Business as Usual

While John Macarthur was abroad, between 1801 and 1805, to face questions concerning a violent dispute with his commanding officer Colonel Paterson, his involvement in family business continued at great pace. Having recently offered to sell his stock and properties to the government, samples of wool were conveniently couriered to England for the approval of Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society.

Commonly misrepresented as a period of exile, John Macarthur’s first return visit to London is best understood as a business trip: to consolidate patronage, forge links with traders and merchants and escort two of his children, whose education in England would bridge the colonial void in coming decades.

Thanks to the advance warning – the samples of Sydney wool – Macarthur arrived in London in 1802, a minor celebrity. Its worth noting that Macarthur, not Paterson, demanded this matter be resolved in court.With Governor King’s arrival in 1800, the rules had changed, forcing Macarthur and others to seek alternative ways of generating wealth and sustaining power. Contrary to popular belief, the ongoing ascendancy of Macarthur business during these years was neither managed nor influenced by Elizabeth Macarthur. Far away in London, with an eye on allies, opportunities and potential patrons, John kept close control of his family’s financial affairs, his trading ventures and business dealings carefully recorded by army agents Cox and Greenwood. (1)

The recent discovery of a series of ledgers, held in the archives of Lloyds Bank, have thrown new light on the commercial activities and accounting practices used in the early years of the colony, in particular the financial affairs of the New South Wales Corps 1789-1810.

The ledgers were kept by the firm ‘Cox and Greenwood’ a London firm of army agents, or accountants, responsible for the management of Officer’s personal accounts as well as crediting salaries and allowances, conducting business transactions and even the sale of commissions. Government allocations of money to the British Army were provided to the War Office, which in turn distributed payments to various agents like ‘Cox and Greenwood’ who handled the affairs of individual officers, as recorded in their ledgers.

The ledgers show that the commercial life of the colony prior to 1800 was not centred around the commissariat in the way historians had previously assumed. Until now, it was believed that rum and other desirable goods were monopolised by a powerful few (the NSW Corps) who exchanged these with grain and crops from local producers and then on sold this to the commissariat – being paid in Treasury Bills drawn on the British government.Their wealth, supposedly, was based on the control of rum and other goods and their ability to influence purchasing decisions of the commissariat.

However, it appears that most Treasury Bills were paid to ships captains, and not to local entrepreneurs. This suggests the Commissariat purchased cargo from incoming ships and then distributed these with local officers, in exchange for local produce, on a crude barter basis. The Officers might still have influenced the commissariat’s purchasing decisions although did not generate wealth in the form of Treasury Bills or otherwise hard currency. They were asset rich and cash poor, having their wealth embodied in land and buildings and hence unable to be taken back to England.

After 1800, Governor King sought to restrict the influence of NSW Corps officers on the Commissariat, together with the Commissariat’s ability to speculate on incoming cargoes, by ordering stores directly from Britain. Traders like naval lieutenant John Palmer (the Commissary), John Macarthur and others were forced to seek alternative schemes to generate capital. Consequently in the period 1800-1805 a significant expansion in colonial trade began. Suddenly appearing on the docks in Sydney were a wide range of export goods, including whale oil, whale bone, seal skins, cedar, coal and sandalwood. Private schemes to bring goods into the colony also commenced, with the army agents ‘Cox and Greenwood’ making payments to London trading houses on behalf of officers from their personal accounts.

The ledger account of John Macarthur, covering the years 1802-1804, shows a wide range of business transactions, including a large amount of payments made to London businessmen and trades-people. Macarthur’s main business agent in London, W. Thomas Thompson of Castle Street of Leicester Square, was one such recipient. As with the ledger more generally, the size of these transactions were well above personal needs and clearly implies the purchase of goods for sale abroad. A single large amount received by Thompson on 2 June 1804, for £236.5.5, might well have been to fund Macarthur’s purchase of rams at the sale of Royal Merino at Kew in August 1804. Two months later, Macarthur had sealed a deal with Lord Camden, Colonial Secretary, to claim 5000 acres of premium land, in an area of his choice, along with ample convict assistance, to ensure his new flocks a promising start.

In general, the ability to purchase lower priced goods in London and coordinate their shipment to the colony, rather than purchasing these in the colony from entrepreneurial ship captains, gave individuals like Macarthur an enormous advantage in generating wealth. As prudent, or obedient, as Elizabeth Macarthur appears to have been, her inexperience in agriculture and livestock and the sheer scale and distribution of Macarthur interests in the colony, meant that her leadership role was symbolic. With 3 children under the age of 10 and the crudest of living conditions at Elizabeth Farm, her days would have been demanding enough at home.

While the new evidence outlined above reveals Macarthur’s financial and business affairs, it was surely his wit, persistence and timing, applied during those busy years abroad in London that saw the family survive and prosper through this period of colonial expansion and change. Having left Sydney a disgraced middle ranking officer of an outpost regiment, John Macarthur returned five years later with patronage, land and connections, on his jointly owned trading ship, the aptly named Argo.

footnotes

1. The Cox and Greenwood ledger of the New South Wales Corps 1801 – 1805: the account of Captain John Macarthur, RJ Craig and SA Jenkins, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society Vol 82 Part 2, December 1996