ARNDELL, THOMAS (1753-1821), surgeon, magistrate and landholder, was one of seven assistant surgeons who formed the medical staff led by Surgeon-General John White which cared for the convicts in the First Fleet. He was baptized on 4 May 1753 at Kington, Herefordshire, son of Anthony Arndell and his wife Elizabeth, née Harris. His son John, by his wife Susanna, was later a medical assistant at Norfolk Island, and his natural daughter Esther married William Hovell. Arndell arrived at Port Jackson in the Friendship and was soon given charge of the hospital at Parramatta. Early in 1791 he began cultivating a block of land there, assisted by an assigned labourer. In July 1792, apparently convinced that farming offered the better livelihood, he sought permission to retire on a pension and became a settler; presumably he hoped in this way to provide more adequately for Elizabeth Burleigh, his convict wife (whom he ...

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Australian Dictionary of Biography