The area now known as Yarralumla is part of two original land grants, which were granted to free settlers for the establishment of farms. In 1828 Henry Donnison, a Sydney merchant who had arrived with his wife and family on the brig Ellen on 29/30 July 1828, was granted an allotment on the western side of Stirling Ridge. A second grant was made to William Klensendorlffe (a German who had served in the British Navy and arrived free in the Colony in 1818), who had bought the land from John Stephen, on 7 March 1839. Donnison's land was officially named Yarralumla in a survey of the area conducted in 1834. Yarralumla was a name for the area used by the local Ngunnawal people, apparently meaning "echo".