Thomas Peel & Co - 1829 Tree

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: [unknown]
Surnames/tags: Peel Levey Swan_River_Colony

Marquis of Wellington, 1815

Biography

Solomon Levey ^[1] (1794-1833), emancipist and merchant, was sentenced in October 1813 at the Old Bailey to transportation for seven years as an accessory to the theft of 90 lbs (41 kg) of tea and a wooden chest, a charge that he denied. He arrived in Sydney in the Marquis of Wellington in January 1815. He lost no time in starting his business career in Sydney, and was soon dealing in real estate and supplying the government store with various goods.
On 8 February 1819 he received an absolute pardon and three days later married Ann, daughter of William Roberts, a wealthy emancipist who gave her a rich dowry of land and livestock. In November 1819 a son was born and in 1822 a daughter who died in childhood. The marriage proved a failure; Ann took a lover and ran away but died of maltreatment in February 1824. Levey never married again. . . . . more . .

Swan River Colony 1832 Census # Promoter # P.11 and Ships Gilmore, 1829 Hooghly, 1830 Rockingham, 1830

In 1826 Levey went to London to establish a buying office for Cooper & Levey and to raise money.

In December 1829 Levey was introduced to Thomas Peel and became his partner in a venture to establish colonists in the new settlement at Swan River. Under the name of Thomas Peel & Co., Levey was to act as director in London and Peel to manage affairs in Western Australia. Through mismanagement in the colony, the venture languished; Peel made no reports and even neglected to assure for Levey half of his land grant of 250,000 acres (101,173 ha) at Cockburn Sound. Although Levey had provided all the company's capital of £20,000 he continued to back the venture, selling land in Sydney to buy supplies for Peel and his settlers. By 1832 Levey was forced to seek information from the Colonial Office, thus revealing for the first time his share in the company. Although he lost a fortune in the venture he did not live to see its final failure. After a short illness he died in London on 10 October 1833.

In 1828 Peel ^[2] went to London and was planning to emigrate to New South Wales, when reports of the new free colony to be founded at Swan River changed his mind. He joined a syndicate of financiers in proposing to the government a plan whereby they would transfer ten thousand settlers with requisite stock and stores to the new colony within four years, and place them each on 200 acres (81 ha) of land, in return for which the syndicate wished to receive four million acres (1,618,760 ha) of land.

Swan River Colony 1832 Census Peel #Not found

The Colonial Office, however, was under pressure from Captain (Sir) James Stirling, who had explored the Swan River in 1827, either to grant him the right to develop the place under a proprietary charter, or to proclaim it a new crown colony of which he would be the governor. . . . more . . adb.anu.edu

• The grave of Thomas Peel, who was granted the land south of the Swan river colony in 1829 that now encompasses the Mandurah area, the region now bears his name, and map

In late September 1829, Captain Stirling and Surveyor General Roe travelled to the head of the Swan River above Guildford with a group of European settlers to whom permission had been given to select land. These were the first rural grants in the Colony.

Swan River Colony 1832 Census Promoter # P.11 and Ships Calista, 1829 Lotus, 1829 Marquis of Anglesea, 1829 Protector, 1830 Wanstead, 1830 Britannia, 1830

Most of those who obtained these grants were notable men in the young Colony, whilst a few were wealthy absentee investors, among the latter being Lieutenant-Colonel Peter A. Lautour, who obtained the grant of Swan Locations F and 6, each 5,000 acres in area, the former on the west bank, and the latter opposite on the east bank. - W® - (<+Q) - \/

Lautour had already obtained a large amount of land in Van Diemen’s Land. In order to obtain substantial grants of land at the Swan River Colony he dispatched to the colony sufficient settlers, goods and servants ( August 1829) to entitle him to grants of 113,000 acres, the largest entitlement of any grantee in the early colonial period other than Thomas Peel.
Lautour’s agent and manager, Richard Wells, selected the land at Swan for his employer.

People – LifeTree

Richard Goldsmith Meares (1780-1862), soldier, settler and public servant, with his wife and eight children, arrived at Swan River in December 1829 with Thomas Peel in the Gilmore.

• Daniel Cooper (1785 - 1853)
• Peter Augustus (De Lautour) Lautour CB (1787-1866)
• Solomon Levey (1794 - 1833)
• Thomas Peel (1793-1865)

Wakefield Scheme - History Tree

Sources

1. ↑ G. F. J. Bergman, Levey, Solomon (1794–1833), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University,
   published first in hardcopy 1967, accessed online 13 February 2021.
2. ↑ Alexandra Hasluck, Peel, Thomas (1793–1865), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University,
   published first in hardcopy 1967, accessed online 15 November 2018.