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

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.