor.

In October 1846 he joined one of Ludwig Leichhardt’s expeditions, as second-in-charge, that was attempting to cross the continent from Brisbane to Perth. That expedition only reached as far as Emerald in Queensland when it was curtailed as a result of sickness among many of those involved. Leichhardt blamed the failure of that expedition on the ‘effeminacy’ of his men; Mann later responded critically of Leichhardt in a book, Eight Months with Dr. Leichhardt, in the years 1846-47.

Mann was appointed a licensed surveyor in the Surveyor-General's Department in March 1848. From then, until 1880, he worked in many areas of the state. In April 1857 he was to marry one of the boss’ daughters (Camilla Victoria Mitchell) at St Mark's Church in Darling Point, Sydney.

There had long been a push to build a road from Braidwood to the Clyde River. In 1827 Robert Hoddle had dismissed the feasibility of constructing a wagon trail down the Clyde Mountain, but the discovery of gold in the early 1850s revived interest in the possibility. So, at the end of June 1852, John Mann was contracted to survey a possible route.

Initially he had difficulties hiring men – the goldfields had more allure than did surveying in extremely rough conditions – and the contract with Mann was almost terminated. However, a year later, Mann had completed the task. Some of his reports provide an indication of the terrain he had to traverse, and through which the road (basically the route of the Kings Highway today) would need to be constructed: From the eastern side of this range projects a narrow spur, at a lower elevation than the range, and about one half mile in length, having a round Stony Hill about half way and terminating in a remarkable hill generally known as the "Sugar Loaf". The principal difficulty anticipated was to get from the top of this range to the foot of Sugar Loaf, from whence a narrow ridge, bounded on both sides by deep gullies, leads down to Currowan Creek, a tributary of the Clyde. The northern side of this spur and Sugar Loaf is extremely steep, rocky and precipitous, and the southern side a little less so. The horse track at present, after keeping along the range for a short distance in a northerly direction, descends, in an almost perpendicular manner, to the head of a deep gully, and follows an almost impassable course to the foot of the Sugar Loaf at the top of the leading ridge afore-said.

The settlement at Currowan, upstream of Nelligen on the Clyde River, had been suggested as the likely end of the road. John Mann did not agree: By referring to the map, the advantage will at once be seen of making the road terminate at Nelligen, it being the nearest point to Batemans Bay for a dray to get to; and from conversations I have had with parties trading to this river, I have been informed that it often takes as many as four tides to take a vessel to Currowan, and then only in the event of the wind being mild.

John Mann's estimate of the cost of construction of the road was £5,000. This amount was approved and construction of the road commenced in October 1853.

John Mann was also responsible for the original survey of Nowra township in 1852.

Demand for land on the Shoalhaven prompted the government to send him to survey part of the remaining Crown Land (most of the best land, and land accessible from the Shoalhaven River, had by then been developed into the private estates of Alexander Berry and Prosper de Mestre) for the village that became Nowra. Mann’s report was damning. He considered the available site for the village to be not suitable: it did not have direct access to the river, it was bounded by steep cliffs, and the available fresh water was two miles south of the proposed site of the township. Nevertheless, he sent a plan of the village to the Surveyor General in February 1852.

In November 1854 another surveyor, George Legg, sent a plan and description of an enlarged Village of Nowra to the Surveyor General. Allegedly, no provision had been made in Mann’s original plans for public buildings in Nowra because Alexander Berry wanted his nearby town of Numbaa to become the administrative centre of the area. Legg also noted the limitations that the site of the village had.

But the town, described at the time as ‘a waste of gum trees, the domain of the wallaby and the dingo’, developed. By 1857 it has 43 inhabitants and a massive flood in1860 effectively secured the future of the new town.

For many years, John Mann served as the Honorary Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia. He died in September 1907 at his home in Neutral Bay, Sydney.

(John Legg (1832? – 1856) was a young local surveyor. He drowned whilst attempting to cross the Shoalhaven River on 17th September 1856. He was then just 24 years old.)