Ryde

Distinguished and Famous people from Ryde

🌿 Bennelong

Bennelong was a Wangal man whose later life was closely connected with Kissing Point, in today's Ryde district. British officers abducted him in 1789; after escaping, he subsequently renewed contact with the colonists on his own terms. He travelled to England with Governor Arthur Phillip and Yemmerawanne in 1792, returning to New South Wales after several years. Later he led a community at Kissing Point. He died in 1813 and was buried at Putney, where research identified a probable grave site in 2010. His story encompasses diplomacy, coercion, travel and continuing Aboriginal community life, rather than the simple tale of assimilation sometimes told about him.

🍏 Maria Ann “Granny” Smith

Maria Ann Smith's name has travelled much further than her Eastwood orchard. Born in Sussex in 1799, she arrived in Sydney with her family in 1838. Her husband Thomas bought land at Eastwood in 1855 and 1856, and the couple grew fruit there. A later account recorded local grower Edwin Small's recollection of Maria showing him and his father an apple seedling beside a creek in 1868. That seedling became the Granny Smith variety. The familiar green apple is an unusually edible local legacy; the council's history carefully distinguishes the recorded recollection from later stories about precisely how the seed germinated.