File 11 - 1850-1900 - Merchants and Bankers Listings

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Merchants and Bankers
From 1850-1900

Trade - an international perspective

This website, produced by Australian historian Dan Byrnes, is a no-frills, text-based website designed simply to list historical and genealogical information on many notable merchants and traders of what is termed, the Western World.

Interested in mariners? Check the Mariners Mailing List: Mariners Archives:
http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl/

Reference Item: 1860++: Joyce Marlow, Mr and Mrs Gladstone: An Intimate Biography. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1977.

Reference Item: Eugene S. Ferguson, Bibliography of the History of Technology. Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1968.

Reference Item: Robert Aldrich, The French Presence in the South Pacific, 1842-1940. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press. 1990.

Reference item: Cassandra Pybus, White Rajah: A Dynastic Intrigue. St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1996.

Reference item: On Virginia Woolf see: Quentin Bell, Bloomsbury. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Nigel Nicolson, (Ed.), The Question of Things Happening: The Letters of Virginia Woolf, 1912-1922. London, The Hogarth Press, 1976. Louise DeSalvo, Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work. New York, Ballantine Books, 1989.

L. M. Mowle, A Genealogical History of Pioneer Families of Australia. Fifth edition. Sydney, Rigby, 1978., genealogy for Stephen, p. 328.

Alma Halbert Bond, Who Killed Virginia Woolf: a psychobiography. New York. Human Services Press. 1989.

Anne Olivier Bell and Andrew McNeillie, (Eds.), The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Vol. 2, 1920-1924. London, Penguin, 1981. Note: I am indebted to Georgina Chaseling nee Bennett) for much assistance with the links between the name Prinsep and the circle of writer, Virginia Woolf, the Bloomsbury Group. Ms Chaseling is descended from the Stephen family who were part of Woolf's circle.

1850: Alfred Basil Lubbock, The Down Easters. Boston, 1929. (Treats the vessels of the California grain trade) *

1850: Denmark cedes forts and property rights on the West African Gold Coast to Britain.

1850: English writer Henry Mahew writes on London's poor, given that street sellers after the Irish famine of 1848-1849 had shocking poverty, and a cholera epidemic of 1848-1849 had brought suffering.

1851+: Bombay merchant Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy begins to concentrate on trade to Britain, not China. (Bulley, Bombay Ships, p. 198.)

1851: On 16 January 1851 is established, Eastern Steam Navigation Co. with secretary John Yates, chairman being Robert Wigram Crawford, with George Thomas Braine of Dent and Co., the rivals of Mathesons who led P&O, and Robert Brooks also.
(Broeze, Robert Brooks, p. 246.) The Blackheath Connection logo gif

1851: February, Formation of Australasian League to stop convict transportation. March 1851: Sydney Chamber of Commerce revived (it seems, Organised Labour makes a move, so does Capital). April 1851: The Melbourne Chamber of Commerce is founded. 19 June, 1851: Goldfield discovered on Turon River, NSW; later near Castlemaine, at Mount Alexander. Victoria. October 1851: Disappearance of failed NSW entrepreneur/banker Benjamin Boyd at Guadalcanal.

1851: Isaac Singer in the US is granted a patent on his invention, the sewing machine.

1852: The British arrive in lower Burma, importing large quantities of opium from India and selling it through a government-controlled opium monopoly.
From website based on book: Opium: A History, by Martin Booth Simon and Schuster, Ltd., 1996. e-mail info@opioids.com

1852: An 1852 freight broker to Australia is Charles Walton.
(Broeze, Robert Brooks, p. 247.)

1852: August 1852, Formation of Australasian Gold Mining Co. with names such as Lambert and Parbury its promoters, with directors Brooks, Buckle, Cummins, Flower, Jackson, Lambert, Fanning, Parbury, Thacker and Walker, with its auditors being George Hay Donaldson and John Benedict Gore.
(Broeze, Robert Brooks, p. 239.)

1853: In 1853 Robert Brooks became involved in Australasian Coal Mining Co, with Brooks, Campbell and Mangles, and two directors of the London Chartered Bank of Australia, Fane de Salis and Mr Hadow, plus James Hartley and P&O's chairman, Sir James Matheson, re coal for steam shipping.
(Broeze, Robert Brooks, p. 242.)

1853: Ending 200 years of Japanese seclusion, US Commodore Matthew C. Perry arrives in Tokyo Bay - with armed frigates to force Japan to open up to the West/requesting American trading rights.

1854: Japan: Perry returns and negotiates Treaty of Kanagawa. Internal Japanese opposition to the development results in a period of political chaos, contributing to the fall of the rule of the Tokugawa Bakufu. The Harris Treaty expands the US trade concession; France; Great Britain, Russia, and the Netherlands followed.

1854: Japan: Harris Treaty (Townsend Harris) - full trade treaty in 1858 (commercial treaty - asked Emperor's approval) strong demand of Japanese silk Sonnoo Jooi "honor the emperor and expel the barbarians" (US Civil War 1861-1865)

1854: Treaty of Kanagawa; United States and Japan agree their first modern trade treaty.

1854: Sir John "Quack Doctor" Bowring, becomes governor of Hong Kong, a former secretary of the Peace Society, helps precipitate the second Anglo-Chinese War. Bowring allegedly conspires with British consul at Canton, Sir Harry Parkes, to ripen the opening of hostilities.

1855 or so: Time of California gold rush: The largest known gold bar arising was a bread-loaf sized item called "Eureka". It sold by November 2001 for a record US$8 million. (AUD$15.5 million). Buyer was described only as "a Forbes 400-type executive".

1856: The British and French renew their hostilities against China in the Second Opium War. In the aftermath of the struggle, China is forced to pay another indemnity. The importation of opium is legalized. Opium production increases along the highlands of Southeast Asia.
From website based on book: Opium: A History, by Martin Booth Simon and Schuster, Ltd., 1996. e-mail info@opioids.com

1857: British capture Delhi. Muslim (Moghul) rule ends in Northern India after 332 years.

1857: D. M. Evans, History of the Commercial Crisis of 1857-1858 and of the Stock Exchange Panic of 1859. 1859. (US business history) *

Thomas Brassey (1805-1870), British and international railways contractor, his son being Thomas II Brassey (1836-1918), Earl1 Brassey, Governor of Victoria, ([1])

[1] Thomas Brassey. Contractor for rail for Crimean War. He becomes the greatest international civil engineering contractor of his time. thepeerage.com. Code-red. http update. He has three sons. He is early an apprentice to a surveyor, then buys the business. Joseph Locke invites him to build a section of the Grand Junction Railway and he later builds/ completes London /Southampton line. Contracts arise here for £4 million and employment of 3000 men. With new partner William Mackenzie he builds the Paris-Rouen rail, and other railways in France, in Netherlands, Italy, Prussia, Spain, plus the Grand Trunk rail in Canada (with S. M. Peto, E. L. Bettsand W. Jackson); also working in Europe, India, Australia, South America, with a final work force of 75,000. He also had interests in coal, ironworks and dockyards. Encyclopedia Britannica (1962) item on this man. This man's ancestors arrived to England with William the Conqueror. In 1855 is opened Victoria Dock for steamships, constructed with aid of Brassey, Peto and Betts. In the problem of 1866, Brassey survived but Peto lost up to one million. At his death he was worth about £3.2 million. His son's entry in Australian Dictionary of Biography. A website indicates that it is through this railway activity that the Brassey family is seen in Australia, in 1865, one Thomas Brassey with Peto and Betts constructed a rail line in Queensland, and due to this, one Richard Brassey settled in Queensland. His entry by David Brooke. English Dictionary National Biography entry, Oxford 2004.

1857-1858: Indian Mutiny shakes British rule in India; East India Company is abolished in 1858.

1858: First truck in Australia?: A long hunt is over, to find the nation's first truck, finally located on a remote West Australian farm. A 143-year-old, steam-engine-powered Bray traction engine imported from London in an effort to find a way to haul lead ore across that large state. The engine had no tyres, but it predated the motor car by 26 years, as it was self-propelled, could carry passengers, travel at 16km per hour and haul 45 tonnes. The Bray was discovered half-buried in a creekbed at Northampton, about four hours drive north of Perth. It is now regarded as priceless by Australian Road Transport Hall of Fame, following discovery by Perth motoring journalist John Clydesdale, who is now writing a book. (Reported 17 February 2001)

1858: The telegraph systems of England and America are connected by Atlantic seabed cable. This is viewed in Scientific American as "an instantaneous highway of thought between the Old and the New Worlds."

1858: Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913), British naturalist who discerned the existence of "the Wallace Line", inventor of the term, "survival of the fittest". In 1858, Wallace and Darwin co-operated with a joint reading of a paper to the Linnaean Society. Later came the logic of the theory of evolution.

1859: Bengal, Walter Duncan arrives in Calcutta and founds partnership of Playfair, Duncan and Co.

1860: Year of invention of the corkscrew, boon to wine-drinkers. (Recommended temperature for wine-keeping is 14-16C, at a relative humidity of 65 per cent.

1860: Gustavus Myers, History of the Great American Fortunes. (Three Vols) 1910. *

1860: James Parton, Sketches of Men in Progress. 1870. (US business/merchant history) *

1860: In China, British and French forces loot and burn down the emperor's summer palace on the outskirts of Beijing.

1861: In England, the first fixing by officialdom of an age of consent for sexual intercourse. The first age so fixed as 12 years.

1861: Start of American Civil War. Ending 1865, when last of American slaves are also freed.

1863-8: Japan: The domains of Satsuma, Chooshuu, and Tosa agitate to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate. They are victorious in 868 when Keiki, the last Tokugawa Shogun, resigns.

1863: Bengal, Merchant Andrew Yule arrives in Calcutta, develops plantations, and establishes Beerbhoom Coal Co.

Quote of The Day:
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching. It unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes.
"I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the financial institutions at the rear; the latter is my greatest foe. Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavour to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed."
President Abraham Lincoln, 21 November, 1864

1865+ Albert Fishlow, American Railroads and the Transportation of the Ante-Bellum Era. Cambridge, Mass, 1965.*

1865++: According to Bateson, The Convict Ships, 37 convict transports brought prisoners to Western Australia between 1850 and 1868, with the shipowners involved including Duncan Dunbar, John Allan, Joseph Somes and J. H. Luscombe. Their longer-term commercial activities in either of Britain or Australasia so far have remained largely unresearched, less so for Somes.

1865: "Well-informed people know that it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires, and, if possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value." The Boston Post, 1865.

1865: Gregor Mendel discovers laws of heredity (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1882: First observations on tiny thread in cells, later called chromosomes: (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1902: Connections made between chromosomes and Mendel's factors of "inheritance": (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1910: Researchers on flies discover trait-determining genes located on different chromosomes: (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1927: X-rays discovered to cause genetic mutations in flies: (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1944: DNA is proved to be an hereditary material: (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - Late 1940s: Four "letters" that make up DNA are found to be linked in pairs, C with G, and T with A: (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1952: Rosalind Franklin obtains X-ray diffraction picture of DNA: (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1953: James Watson and Francis Crick discover double helix structure of DNA. (They had international rivals for first to the discovery): (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - Mid-1960s: Scientists find how DNA instructs the body to make proteins: (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1969: First gene isolated, taken from a bacterium: (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1970: First gene is synthesized from scratch: (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1973: Scientists put gene from a toad into bacterial DNA and usher in new era of genetic engineering: (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1976: The first genetic engineering company, Genitech, is established: (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1983: Devising of method of replicating DNA (polymerase chain reaction): (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1983: Genetic marker for Huntington's disease discovered: (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1984: Discovery of methods of "genetic fingerprinting" of individuals is discovered: (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1987: First map of the human genome is completed, with 400 major signposts: (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1990: First attempt at gene therapy, on a four-year-old girl with an immune disorder: (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1990: Human Genome Program is officially launched in late 1990: It is publicly funded with $3 billion and a 15-year deadline for obtaining a highly accurate DNA sequence, with work conducted at the Sangar Centre in Cambridge, UK, but is later to be rivalled by the project to be run by a US company, Celera, headed by Dr Craig Venter at Rockville, Maryland. (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1990: Gene for breast and ovarian cancer is discovered: (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): 1995: Genome is completed of a free-living organism: the bacterium Haemophilus influenzae (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1996: April, Human Genome Project scientists including Dr Craig Venter meet in Bermuda, and agree that much of their data will be freely released to other researchers. In 1996, Genome of yeast is completed: (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - 1998: Genome completed of the roundworm, C. elegans (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - April 1999: Chromosomes 5, 16, and 19 are sequenced: (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - December 1999: First human chromosome number 22 is sequenced: (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - March 2000: Genome of fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster is completed (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - May 2000: Chromosome 21, related to Down syndrome, is sequenced (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ): - June 2000: First draft is completed of human genome. Much new medical science expected to develop from this Book of Mankind as it is being billed in the world press. (Genome mapping/technology/chronology ). (Source: Science Journal)

1866: Trans-Atlantic cable is laid by the steamer Great Eastern to establish reliable telegraphic communication between UK and US.

1718-1867: On the English Convict Contractors 1718-1867 - in the chronological order of their involvements:
Evidently, the merchants active in the convict service between England and North America after 1717 had survived the South Sea Bubble well. After 1717, a list of the names of British convict contractors to North America (in roughly the chronological order of their first appearance in records) would include:
1717: Francis March, London: 1718 Jonathan Forward, London; 1720 members of the Lux family, Darby, John, and Francis, probably London (later linked to Jonathan Forward's operations) and in 1750, William Lux; 1721, 1722, Jonathan Forward Sydenham of London; 1722, Cheston, ?; 1731, various men named Reed, to 1771; 1737, Joseph Weld in Dublin; 1739, Andrew Reid, London, with James and Andrew Armour, London, and John Stewart of London; 1740ff, Moses Israel Fonesca, London; 1740, Samuel Sedgley, Bristol; 1740, James Gildart, Liverpool; 1744, John Langley, Ireland; 1745, Reid and Armour, London; 1745, Sydenham and Hodgson, London; 1747, William Cookson of Hull; 1749, Jonathan Forward Sydenham a nephew of Jonathan Forward; 1749, Stewart and Armour, London; 1750, Andrew Reid, London; ; 1750, Samuel Sedgely and Co of Bristol; John Stewart and (Duncan) Campbell, London (JS&C); 1758, Sedgely and Co (Hillhouse and Randolph), Bristol; 1759, Stewart and Armour, London; 1760, Sedgely and Hillhouse of Bristol; 1763, Andrew Reid retired; 1764, John Stewart and Duncan Campbell, London; 1766, Patrick Colquhuon, Glasgow; 1766, Sedgely and Co at Bristol replaced by William Randolph, William Stevenson, James Cheston, Bristol; 1767, Stevenson, Randolph and Cheston, Bristol? with a colonial agent Cheston; 1768, Jonathan Forward Sydenham, London or nearby counties; 1769, Dixon and Littledale, Whitehaven; 1769, Sedgely, Bristol; 1769, any ships captain providing necessary securities could transport felons; 1770, James Baird, Glasgow; 1772, John Stewart died, Duncan Campbell carried on alone in London until 1775. At Bristol, Stevenson, Randolph and Cheston (SRC) were active till 1776; they made ill-advised and vain attempts to transport felons to North America at the end of the American Revolution. Wisely, Duncan Campbell did not.
The above list has been re-compiled from myriad information compiled by historians working independently between 1933 and 1987 on the original documentation of transportation to North America. [Historians such as A. E. Smith, Oldham, Coldham -[Peter Wilson Coldham, Emigrants in Chains. Phoenix Hill, Far Thrupp, Stroud, Gloucestershire, Allan Sutton, 1992.], Eris O'Brien, Shaw, Ekirch [Roger A. Ekirch, Bound for America: The Transportation of British Convicts to the Colonies, 1718-1775. Oxford University Press. And also, importantly, Roger A. Ekirch, 'Great Britain's Secret Convict Trade To America, 1783-1784', American Historical Review, Vol. 89, No. 5. December 1984., pp. 1285-1291.] and Kenneth Morgan, 'The Organisation of the Convict Trade To Maryland: Stevenson, Randolph and Cheston, 1768-1775', William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, Vol. 42, No. 2, April, 1985., pp. 201-227. ]
Often-mentioned merchants were obviously stayers in the convict service .[John M. Hemphill, Virginia and the English Commercial System, 1689-1733. London, Garland, 1985. [Facsimile of a 1964 Ph.D thesis, Princeton University, pp. 152ff, on matters such as changes in tobacco export inspection procedures from 1713 to 1730, prior to consideration of the 1733 Excise Act instigated by Walpole. By 1713 (Marcus Rediker, Between The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750. Cambridge, 1987., p. 281) Virginia merchants remained very apprehensive about pirates disturbing trade. ]

Notably in maritime terms, merchants shipping felons had a commercial advantage over their competitors - their voyage out was partly or wholly paid. The merchants' inconvenience was that they had to wait till convicts became available from the courts before despatching a ship outward, and given the seasonal nature of shipping colonial tobacco home, this did not always suit ship turn-arounds.

1867 Australia: 4 March 1867: Melbourne intercolonial conference, Henry Parkes advocates establishment of a Federal Council and advocates Federation, as the Prince of Wales was soon to visit colonies. Also in Australia, outbreaks of bad feeling, Protestant vs Catholics.

Departs 18 April 1867 from Portland, convict transport Norwood 2, 786 tons, Capt. Frank Bristow. Surgeon W. M. Saunders. Direct to WESTERN AUSTRALIA 86 days, 254 prisoners, arriving 13 July, 1867. Owned by J. H. Luscombe.
The contract for Norwood 2 dated 2 March, 1867, 254 named males, Data from PRO, TS18/514 Guide to Archives. This ship on 28 March, 1867, (per Alexandra Hasluck re Sykes), took some prisoners at the Nore, to Portsmouth, 2 April, 1867, then to Portland. Though Hasluck has it that she departed 2 April, 1867, the second-last convict ship to Australia.

1866-1867: Convict ship Corona from Portland to WESTERN AUSTRALIA departing 16 Oct., 1866,
I also have a note: Departing England? 22 Dec 1868, convict ship Corona Capt. Wm S. Crudace, owned by William S. Crudace, later a prominent Dundee shipowner. -Ed

1867: Bengal, Balmer Lawrie is established in Calcutta with interests in tea plantations, export, insurance, shipping and stock and share brokerage.

1867: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick form the confederation of Canada.

1867: Japan: Tokugawa Shogunate ends. End of the Edo Period, end of feudalism in Japan.

Contract for convict ship Hougoumont dated 15 Oct., 1867, 280 named males, destination unknown, Data from PRO, TS18/515 Guide to Archives.
Other notes: Departs 12 Oct., 1867: London: convict transport Hougoumount, 875 tons, Capt. Wm. Cozens, surgeon unnamed, from London. 89 days to WESTERN AUSTRALIA, Arriving 9 Jan. 1868. Owned by Luscombe. The last convict ship of all! See AGL Shaw, Convicts and the Colonies, p. 358. She carried sixty Fenians to complete, as Shaw writes, the tally of political prisoners sent to Australia. Shaw, p. 368 says that between 1854-1868, WESTERN AUSTRALIA received 7065 convicts, and (p. 358), the last six "Imperial" convicts in WESTERN AUSTRALIA were pardoned in 1906, at the instigation of Alfred Deakin, then the Australian prime minister.

The last convict ship of all: Hasluck records that Luscombes owned Hougoumont, which arrived WESTERN AUSTRALIA as the last convict ship to Fremantle. She had originally been one of Dunbar's fleet, but now belonged to Luscombes of London. She carried John Boyle O'Reilly, the Irish political prisoner who wrote Moondyne, who later escaped to America. The ship's convict newspaper was called The Wild Goose. O'Reilly was sent to Bunbury, a diocese (See Aust Encyc) Vol 6, p. 436 on Padbury) established with the help of Padbury, partner with W. T. Loton, who in 1863 was sending cattle by ship to Carnarvon.
(See Hasluck, Unwilling Emigrants, pp. 76-77.) O'Reilly when he went to Boston edited a newspaper, The Pilot, and wrote "works of dubious literary merit". O'Reilly had written the novel, Moondyne, based on the exploits of Moondyne Joe, of whom O'Reilly heard when he was in Fremantle Gaol.
Fenians were deliberately dispersed all over the colony of WESTERN AUSTRALIA, O'Reilly went to Bunbury early in 1868, on a new road from Bunbury to Vasse, with others off the Hougoumont. O'Reilly spent a year in the area,, and remembered the countryside there well in his novel. Fr McCabe, a Catholic priest at Bunbury helped O'Reilly escape, with the aid of a Dardanup settler, named Maquire, and an Irish arrangement with captain of an American whaler from New Bedford, The Vigilant. But Vigilant missed a meeting at sea. So O'Reilly went aboard Gazelle, was transshipped to another American vessel, the Sapphire at Cape of Good Hope to Liverpool.
The last convict ship to WESTERN AUSTRALIA had an Irish last laugh on the whole sordid system of convict transportation. The Hougoumont Capt Wm Cozens, on 10 October, 1867, left London with prisoners including Fenians, haters of British tyranny in Ireland, whose friends used American connections to free them with the whaler, Catalpa. (See an article by Bill Harcourt in The Australian newspaper, 31 December, 1981 - and a novel by W. J. Laubenstein, The Emerald Whaler, suggesting that O'Reilly and six other Fenians, all caught in the British net after the failure of James Stephens' failed uprising of 1865 in Ireland, managed to keep in touch with each other. Many Fenians from that uprising were released and exiled in 1871. One of Stephens' men in America was Devoy. There was contacted, a trustworthy whaling captain, Capt George Anthony, about the possibility of a daring rescue mission. A ship, the Catalpa, was specially purchased with the aid of Irish supporters including O'Reilly. In 1868, O'Reilly met and was befriended by Father Patrick McCabe whose parish stretched from Perth to Banbury. O'Reilly tried seven times to escape to the bush, but each time was caught by blacktrackers. Finally Fr McCabe assisted, by arranging for an American whaling captain to pick up O'Reilly (at Bunbury or Banbury?). The first ship arranged for, Vigilant, Capt. Baker, failed to pick up O'Reilly at sea after he'd escaped from a timber detail. Days later, O'Reilly's messenger, McQuire, told him Fr McCabe had arranged for a whaler calling at Fremantle, Gazelle, Capt Gifford, to help O'Reilly escape. O'Reilly when he got to America wanted to rescue his six Fenian friends who were aided still by Fr McCabe. The Catalpa, purchased in Boston, was overhauled and set up as a whaler, cost all up, about $18,000 laid for by "shanty Irish".
On 26 April, 1875, Catalpa was ready to sail, from New Bedford. The rescue was set for February/March, 1876, at Bunbury. Two men, John J. Breslin, "who knew the mind of the English gaoler", and another Irish spy nicknamed "Johnson" were to go to Australia to make ready for the escape. The conspiracy worked, and the Catalpa did actually whale, 310 tons, she caught a good catch for Americans that year. She arrived at Bunbury on 28 March, 1876, and shortly Capt. Anthony and Breslin made contact. Difficulties set in, scraps with the authorities about small problems. Fr McCabe said a Good Friday mass at which some of the co-conspirators were present. There was a storm, causing slight damage to the Catalpa, then the prisoners feared the authorities were wanting a new road to be built, which would spoil all plans, with a change to routine.
It was decided to wreck telegraph lines, and try for Easter Monday. Perhaps luckily, the sheriff had been thrown from his horse and was in a critical condition in Perth. His brother-in-law was Superintendent John Stone of the Water Police. Capt Anthony at sea meantime had to keep from sight of the Rottnest lighthouse, which telegraphed news of incoming ships to Fremantle. But Anthony got the Catalpa to Mangles Bay (which incidentally was named for a family operation shipping prisoners to eastern Australia after 1800.)
At Fremantle prison, superintendent Doran had recently been complimented on the high rating of the gaol. At Mangles Bay, Capt. Anthony got news from William Ball of the Jarrah Timber Company that HM Georgette Capt Grade was due to load timber. At Fremantle Gaol, forged orders got the two prisoners out of the prison. They met Breslin, and all met Capt Anthony close to schedule. Breslin had written a note for Gov. Robinson of WA to inform him of the success of the rescue, and put it in the water hoping it would reach destination.
About 10.45am, Easter Monday, a superintendent discovered the escape, and found the telegraph wires had been cut. Gov. Robinson arrived in Fremantle at 2pm to be an honoured guest at Masonic festivities, only to meet news of the escapes. Shortly, incredibly, Robinson received Breslin's message set adrift. At sea, a man on the Catalpa was trying to ensure she was in international waters so there was no breach of sea law. Squalls hit the whaleboat and the Fenians and Capt Anthony were seeking Catalpa, eight miles away. The escapers spent a miserable night unsure if they would ever meet Catalpa. In the early morning, the mail ship, the steam-driven Georgette, come to wreak Gov. Robinson's revenge, was also in sight, and came by Catalpa. She was twice the size of the whaler, but her engineer found she was insufficiently coaled. Georgette moved away, steamed past the rescue whaleboat, but her men saw nothing.
As the whaleboat and Catalpa closed to each other, a water police cutter came in sight, but now the escapers were on Catalpa!
In Fremantle, Gov. Robinson took the escape as a matter of honor, a grave and impudent affront, and was prepared to bring the colony to a halt to free resources for a re-capture. Popular feeling was with the Fenians. The recoaled Georgette went for the Catalpa as a man-o'-war, and tried to crowd Catalpa closer to shore, and had a field piece on deck. As the ships closed, the Yankee sailors noted the Georgette's soldiers had fixed bayonets, so Capt Anthony ordered his men to arm themselves, the wind blew a near gale, the Georgette's field piece fired. The captains of each ship argued across 200 yards of water.
The presence of a small boat coming up between the shore and Catalpa decided Capt. Anthony he was too close to British waters. He ordered his ship to make to ram Georgette with bows built to attack Arctic ice. Georgette reversed, the ships missed by inches, and Catalpa would have been raked by fire from the Georgette but mysteriously, no fire came. Superintendent Stone tried to bluff Capt. Anthony still across yards of water. The ships were parallel for half an hour, till Georgette shied off and homed for Fremantle. Catalpa got to New York on 18 August, 1876. What could have become an international incident, never did.

1867: Alfred Nobel patents Nobel's Extradynamit". He was born in 1833 and once remarked that he "should have been strangled by a humanitarian doctor" when he was born. The idea for the Nobel Prize arose in 1888, when Nobel was living in Paris, and read of his death in a French newspaper, which had misreported the death of Alfred's brother, Ludwig. Alfred found he would be remembered as "the dynamite king", who made a fortune from blowing up things and people. When he died in 1896, he owned 93 explosives factories.

1 March 1868: Japan: Direct Imperial rule; Meiji Restoration - the reinstitution of the supremacy of the Emperor in political and ideological life. - rapid modernization; abolish the samurai class; Edo - Tokyo Fukoku Kyoohei (rich country, strong military) return the land registers to the emperor, receive appointments as governors

1870: Unification is completed of Italy. Franco-Prussian War, leads to proclamation of German Empire in 1871.

31 August, 1870: All British troops to be withdrawn from Australia. Soon, NSW is arranging its own permanent military force.

1870: Australian author Marcus Clark is serialising his novel on the horrors of the convict system in Australia, For The Term Of His Natural Life.

1870: According to Australian politician/writer Barry Jones, the originator of the Russian idea of open-ness (glasnost) later adopted by Gorbachev (see re 1989) was Aleksandr Herzen (1812-1870), who lived much in exile in London and Paris.

1870: Octavius T. Howe and Frederick W. Matthews, American Clipper Ships. (Two Vols) Salem, 1926-1927.*

1873: Trouble on Newcastle (NSW Australia) coal fields, five mining companies join forces, miners are on strike.

1873: Japan: Universal military conscription; fixed monetary taxes. The Meiroku-sha, an influential group of intellectuals, urges the "civilization and enlightenment" (Bunmeikaika) of Japanese society based on largely Western models. Members include Fukuzawa Yukichi, a founder of Keio Univ. in Tokyo. A conservative reaction arises against the "mindless and chaotic" importation of foreign ideas and technologies.

11 November, 1873: Australia passes first Factory Act, re employment of women in workrooms and factories.

1873: Wine on the world market: Vienna 1873: At a wine competition at The Vienna Exhibition, the French judges blind-tasted a certain shiraz wine and judged it the best. Soon they were horrified to find that it was not French wine, but came from Victoria, Australia. They reportedly resigned en masse. By February 2001 the French are irritable yet again with Australian (mere "agricultural wines") and Californian (mere "industrial wines") winemakers, who are doing increasingly well on the world market. It seems the French marketing philosophy based on "taste of the soil", (gout de terroir) is lately doing less well on the world wine market.
(Reported in Australian press on 17 February 2001)

1874: English researcher, C.R. Wright first synthesizes heroin, or diacetylmorphine, by boiling morphine over a stove. In San Francisco, smoking opium in the city limits is banned and is confined to neighbouring Chinatowns and their opium dens.
From website based on book: Opium: A History, by Martin Booth Simon and Schuster, Ltd., 1996. e-mail info@opioids.com

1876: South Australia becomes first of the Autralian colonies to legalise trade unions by legislating for provide for registration and protection of their funds. Other states follow to 1900.

1876: Start of Far Eastern rubber plantations by Englishman Sir Henry Wickham who has smuggled rubber seeds out of Belen, Brazil.

1877: Japan: The last and the greatest Samurai revolt - clear awareness of the possibility of learning from abroad.

8 December, 1877: Telegraph line extended from Perth to Adelaide and hence to London, completed.

In 1877, Edison invents his phonograph. On printing as above, see Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel.
In 1877, Thomas Edison invents phonograph and in 1879 Edison invents electric light bulb.

1877: Explorer Henry Morton Stanley prepares to descend the uncharted waters of the Congo River, Africa.

1878: Britain passes the Opium Act with hopes of reducing opium consumption. Under the new regulation, the selling of opium is restricted to registered Chinese opium smokers and Indian opium eaters while the Burmese are strictly prohibited from smoking opium.
From website based on book: Opium: A History, by Martin Booth Simon and Schuster, Ltd., 1996. e-mail info@opioids.com

1878: Congo: Leopold II of Belgium forms an association to exploit basin of the Congo River, (Zaire), an area already largely destroyed/demoralized by the slave trade. It becomes The Congo Free State, but really a private empire of Leopold. Situation becomes outrageous and scandalous and in 1908 Leopold is forced to cede it to Belgian state.
See Reader's Digest, History of Man: The Last Two Million Years. Sydney, The Reader's Digest Association, 1973-1974.

August 1878: Rise of more anti-Chinese feelings on Australian mining fields, on ships too.

James Lyle Mackay (1852-1932), Lord Inchcape, co-founder of Peninsula and Orient Line (P&O). ([1]) James L. Mackay (1852-1932). Contractor, troop shipping. His father is a well-to-do Arbroath shipmaster, Scotland. He is son2. He was not an initiator, more a redeveloper of existing enterprises. He at age 19 starts with Gellatley, Hankey, Sewell and Co. Has a legacy of £100. In 1874 he is appointed to the staff of Mackinnon, Mackenzie and Co. of Calcutta, agents for British India Steam Navigation Co., which had its Bombay agency ruined in 1878 by the failure of City of Glasgow Bank. Mackay took the role of the Bombay agency and was given a partnership, which gave him influence over the entire Persian Gulf. He assisted British troop carrying for the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1888 and the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. He established a service from Aden to Zanzibar which led to formation of Sir Willam McKinnon and British East Africa Co. Later was interested in the Indian currency question (see earlier interest by Prinsep on questions of Indian currency. Then Mackay was senior partner with Mackinnon, Mackenzie, and Co. and of Macneill and Co., and he helped reorganise Binney and Co. of Madras, so that he finally partly commanded the jute, tea and coal industries of Bengal, and the cotton and wool of Madras. In 1893 he returned to London to British India Co. Apptd to make treaty with China after Boxer uprising. In 1901 he visited Australia to reorganize the coastal fleet of Australian Steam Navigation Co. Had British rail and banking interests, various. Director/chair of National Provincial Bank, director East Indian Railway Co. Director, Great Western Railway, UK. Chairman of British India in 1913. Negotiated amalgamation with P&O. In 1914 became chairman of P&O, which acquired NZ Shipping Co. and Federal Steam Navigation Co. Interests in Orient Line and the short-sea trader General Steam Navigation Co. Became govt-nominated director of Suez Canal Co., and also director of Anglo-Persian Oil Co., from which he resigned in 1925. Reorganized system of indemnity of shipping prior to 1914 and WWI. By 1906-1907 was Member of Council of India. He was created Lord in 1911. (Re recent work on merchant networks.)

[1] James Mackay: English Dictionary of National Biography entry, Oxford 2004. Stephanie Jones on Inchcape Group. See p. 214 of Parker's essay on Scots in India in R. A. Cage's book. His own entry in English DNB 2004 edition by Keith Grieves. Cassis, City Bankers, p. 170, he is director of Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China. Burke's P&B for Inchcape. Burke's Landed Gentry, Vol. 1, edn 18, for Drake of Inshriac. GEC after 1901, Inchape, p. 145. www.thepeerage.com/.

1881+: Economic and political instability and pogroms shake Eastern Europe. Some Jews go to Palestine but 2.5 million move west, 2.0 million to the US by World War I. 1894-1906 Dreyfus Affair in France exposes deep anti-Semitism. Trial is covered by Viennese journalist Theodor Herzl.

1881: Japan: In response to the People's Rights movement, the government promises a constitution and parliament. Constitution promulgated 1889, and Diet opens in 1890.

1881-98: Japan: - 6177 British, 2764 Americans, 913 Germans, 619 French, and 45 Italians were invited (French-law, German-medicine, steel, American-agriculture, British - railroad)

1881: British North Borneo: A London merchant, Alfred Dent, with an Austrian partner, Baron Overbeck, sets up British North Borneo Company, with grant of land from Sultan of Brunei and a royal charter from Gladstone of UK of 1881. But the company stagnated.

In 1881: Louis Pasteur develops immunisation against anthrax. (Others think this came from the German, Robert Koch, earlier than Pasteur's work on anthrax.)

1881: Alexander Fleming, (1881-1955), discoverer of penicillin and saviour of millions of lives.

January 1882: Suspicion arises in Australia of Russian intentions after three Russian naval ships visit Melbourne.

December 1882: Formation of first women's trade union in Melbourne, for tailoresses.

1884: Acquisition of papers re Captain James Cook, etc., from Lord Brabourne and re history of early NSW. and collection by barrister Edward Wise.

1886: The British acquire Burma's northeast region, the Shan state. Production and smuggling of opium along the lower region of Burma thrives despite British efforts to maintain a strict monopoly on the opium trade.

Ian Crawford, We Won the Victory: Aborigines and Outsiders on the North-West Coast of the Kimberley. Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2001.
Barbara Creed and Jeanette Hoorn, (Eds.), Body Trade: Captivity, Cannibalism and Colonialism in the Pacific. Pluto Press, 2001.
F. M. L. Thompson, `Life after Death: How Successful Nineteenth-century Businessmen disposed of their Fortunes', Economic History Review, Series 2, Vol. 43, No. 1, 1990., pp. 40-61.
Roger Fulford, Glyn's, 1753-1953: Six Generations in Lombard Street. London, Macmillan, 1953. (Banking history)
A. L. Morton and George Tate, The British Labour Movement, 1770-1920. London, Lawrence and Wishart, 1956.
Michael Wrong, In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz: Living on the brink of Disaster in the Congo. Fourth Estate, 2001, 324pp.
Frederic Morton, The Rothschilds: A Family Portrait. Ringwood, Victoria, Australia, Penguin, 1964.

In 1887, Thomas Edison makes the first sound recording as he recites nursery rhyme, Mary Had A Little Lamb. gramoph.gif - 2605 Bytes

1887: Japan: Masquerade ball in Western dress given for the political elite and foreigners at Rokumeikan provokes a nationalistic reaction. Tokutomi Sohoo founds the nationalistic newspaper Kokumin Shinbun.

3 May, 1888: Mass meetings in Sydney re arrival of two ships of Chinese migrants, later a Chinese Exclusion Bill in NSW Parliament.

1889: Japan: Promulgation of the Imperial Constitution - based on the German (Weimar) constitution - and the Imperial Household Code Emperor - merely validate the decision, not to rule.

1899: "Everything that can be invented has been invented." Charles Duell, director, US Patents Office.

10 April 1899, Baron Tennyson, son of English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, becomes Governor of South Australia.

1890: U.S. Congress, in its earliest law-enforcement legislation on narcotics, imposes a tax on opium and morphine. Tabloid newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst publish stories of white women being seduced by Chinese men and their opium to invoke fear of the 'Yellow Peril', disguised as an "anti-drug" campaign.
From website based on book: Opium: A History, by Martin Booth Simon and Schuster, Ltd., 1996. e-mail info@opioids.com

1890: Japan: First National Diet- House of Peers (15 yen Tax - not much more than 1% of the population) and House of Representatives - first successful parliamentary experiment outside the West First national election.

30 May, 1891: Womanhood suffrage movement started in Sydney (Australia) with Rose Scott as secretary.

1890s: Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius and an American, P.C. Chamberlain, independently consider possible problems arising from a CO2 building up in the atmosphere. Both scientists realise that the burning of fossil fuels could lead to global warming, but neither suspect the process might already have started. (Greenhouse Timeline)

1893: Australian socialist William Lane goes to Utopia, a "new Australia" colony in Paraguay. Lane and his family withdraw from New Australian settlement in Paraguay and go to New Zealand where he becomes a non-socialist, pro-Imperialist newspaper editor. (There was a German utopia in South America at the same time, where Mengeles is later said to have repaired! It was perhaps this German colony which was home to the sister of Friedrich Nietzsche, who later edited her brother's papers?).

1893: The panic of 1893 is followed by one of the worst depressions in US history. See re the 1895 "gold loan of 1895" controversy, with Morgan firm associating with US Govt. At this time, US has no central bank.

1895: Rise of world's probably first "real" skyscraper, completed in 1895, the 15-floor Reliance building in Chicago's Loop, the central business area. Designed by Charles Attwood of Daniel Burnham's office. The world's tallest structure by 2001 is Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

1895: East Africa Protectorate is organised after dissolution of British East Africa Company.

1893- 1-2 December, 2001, Corowa, NSW, The People's Conference, a historic conference to help decide on a process to determine on the issue of finding a Head of State for Australia.
(Why Corowa? Because at a conference there in 1893, a process was put forward to enable Australians to decide on Federation).
By 1893: Integrity of colonial histories? Australian Historian F. M. Bladen found that for the first 40 years of New South Wales' history, practically no official records had been kept in the colony, everything had to be got from England.

1894: CTR Wilson begins cloud-chamber research after meteorological observations.

1894: Japan: British - agree to relinquish their extraterritorial privileges by 1899.

1894: South Australia becomes first Australian colony to grant women right to vote and to stand for Parliament, assented to by 21 March, 1895. A world first for the women's vote?

1895: Japan defeats China in battle on Korean soil over future dominance of Korea, then Russia tries to annex Korea - Japan stymies this move in 1905 and in 1910 Japan formally annexes Korea and industrialises it.

1895: East Africa Protectorate is organised after dissolution of British East Africa Company.

1895: Heinrich Dreser working for The Bayer Company of Elberfeld, Germany, finds that diluting morphine with acetyls produces a drug without the common morphine side effects. Bayer begins production of diacetylmorphine and coins the name "heroin." Heroin would not be introduced commercially for another three years.
From website based on book: Opium: A History, by Martin Booth Simon and Schuster, Ltd., 1996. e-mail info@opioids.com

1896: Herzl writes The Jewish State. "The idea which I have developed in this pamphlet is a very old one: it is the restoration of the Jewish state." Herzl is considered the Father of Zionism, a political movement to create a Jewish state.

1897: First Zionist Congress (Basle, Switzerland) declared Palestine the Jewish Homeland. Participants developed a structure of government which could be transferred to Palestine at some future time, including the World Zionist Organization to link all Jews together, the Jewish National Fund to acquire land, a committee to manage finances, a political committee to govern the land.

1898: Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean are transferred to the United States.

1899: "Everything that can be invented has been invented." Charles Duell, director, US Patents Office.

10 April, 1899, Baron Tennyson, son of poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, becomes Governor of South Australia.

It is hoped that these webpages will be of assistance to family historians in the UK, the US and Australasia, by way of providing contexts for further research.

More on Sydney...
Australia and the East

A special Blackheath Connection inquiry - Notes and Queries

Where did colonial Sydney fit into Britain's eastern trade?

Wakefield genealogy: Paul Bloomfield, Edward Gibbon Wakefield: Builder of the British Commonwealth. London, Longman's Green and Co., 1961. (With genealogical table.)

H. P. Clodd, Malaya's First British Pioneer: The Life of Francis Light. London, Luzac and Co., 1948.

Austin Coates, Macao and the British, 1637-1842: Prelude to Hong Kong. Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1988.

James R. Gibson, Otter Skins, Boston Ships, and China Goods: The Maritime Fur Trade of the Northwest Coast, 1785-1841. Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1992. Paperback edition of 1999.

Barrie Dyster, `The Rise of William Fanning and the Ruin of Richard Jones', Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 67, Part 4, March 1982., pp. 366-374.

Jane De Falbe, Dear Miss Macarthur: Recollections of Emmeline Maria Macarthur, 1821-1911. Kangaroo Press, Australia, 1988.

Maggie Keswick, (Ed.), The Thistle and the Jade: A Celebration of 150 years of Jardine Matheson and Co. Sydney, Octopus Books Ltd., 1982.

Alan Frost, Convicts and Empire: A Naval Question, 1776-1811. Oxford University Press, 1980.

R. A. Cage, (Ed.), The Scots Abroad: Labour, Capital, Enterprise, 1750-1914. London, Croom Helm, 1985.

W. E. Cheong, 'Trade and finance in China, 1784-1834', Business History, Vol. 7, No. 1, January 1965., pp. 34-47.

W. E. Cheong, 'The beginning of credit finance on the China coast: the Canton financial crisis of 1812-1815', Business History, Vol. 13, No. 2, 1971., pp. 87-103.

W. E. Cheong, 'China Houses and the Bank of England crisis of 1825', Business History, Vol. 15, No. 1, January 1973., pp. 56-73.

W. E. Cheong, Mandarins and Merchants: Jardine Matheson and Co: A China Agency of the Early Nineteenth Century. London, Curzon Press, (Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies, Monograph Series, No. 26), 1979.

S. B. Singh, European Agency Houses in Bengal, 1783-1883. Calcutta, Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1966.

J. Henniker Heaton, Australian Dictionary of Dates and Men of the Time: Containing the History of Australasia from 1542 to May, 1879. By J.H. Heaton Sydney; George Robertson, 125, New Pitt Street, and at Melbourne and Adelaide, 1879.

D. R. Hainsworth, `The New South Wales Shipping Interest, 1800-1821', Australian Economic History Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, February, 1968., pp. 17-30.

D. R. Hainsworth, `Exploiting the Pacific frontier: the New South Wales sealing industry, 1800-1821', Journal of Pacific History, Vol. 2, 1967., pp. 59-75.

D. R. Hainsworth, 'In search of a staple: the Sydney sandalwood trade, 1804-1809', Bulletin of the Business Archives Council of Australia, Vol. 5, No. 1, February, 1965., pp. 1-20.

D. R. Hainsworth, 'The New South Wales shipping interest, 1800-1821: a study in colonial entrepreneurship', Australian Economic History Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1968., pp. 17-30.

D. R. Hainsworth, The Sydney Traders: Simeon Lord and his Contemporaries, 1788-1821. Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1972.

D. R. Hainsworth, Builders and Adventurers: The Traders and the Emergence of the Colony, 1788-1821. Melbourne, Cassell, 1968.

Note: You will find even greater detail than is given here, for specific periods in American - English - Australian history, with regard to merchants, traders, bankers and financiers, as part of the website, The Blackheath Connection... Blackheath Connection website logo gif - 8235 Bytes

Merchants and Bankers From 1850-1900

Trade - an international perspective

More on Sydney...Australia and the East

A special Blackheath Connection inquiry - Notes and Queries

Where did colonial Sydney fit into Britain's eastern trade?

Merchants and Bankers
From 1850-1900

More on Sydney...
Australia and the East