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Early Merchant Families of Sydney: Speculation and Risk Management on the Fringes of Empire

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-23, 01:25 authored by Hamish Maxwell-StewartHamish Maxwell-Stewart
The presence of merchants in Sydney Cove from the 1790s onwards is perhaps curious given the popular view that Botany Bay was a mere dumping ground for convicts. As Janette Holcomb reminds us in the introduction to this illuminating book, merchants take calculated risks. That they established wharves, counting houses, and agents’ offices in the principal harbour of Britain’s ‘thief colony’stands testimony to the settlement’s commercial attractions. While for many,Sydney lay on the fringe of Empire, it excited a great deal of mercantile attention– so much so that by 1831 the port’s merchant population was proportionately higher than that of London.

History

Publication title

Australian Economic History Review

Volume

55

Pagination

99-101

ISSN

0004-8992

Department/School

School of Humanities

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Asia

Place of publication

Australia

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Other economic framework not elsewhere classified

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