Lives of two convicts tracked in new Richmond history book

RICHMOND'S much-loved Kingston Hotel would never have come to be if its founder William Harding hadn't stolen a sheep in England in 1846.

Author, Alan Meiers, in the streets explored in his new history book on Richmond. Picture: PAUL LOUGHNAN

RICHMOND'S much-loved Kingston Hotel would never have come to be if its founder William Harding hadn't stolen a sheep in England in 1846.

Police traced he and his brother's muddy footprints back to their home and shortly after Harding was sentenced to 10 years in the colony of NSW.

A new book - Redemption on the Diamond Creek and Richmond Flat, by Alan Meiers - traces the lives of two convicts and the way they shaped their new home, including the fledgling suburb of Richmond.

Harding was lucky he was not sentenced a decade earlier - he trained in carpentry and arrived a free man.

In 1852, he was working on the foundations of a new home when his neighbour - the wealthy politician William Highett - gave him a loan to build the Kingston Hotel on the site.

It was successful, but Harding drank and gambled much of the profits and when he slighted Highett in a card game the loan was foreclosed.

The Hardings were saved by wife Margaret and daughter Sarah starting a successful crumpet business - the Sarah Harding Baking Company - that ran for more than a century.