Weston

Weston is a Canberra suburb in the district of Western Creek.  The suburb of Weston is named after a former homestead, Weston Homestead, in the Woden district. The Weston Creek grant was once held by Captain George Edward Nicholas Weston, a former Captain of the East India Company.  George was born on 29 November 1796, in West Horsley, Surrey, England. He departed for Australia on 4 January 1829 from Ile de France, Mauritius on the merchant ship ‘Vesper’.  He arrived in Sydney on 14 March 1829, and married Blanche Johnston on 21 May 1829 at St. James’s Church, Sydney.  George’s wife, was the daughter of George Johnston (1764-1823) who sailed in the Lady Penrhyn with the marine detachment in the First Fleet, and reputedly was the first man ashore at Port Jackson in January 1788. Just after their marriage, George and his wife returned to India to wind up his affairs and then return to Australia to settle.  They returned much later than expected, with two children, on the ‘Caroline’, arriving at Sydney on 31 July 1831 from India.

The 2560 acre, ‘four-square miles’, grant to George Weston at the ‘Yarrow-Lumla plains’ was completed on 31 October 1831, together with all buildings, ways, etc, bounded on the north by the Molonglo River and on the West by the Johnston’s, Weston’s brothers-in-law. .

The land was originally settled by James Martin, a former soldier in the NSW Corps, who by August 1827, had applied to the Government for permission to rent 2000 acres of land, 3 miles south-south-west of J.J. Moore’s property, with a view to purchase. Martin had already built a ‘good Substantial dwelling-house’ of three rooms with a barn, and grazed cattle and sheep and cleared and planted 20 acres, with 12 acres sown with wheat. He is presumed to have been in occupation by the year 1826 but he could not obtain a grant and technicalities hindered his claim. Most of this fertile land was close to the site of the Weston Creek sewerage works. Weston was an absentee landlord, the land being bought on the advice of his brothers-in-law who were thought to bear some pressure upon Martin to move out. On 14 February 1833, Weston took out a 100 pounds mortgage and on 16 August 1834, he sold his grant for 500 pounds to Francis Mowatt.

George Edward Nicholas Weston died on 25 November 1856 at Horsley, NSW and was buried on 29 November 1856 at Prospect, NSW. His ‘four square miles’ included the suburbs of Weston, Stirling, Waramanga and Fisher, and some of Chapman, with Streeton Drive as his western boundary.

The streets in Weston are named after artists.

Weston contains the central shopping area of the Weston Creek district, which includes the Cooleman Court shopping centre. Other facilities in the Weston Creek centre include a post office, petrol station, restaurants, clubs, real estate agents and many other specialty shops.

Weston has many churches, including the Anglican Church, St Peters, Bahá’í Faith, Church of Christ, Presbyterian and the Uniting Church in Australia.

Educational institutions in Weston include the Orana School, the Canberra Institute of Technology Horticulture School, the Australian Defence College’s Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies (CDSS), and the Australian Command and Staff College (ACSC).

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