Background
He was the son of Colonel Forbes Francis Hely.
He was the son of Colonel Forbes Francis Hely.
Hely held several other additional places of public and social influence. He became a justice of the peace in 1825 and became president of the Board of Magistrates in 1826. Later, in 1832, Hely applied for an appointment as stipendiary magistrate at Brisbane Water, but, to induce him to stay as superintendent of convicts (an office in which he had been quite successful in the past), he was offered a salary increase of £100 from the £200 he was already earning.
Hely established a farm, which he called Wyoming, after he was granted almost 550 hectares of land at Narara, Brisbane Water in 1824, and, in doing so, became the first man to settle there permanently and to grow a citrus fruit orchard garden.
In 1829, Hely"s land was expanded to approximately 4,000 acres (16 km2), or a little over 1600 hectares, after further grants in the districts of Ourimbah and Tuggerah. The land Hely was granted in Tugerah incited a fierce conflict with William Cape, a free settler who did not report his selection of land to the government before clearing around 100 acres (040 km2) of land and building a barn on the land which was later granted to Hely.
In 1836, Hely began to suffer periods of bad health, and he was recommended for retirement, with a pension to live on. However, before the pension could be approved, Hely died of apoplexy in Sydney.
The year following, he became acting superintendent of police, and, in 1831, he was appointed a member of the Assignment Board.