James Backhouse

He was educated in Leeds and began work in a grocery, drug and chemical business, but he developed tuberculosis and became too delicate to pursue a sedentary occupation.

[3] An uncle helped him in this and he made botanical trips to Upper Teesdale with the Durham lead miner, John Binks (1766–1817) who is credited with the discovery of many of the area's rare plants.

James then spent two years as an apprentice at Wagstaffe's nursery in Tivetshall, near Norwich, and where he first conceived of 'a gospel errand into Australia' believing strongly that this was the will of God.

The nursery was an enterprise run by Quakers; Thomas Wagstaffe was the clerk of the Tivetshall Monthly Meeting and a prominent benefactor to the Society of Friends in Norfolk.

His Quaker ministry, assisted by his companion and secretary, George Washington Walker (1800–1859), began immediately with the crew which was prone to drunkenness and violence.

The missionaries arrived at Hobart in February 1832, and they spent the next six years journeying all over the then settled districts of Tasmania, New South Wales, and as far north as the site of Brisbane.

A third of wages paid in spirits was mentioned at a temperance meeting in Perth and they felt 'the prevailing immorality' was fuelled by drink.

[6] Backhouse and Walker then went to Mauritius and South Africa and continued their missionary work, preaching whenever a few people could be gathered together to hear them.

His works published on his return, "A narrative visit to the Australian colonies" (1843) and "A narrative visit to the Mauritius and South Africa" (1844) are detailed accounts of his travels with engravings from his original sketches of indigenous vegetation, aborigines, chain gangs of prisoners, and numerous missionary stations, with appendices of letters sent to officials, Christian evangelical writings and speeches.

When his brother died in 1845, he brought his own son James into the business, and with him supervised the move in 1853 to a 100-acre site, greater than Kew, at Holgate.

He maintained detailed involvement in the family finance, in wills and in the business but he also continued his evangelical work making many visits around the country, including to Dublin.

He was involved in Quaker schools at Bootham and Ackworth and gave financial as well as spiritual help for a reading room at a nonconformist chapel in Upper Teesdale.