James Chisholm (23 January 1772 – 31 March 1837) was an early settler in colonial Australia, contributing to its business, banking, Presbyterian church, education, democratic processes and pastoral industry.
Chisholm transferred to the New South Wales Corps, commanded by Major Francis Grose, at Forton Barracks in Gosport, on 11 July 1790, with the rank of private and the occupation of "taylor".
[11] In 1793, Chisholm assisted the Surveyor-General, Baron Augustus Alt, to set out town allotments along Spring Row (later George Street, Sydney).
[13] At this time he undertook the duties of a tailor and by July 1798, when he was promoted to Corporal, became "master taylor" of the New South Wales Corps, operating this function from his establishment in Spring Row.
However, in that year he commenced dealing as an agent in real estate and mortgage transactions, obtained his first rural land grant at the Eastern Farms and began trading in agricultural commodities.
[27] With the arrival of Colonel Lachlan Macquarie as Governor of New South Wales, on 11 February 1810 James Chisholm requested and received his discharge from the army, after 21 years service.
By the late 1820s Chisholm was one of the six largest landholders in New South Wales,[32] and by the 1880s his descendants owned 3,125 square miles of Australia, stretching from the Gulf of Carpentaria to the state of Victoria.
[35] Soon after, the 11-year-old James Chisholm Junior travelled to Calcutta, where he lived, worked, and received schooling, under the care of his father's business partner John Campbell Burton.
In June 1822, Chisholm sold his spirits licence to Mary Reiby and leased his Crown and Thistle inn to the newly formed Bank of New South Wales, wherein it conducted business until 1853.
He supported Wentworth in his campaigns for trial by jury, taxation reform and representative government in the form of an elected Legislative Assembly, being a founding member of the Australian Patriotic Association (1835).
[65][66][67][68][69][70][71] Although aligned with Lang and Wentworth, Chisholm was not a radical – his politics would appear conservative to modern observers – but in the context of colonial NSW they were democratic and reformist.
[73][74] In 1834, the Colonial Secretary, Alexander Macleay, asked James Chisholm to justify his ownership of his land in George Street after a legal challenge from a descendant of William Jamieson.
[80][81] In March 1837, James Chisholm visited the house his eldest son had built at his property, Kippilaw, some 8 miles west of Goulburn, New South Wales.
[39] His eldest son James became a pioneer sheep breeder and woolgrower, an elected member of parliament for the seat of King and Georgiana (1851–56), voting for the Constitution Act, that conferred responsible government in NSW (1864), and a Legislative Councillor (1865–88).
[87][88] James Junior, his sons and his half-brother John William, expanded the Chisholm family land holdings over the Breadalbane Plains and beyond throughout the nineteenth century, eventually controlling two million acres of Australia.