Robert Campbell, colonial merchant, 1769-1846

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the course of the career of Robert Campbell of the Wharf, colonial merchant, who came from India to New South Wales in 1798 and subsequently established the firm of Campbell and Co. of Sydney. Campbell’s career, which began with some slight knowledge of merchanting and civil affairs in eighteen-century Scotland took him several times between India, England and Australia, as the result of both business and politics, for his career as a merchant involved him in many other activities, which included banking, politics, pastoralism and philanthropy. This narrative is concerned mainly with the effects of Campbell’s trading on the embryo society of New South Wales, traced through the difficulties he encountered in the attempt to trade in a primitive economy. Some attempt has been made to reconstruct his early methods of trading and the volume of that trade. Campbell and Company’s successful attempts to import livestock and their setbacks in the spirit trade show how the Sydney business was related to the trading of the main house in Calcutta. The way in which Campbell was forced to organise and expand some form of colonial export is seen in the development of the colonial fishery. This, in turn, increasingly identified Campbell with colonial aspirations as illustrated by the Lady Barlow’s entry to the Port of London, in defiance of the East India Company’s monopoly. The development of New South Wales’s trade and commerce and its significance in the rebellion against Governor Bligh is outlined, prior to the personal misfortunes which reduced Campbell in 1810 and resulted in the dissolution of the original Indian connection by 1813* Campbell’s return to Australia in 1815 and his attempts (which succeeded by 1827) to re-found a once extensive business coincided with a more active colonial commerce. His contemporaries felt that Campbell’s return to his once unique commercial eminence entitled him to the appellation of 'Father of Australian Commerce' and the merchant after 1827 was diverted into politics as a member of the colonial Legislative Council. From this period until his death in 1846 the emphasis of his life changes after the admission of his sons to partnership in Campbell and Company and with his acquisition of extensive pastoral property. Show more