Robert Towns was a British master mariner who settled in Australia as a businessman, sandalwood merchant, colonist, shipowner, pastoralist, politician, whaler and civic leader.
43 Facts About Robert Towns
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Robert Towns was the founder of Townsville, Queensland and named it after himself.
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Robert Towns is known for his involvement in blackbirding and labour exploitation of immigrant workers.
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Robert Towns became a merchant in his own right in Sydney with involvement in the sandalwood and pelagic whaling trades.
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Robert Towns was an importer of sugar and tea, and an exporter of wool, whale oil, cotton and other commodities.
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Robert Towns became a pastoralist and pioneered the cultivation of cotton in Queensland, often employing Kanakas.
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Robert Towns was educated at a village school and went to sea in 1809 as an apprentice on a North Shields collier.
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Robert Towns was a mate by the age of 17, and a master on a brig in the Mediterranean two years later.
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Robert Towns made his first voyage to Australia as captain of Boa Vista in 1827.
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Robert Towns was a regular trader to Australia by the time he arrived in command of the Brothers in August 1832.
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Robert Towns was joined by his wife and son the following year.
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Robert Towns had been built in 1816 and the purchase of old vessels like her became a feature of his shipowning.
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Robert Towns purchased eight vessels and a well-located wharf at Millar's Point, Darling Harbour, that soon became known as Towns' Wharf.
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Robert Towns's standing in the Sydney commercial circles saw him invited to join the board of the Bank of New South Wales in 1850.
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Robert Towns had trouble finding men to work in his various enterprises, as did other employers in New South Wales.
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Robert Towns was the leading figure in the trade and had brought in 2,400 Chinese by 1854 as well as 86 Indian workers.
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Robert Towns tried to import Chinese and Indian labourers to work on his cotton plantation in Queensland but was frustrated by British government emigration agents in India and Hong Kong.
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Robert Towns then looked to bring in indentured labourers or illegal slaves from the Pacific Islands.
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Robert Towns worked with recruiters to bring the islanders to Australia, including Henry Ross Lewin, a notorious blackbirders of South Sea Islander labour.
20.
Robert Towns was a major figure in whaling in Australia during the mid 19th century.
21.
Robert Towns thought the close proximity of Port Jackson to the whaling grounds of the western Pacific made it a "legitimate" enterprise for maritime entrepreneurs based in Sydney.
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Robert Towns's strategy was to purchase old and inexpensive vessels and crew them with South Sea islanders who were more tractable and prepared to work on the "lay" or share system of payment.
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Robert Towns chose experienced and capable masters to command these vessels and keep them at sea in the face of the manifold difficulties routinely experienced on their long and demanding voyages.
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Robert Towns was flexible in the way he used his vessels.
25.
Robert Towns would get his returning whalers to call at Pacific island trading stations to pick up casks of coconut oil, trepang of tortoise-shell.
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Robert Towns was a member of the initial New South Wales Legislative Council from 22 May 1856 to 10 May 1861 and then re-appointed for life on 23 June 1863, terminating at his death on 11 April 1873.
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Robert Towns was a member and president of the Sydney Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Pilot Board, on the committee of the Sydney Bethel Union and one of the founding councillors of the Sydney Sailors' Home.
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Robert Towns lived from 1864 to 1873 in Cranbrook House on New South Head Road in Rose Bay, Sydney.
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Robert Towns was the first to take up this opportunity and brought in indentured Pacific Island labourers to work on his cotton plantation of Townsvale near Brisbane in 1863.
30.
Robert Towns actively promoted this remedy to the labour shortage in rural Queensland in a pamphlet published in 1864.
31.
Robert Towns specifically wanted adolescent males recruited and, although Robert Towns denied the accusations, kidnapping was reportedly employed in obtaining these boys.
32.
Many attempts had been made to grow cotton in Australia before this time, but Robert Towns was the first to do so on a large scale.
33.
Robert Towns organised the first importation of South Sea Islander labour to that port in 1866.
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Apart from a small amount of Melanesian labour imported for the beche-de-mer trade around Bowen, Robert Towns was instrumental in bringing Polynesian labour to Queensland.
35.
Robert Towns paid many workers "in goods" amounting to 10 shillings per month.
36.
Robert Towns appears to have been involved in the first attempts to cultivate coffee in Australia.
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The story goes that Robert Towns was privy to a plan by the government to grant title to land under cultivation.
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Robert Towns procured a boat load of coffee beans, arranged for them to be planted on a substantial tract of land in the Townsville area and applied for the title to the land.
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However, this detail did not prevent Robert Towns from succeeding in his efforts to acquire the land.
40.
In 1870, Robert Towns was attacked by paralysis and his health was precarious thereafter.
41.
Robert Towns suffered a further stroke on 7 April 1873 and died at his home, Cranbrook, on 11 April 1873.
42.
Robert Towns was buried on 15 April 1873 in the Balmain Cemetery.
43.
In June 2020 the hands of the statue were painted red, in an apparent protest against Robert Towns being memorialised despite being involved with blackbirding.