Broughton & Broger of the Shoalhaven

Contents

Broughton
Broger
References

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Abstract: Broughton and Broger were two famous Aboriginal men of the Shoalhaven region of New South Wales, Australia, during the early colonial period. Biographical details are known due to their association with British settlers such as Charles Throsby and Alexander Berry. Broger is further known as one of the first Aboriginal men to be publically executed for the killing of a white man.

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1. Broughton / Toodwick

What's in a name? The British invasion of Australia began in January 1788. They arrived with basically two names: a christian name and a surname, e.g. James Cook. These names were officially recorded, whether they be soldiers, sailors, bureaucrats, convicts or free settlers. Records of employment, birth, death, marriage and property holdings were kept and are key in recording family history for the non-Indigenous population post invasion. The same does not apply to the Indigenous peoples of Australia. Names were not generally recorded or officially kept until the twentieth century. Family history research backing into the late eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth centuries is therefore not generally supported by such methods. Are there any alternatives?

Yes. One rare collection of personal name records of Australian Aboriginal people is found in the blanket lists compiled by the New South Wales colonial government from the 1820s through to the early 1840s. Many of these have survived in the collections of the State Library of New South Wales and the New South Wales State Archive. A good example of their usefulness is the case of the Shoalhaven Aboriginal man known by the English name Broughton. He is quite famous - perhaps the most famous of his era - and actually has a record in the Australian Dictionary of Biography which is combined with his brother Broger, wherein Broughton is listed as born in 1798 and died in 1850. A copy of his entry this reproduced below.

Broughton (c.1798-c.1850), Aboriginal guide, tracker and constable, and Broger (BROGHER) (c.1800-1830), Aboriginal tribesman, were close relations, probably siblings, born at Boon-ga-ree - known in 1822-88 as Broughton Creek and subsequently as Berry - in the Shoalhaven area of New South Wales. The brothers responded in different ways to the challenges posed by the influx of Europeans. Broughton, whose Aboriginal name was rendered as Toodwick, Toodood or Toodwit, accepted and strove to adapt to the new society introduced by the colonists. By 1818 he was working for Dr Charles Throsby of Liverpool, who probably named him after William Broughton. The trusted Aboriginal served as a guide and translator on several of Throsby's explorations to the south and at least once for John Oxley. In 1822 Broughton started work for Alexander Berry, whose grant incorporated Boon-ga-ree, setting up Berry's farm, Coolangatta, recruiting Aboriginal labour, keeping the peace, capturing bushrangers, droving cattle and providing his own labour. He became a favourite of Berry's, who called him 'my Landsman' and later 'my oldest surviving Black friend' and who presented him with a rectangular breastplate inscribed 'Broughton Native Constable of Shoalhaven. 1822'.

Broger was less accepting of European ways and values, though he could speak English. To Broughton's distress, he refused to undertake regular labour for Berry, preferring instead the company of his wife and at least three children in the forest at Boon-ga-ree. On 6 February 1829, with his Aboriginal friend George Murphy (probably a close relative), he took two sawyers, John Rivett and James Hicks, into the bush in Kangaroo Valley to show them some fine cedar. Here, Broger killed Rivett. Broughton, because of his reputation as a skilled tracker, was recruited to hunt down his brother but led the search party on a wild goose chase. Captured in May, when taken on board ship, Broger stole the keys to his irons from a sleeping guard, jumped overboard and fled. Recaptured in October 1829, he was committed for trial by magistrates Berry and Charles Windeyer.

It emerged that Broger, Murphy, Rivett and Hicks knew each other. Sawyers of the district, Rivett in particular, had a bad reputation for their dealings with Aborigines. A few days before his death, Rivett had cheated Broger and Murphy in an exchange of flour for bush turkey eggs. Further, it was rumoured that Rivett had seduced Murphy's wife. If this were true, then Broger may have been obliged to assist Murphy in securing redress under Aboriginal law. Perhaps, too, Broger resented the effects being wrought by sawyers on the stands of timber in the area, for he was known to refer possessively to Boon-ga-ree as 'his own place'. At his trial at Campbelltown on 20 August 1830 before Chief Justice (Sir) Francis Forbes, witnesses noted his claims that Rivett had attacked him first and he had acted in self-defence. However, he was not allowed to speak in his own defence. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. On 30 August Broger was publicly executed by Alexander Green.

As his knowledge and skills lost their value, Broughton was gradually forced to the margin of European society in the Shoalhaven. His problems within his own society multiplied. He was mocked by his relatives for his devotion to a foreign work ethic, which made him appear to them like a convict worker. Broughton had three wives in all. The first two were Mary, from Kangaroo Valley, and Charlotte. Both were unfaithful to him, and Charlotte died from a beating he gave her. He later took another wife. At least two of the four children of his wives were part-European. An 8-year-old daughter was raped by convicts. His earlier devotion to Berry had earned him an entitlement to regular rations from the Coolangatta store, but records show that he claimed them less frequently over time, indicating perhaps that he spent more time with his family and friends in the bush. He died about 1850.

The names of the brothers survive in several physical features and localities in the Shoalhaven. Brogers Creek is named after the one. After the other there is Broughton Creek, Broughton's Head, Broughton Vale, Broughton Village, and Broughton Mill Creek. A sketch of Broughton (called Broton), by Jacques Arago, the artist with the French scientific expedition, in 1819, shows a thoughtful, even intense, young man with a lightly whiskered face and medium length hair in free-flowing curls.

Jacques Arago, Broten, Nlle. Hollander, 1819, charcoal on paper, 6 x 8.5 cm. Signed J.A. l.r. Collection: State Library of New South Wales.

It can be seen from the ADB record that Brought took a name, or was given a name, from William Broughton (1768-1821) or his daughter Elizabeth Broughton (1807-1891), the wife of Shoalhaven explorer Charles Throsby of Moss Vale (Bong Bong), located on the Southern Highlands above the mountains to the west of the Shoalhaven. Elizabeth had been rescued by Alexander Berry from a Maori massacre in New Zealand. It became the norm during the early colonial period for the Aboriginal people of the settled areas of the east coast of Australia to take on, or be lumbered with an English name associated with the people they worked for, or who had taken their land, or who they was seen as slaves of. Once this English name was taken, the original Aboriginal name or names were no longer used, and forgotten in time by their descendents. It was often only as a result of the blanket lists that there was was any record of that Indigenous name. Broughton was just such an instance. For example, in the Return of Aboriginal Natives taken at Shoal Haven on 4th June 1834 the following was recorded:

No. / English names / Native names / Probable age / No of wives / Children (male) / Tribe

1 / Broughton / Toodwick / 36 / 2 / 2 / Broughtons Creek

This record, despite its scant appearance, provides a great deal of information about Broughton. Most importantly it tells us his native name is Toodwick. Apart from that we are informed that he is 36 years old, has two wives, two male children and is of the Broughton's Creek tribe. In other blanket lists his name is written as Toodood (1836) or Toodwit (1834) or Tho Tho It, and his number of wives and children vary. Broughton is also mentioned outside of the blanket lists, and most often in connection with his relationship with Charles Throsby.

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2. Broger

Broger is as famous as Broughton, if not more so due to the fact that in 1830 he was publically executed by the British government, as noted in the Australian Dictionary of Biography entry above.

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2. References

Blanket Lists, Archive, State Library of New South Wales, 6 June 2011.

Campbell, Keith, Broughton (1798–1850), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, Canberra, accessed 18 September 2025.

Organ, Michael, A Documentary History of the Illawarra and South Coast Aborigines 1770-1850; including a Chronological Bibliography 1770-1990, Aboriginal Education Unit, Wollongong University, December 1990, 646p. [Book]

-----, A Documentary History of the Illawarra and South Coast Aborigines 1770-1900; including a Chronological Bibliography 1770-1990, Report for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra, 1 December 1993, 364p. [Report]

Records of 19th century blanket lists and returns of Aboriginal people, Museums of History New South Wales, 2025.

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Last updated: 22 October 2025

Michael Organ, Australia

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