Maria Lock was an Aboriginal landowner. She was the daughter of Yarramundi, an Elder of the Boorooberongal clan of the Dharug people, who had met (with his father, Gombeeree) Governor Phillip's exploring parties on the banks of the Hawkesbury River in 1791 and made a friendly offer of hunting equipment.
In 1814 she was admitted to the Native Institution, for tuition. It was rumoured that she won first prize in the anniversary school examination in 1819. In 1822, Lock was living in Parramatta in the household of Rev Thomas Hassall where she married Thomas Bennelong, who was also known as Thomas Walker Coke. By February 1823, Thomas died from a short illness, Lock remarried in 1824 to Robert Lock. Robert, being a convict carpenter, was assigned to Lock. They settled in the Liverpool district, New South Wales.
During the periods of 1831 to 1843 Lock had obtained several acres of land in Liverpool and Blacktown. After her death in 1878 was equally divided among her nine surviving children, and was occupied by her descendants until the 1920s, 'by which time the freehold land was considered to be an Aboriginal reserve and was revoked by the Aborigines Protection Board'.
(Source: Australian Dictionary of Biography website)
