He started acting as a shipping agent around 1850, for a time involved with millers Phillips and P. A. Horn, and with Henry Giles (partnership dissolved January 1853).

Simpson was curiously slow in adopting steam power for his little fleet of ships, introducing Ridge Park in 1879, Birksgate in 1881, and Tenterden in 1883.

[8] The Black Diamond line did more than just carry coal from Newcastle to Adelaide and Wallaroo; the Koh-i-noor brought some forty camels and their "Afghan" attendants from Karachi for Thomas Elder's Umbaratana station in 1868.

[10] Simpson was no cost-cutter – he kept his ships in top condition and employed some of the smartest skippers, paying generous bonuses when fast times were achieved.

[12] The company Simpson & Sons continued after Henry's death and owned the collier Otago, remembered as being in 1887 under the command of Joseph Conrad when her master Capt.

For many years at the centre of this intersection stood a white "silent cop" obelisk surmounted with a multi-faceted black glass structure.