Longwood Victoria 3665

Longwood House was the residence of Napoleon Bonaparte, during his exile on the island of Saint Helena, from 10 December 1815 until his death on 5 May 1821. It lies on a windswept plain some 6 km (3.7 mi) from Jamestown.

Longwood "was originally a farm belonging to the East India Company and was afterwards given as a country residence to the Deputy-Governor." It was converted for the use of Napoleon in 1815. The British government recognised its inadequacy as a home for the former Emperor and his entourage and, by the time of his death, had built a new house for him nearby, which he never occupied.

In February 1818, Governor Sir Hudson Lowe proposed to Lord Bathurst to move Napoleon to Rosemary Hall, a house that became available and was located in a more hospitable part of the island, sheltered from the winds and shaded, as Napoleon had preferred. But the revelations of General Gourgaud in London brought Lord Bathurst to the opinion that it was safer to keep Napoleon at Longwood, where an escape was harder to undertake. The building of the new house only began in October 1818, three years after Napoleon's arrival on the island.

Longwood, is named after Napoleon Bonaparte's home on St Helena. John Brook was a squatter here in 1844. At the time this area was also know as 'Winding Creek', Hugh Middlemiss commenced his ‘Salutation Inn’ on the Sydney road around this time, where the coaches branched off to the goldfields in the Mansfield/Jamieson area [Loretta].

The Salutation Inn was built by William Beaton, brother to Isabella Beaton. Both survivors of the burning of the barque India on their journey from England to Australia.

After the railway went through in 1874, the towns folk of Longwood gradually moved there and a settlement called Longwood Rail was established at the station.

In 1895 the settlement was surveyed and proclaimed as Longwood West. After the 1951 review, the name of the then Longwood was altered to Old Longwood and Longwood West was renamed Longwood.

(The photos below are of Longwood House and if the Salutation Inn in Old Longwood)