Sir John Jamison was an Australian physician, pastoralist, banker, politician, constitutional reformer and public figure.
24 Facts About John Jamison
1.
2.
John Jamison was born in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, Ireland in 1776.
3.
John Jamison was the son of Thomas Jamison and Rebecca.
4.
John Jamison served under Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 aboard the Agamemnon.
5.
One year later, John Jamison graduated as a physician from Edinburgh University, earning a Doctorate of Medicine.
6.
John Jamison was knighted by Britain's prince regent in May 1813, and subsequently appointed Inspector of Naval Hospitals and Fleets.
7.
John Jamison arrived in Sydney on 28 July 1814, aboard the Broxbornebury, to take up his patrimony.
8.
John Jamison was Australia's first titled free settler and thus head of the fledgling country's social pecking order.
9.
John Jamison acquired allotments in the heart of Sydney, and accumulated vast tracts of land in the central-western and northern parts of New South Wales between 1814 and 1840.
10.
John Jamison was a founder of the Bank of New South Wales in 1817, and established himself as one of the most prominent men in Australia, enjoying a reputation for lavish entertaining and hospitality at Regentville, his magnificent rural estate near the town of Penrith.
11.
The charges were held to be baseless, and in September 1826 the new governor, Ralph Darling, was instructed that John Jamison was not to be given any civil offices.
12.
John Jamison made various attempts to get this embargo removed; but nearly four years later, the British colonial office continued to give him no satisfaction.
13.
Governor Darling in 1829 mentioned that John Jamison was then President of the New South Wales Agricultural Society, "holding perhaps the largest stake in the country".
14.
John Jamison won various awards for his wine and other agricultural produce, and took a keen scientific interest in the natural history of the Sydney region.
15.
John Jamison was a committed Freemason and a founding father of the New South Wales thoroughbred racing industry.
16.
In 1831, John Jamison was restored to the magistracy, and, in 1837, he was belatedly appointed a member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales.
17.
John Jamison established a cloth mill at Regentville in 1842 to supplement the estate's earnings from its vineyard, horse stud, dairy, orchard and collection of grazing paddocks for sheep and cattle.
18.
John Jamison was omitted from the Legislative Council nominations in 1843 on account of his infirmities and comparatively advanced years.
19.
John Jamison fathered a number of illegitimate children by several mistresses.
20.
John Jamison married Mary a few months before his death, thus enabling her to be styled Lady John Jamison.
21.
One of their sons, Robert John Jamison, was a Member of the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales from 1856 to 1860.
22.
Lady John Jamison died at Hunters Hill, Sydney in 1874, aged 74.
23.
John Jamison was interred in Camperdown Cemetery in the inner-Sydney suburb of Newtown.
24.
John Jamison's husband was William John Gibbes - a son of the Collector of Customs for New South Wales, Colonel John George Nathaniel Gibbes.