Later Years
Blaxland is also noted as one of the first settlers to plant grapes for wine-making purposes. He was engaged during the next few years in wine-making. He had brought vines from the Cape of Good Hope, found a species resistant to blight, took a sample of his wine to London in 1822 and won a silver medal for it. While in England he published his "A Journal of a Tour of Discovery Across the Blue Mountains in New South Wales" (London, 1823.)
After the death of his wife in December 1826 he made another visit to England. Still opposed to the governor's authority, this time he bore a petition in support of trial by jury and some form of representative government, and again carried samples of his wine, for which he won another medal in 1828.
He successfully petitioned the Colonial Office for a drawback on the import duty on brandy imported into the colony and 'actually used in the manufacture of wine'. Always a man of moody and mercurial character, Blaxland devoted his colonial activities almost entirely to the pursuit of his agricultural and viticultural interests. He suffered great personal loss with the early and untimely deaths of his second son, youngest son and wife along with others quite close to him in rapid succession, which bore very heavily on his heart. He committed suicide on 1 January 1853 in New South Wales.
He is buried in All Saints Cemetery in Parramatta.
Read more about this topic: Gregory Blaxland
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