EVERINGHAM, MATTHEW JAMES (1769-1817), settler, was convicted in London on 7 July 1784 and sentenced to transportation for seven years. Shortly before his conviction he was employed as a 'servant' by an attorney of the Middle Temple, hence the subsequent references to him as 'attorney's clerk'. Allegedly 'in great distress' he had obtained two books by false pretences from the servant of another attorney, and these he had offered for sale.

He arrived in the First Fleet transport Scarborough and was employed by Assistant Commissary Zachariah Clark. On 13 March 1791 Everingham married Elizabeth Rymes of London, who had arrived in the Neptune on 28 June 1790 and in July he settled on a 50-acre (20 ha) grant near Parramatta. In December Watkin Tench noted that 'the Attorney's Clerk' appeared to find the cultivation of his own land 'not half so easy a task as he formerly found ...

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Source:

Australian Dictionary of Biography