Richard Brooks
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Richard Brooks (1765 - 1833)

Richard Brooks
Born in Withycombe Raleigh (later Exmouth), Devon, Englandmap
[sibling(s) unknown]
Husband of — married 17 Oct 1796 in Bermondsey, Surrey, Englandmap
Descendants descendants
Died at about age 68 in Denham Court, New South Wales, Australiamap
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Profile last modified | Created 18 Dec 2016
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Biography

Master of the Convict Ship Atlas for its 1801 voyage to the New South Wales penal colony.

Below reproduced from WIKIPEDIA and other sources

Richard Brooks (c1765-1833), mariner, merchant and settler, was born at Topsham, Devon, England, the son of an impoverished clergyman. He had little formal education, entered the East India Co.'s service at an early age, and rose to command his own ship. During the first French revolutionary war he traded to Oporto, the Mediterranean and the Baltic, carrying a letter of marque, but later returned to the East India service.

In 1796 he married Christiana Eliza Passmore in Bermondsey, England. She was the daughter of another East India captain.

He began his association with New South Wales in 1802 when he captained the convict transport Atlas. Atlas's 222-day voyage was one of the worse in the history of transportation to Australia. During the voyage 64 people died; another four dying shortly after disembarkation. The remainder were "in a dreadfully emaciated and dying state" (Governor King). Governor King asked a committee of enquiry whether Captain Brooks' private trade goods which took up space in the hospital and prison and the unnecessary stops en route to Australia contributed to the deaths. The committee stated that mortality had been caused by "the want of proper attention to cleanliness, the want of free circulation of air, and the lumbered state of the prison and hospital".

In 1806 he was captain of another transport, the Alexander, on which no deaths ensued; thereafter he made a number of trading trips to the colony, in the Rose in 1808, the Simon Cock in 1810, and the Argo in 1811, and built up large interests in the colony. In 1812 he fathered an illegitimate child with Ann Jamieson in Sydney. In February 1813 Brooks was on his way to England in the Isabella when she was wrecked near the Falkland Islands, and he sailed to Buenos Aires in a long-boat for help. In July he asked for permission to go to New South Wales as a free settler. Allowed to go, he arrived in March 1814 with his wife Christiana, née Passmore (1776–1835), daughter of another East India captain, and children in the ship "Spring".

He exchanged his brig for a house at the corner of Pitt and Hunter Streets, and set up business with her cargo. Lachlan Macquarie granted him land at Cockle Bay (Darling Harbour) in compensation for a grant promised at Farm Cove which had been incorporated in the government Domain, and he began a profitable business supplying meat and provisions to ships, to the public and to the government store. He was also an agent for Lloyds of London and for shipping which called at Port Jackson.

He suffered during the depression which followed, but this was only a temporary setback. Although in 1816 Governor Macquarie upheld Commissary David Allan in his charge that Brooks was among the most prominent of those settlers who withheld stock during the drought and thus profited by the rise in prices, in January 1817 he granted him 300 acres (121 ha) in the Illawarra district, and in August appointed him a justice of the peace. Meanwhile he had strongly supported the establishment of the Bank of New South Wales, and in January 1819 he was on the committee of landowners and merchants who petitioned the British government for the repeal of commercial restrictions.

In 1823 he moved from Sydney to Denham Court, a property near Liverpool which he had acquired from Richard Atkins more than ten years before in settlement of debts. For the rest of his life he lived there, a prominent settler, a member of the New South Wales Agricultural Society, a vice-president of the Benevolent Society, member of the committee of the Bible Society, and a strong supporter of religious charities of all denominations. He owned properties in Sydney at Cockle Bay and Surry Hills and had extensive holdings in the Illawarra, Williams River and Lake George districts.

He died on 16 October 1833, after being gored by a bull. Along with his wife, who died on 12 April 1835, he was buried in a vault at Denham Court and the church of St Mary the Virgin was built to enclose their remains.

Of their seven children, his two sons Richard and Henry became prominent settlers in the Monaro. Of their 5 daughters, Christiana married Thomas Valentine Blomfield; another daughter, Honoria, married William Edward Riley of Raby; his sixth child, Charlotte, married Nathaniel Powell.

Sources

  • Birth: Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 1, (MUP), 1966
  • Death: Sydney Herald Thu 24 Oct 1833 p. 3
  • Death Registration: New South Wales, Births, Deaths & Marriages, Registration No:, 374/1833 V1833374 17.
  • Maher, C. (Christine), 2016, Richard Brooks : from convict ship captain to pillar of early colonial Australia, Rosenburg Publishing, Dural, New South Wales.




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