Robert Campbell (Australian landowner)

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Robert Campbell (28 April 1769 – 15 April 1846) was Sydney's first merchant and a pioneering land owner.

Campbell was born at Greenock, Inverclyde, Scotland and moved to India as a young man. In India he and an older brother were partners in Campbell, Clark and Company, merchants of Calcutta. Campbell moved to Sydney in 1798 to open a branch of his business. He subsequently built Campbell's wharf and developed a large business as a general merchant. After the arrival of Governor William Bligh in August 1806, Campbell's high character led to his being appointed treasurer to the public funds, naval officer, and collector of taxes, and, there being no bank at Sydney in 1807, the gaol and orphan funds were deposited with Campbell on its undertaking to pay interest at five per cent.^[1] In November 1801 he married Sophia Palmer (1777-1833).^[2]

In 1809 Campbell chartered a ship the Brothers and sent it on a sealing expedition to New Zealand under Captain Robert Mason. He probably intended it to go to Solander Island in Foveaux Strait but instead, in November, it landed a gang on two islets on what is now the coast of the city of Dunedin on the south east coast of the South Island. These are the first identifiable Europeans to land in the area although others probably preceded them. The gang included the ex-convict William Tucker. When the Brothers returned to relieve its men it found only him and Daniel Wilson at Otago Harbour where it anchored on May the 3rd 1810. Again this is the first explicit and specific reference to a European ship entering the harbour although others had probably preceded it. Tucker would later return and become the first European to settle in the area. < Peter Entwisle, "Taka: A Vignette Life of William Tucker 1784-1817", ISBN 0-473-10098-3 Dunedin: Port Daniel Press, 2005,pp.53-54 & 63-64.> While it was no part of his intention Campbell was thus instrumental in bringing the territory which is now Dunedin into the European sphere.

Campbell's ship the "Sydney" was lost off the coast of India while chartered to the government. In compensation he was granted 4,000 acres (16 km²) of land and 710 sheep. In 1825 James Ainslie established a sheep station for Campbell in the area where Canberra is now situated. Robert named the property Duntroon after his ancestral Duntrune Castle, Argyll and Bute, Scotland. In later years Campbell provided half the cost of the church of St John the Baptist in its original form.^[1]

In December 1825 Campbell was appointed a member of the first New South Wales Legislative Council.^[3] In January 1830 he was a member of the committee which recommended that King's schools should be founded at Sydney and Parramatta, and as evidence of his continued high standing in the community, when the Savings Bank of New South Wales was founded in 1832 it was found that Campbell had deposited with him £8000 belonging to convicts, and £2000 belonging to free people. He was allowing seven and a half per cent interest on these deposits. Campbell retired from the legislative council and from public life in 1843, and in 1844 his name was included in a list of those considered eligible for a proposed local order of merit.^[1]

In 1910 with the creation of the Australian Capital Territory the government acquired Duntroon for the creation of the Royal Military College. The original Duntroon homestead (though later extended) is now the officers mess in the Royal Military College.^[4]

Campbell had seven children, John, Robert, Charles, Sophia Ives, Sarah, George and Frederick, several of whom were members of the Parliament of New South Wales.^[2]

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