John Macarthur (1767 – 11 April 1834) was a British Army officer, entrepreneur, landowner and politician who was a highly influential figure in the establishment of the colony of New South Wales.

[2] He was the second son of Alexander Macarthur, who had fled Scotland to the West Indies after the Jacobite rising of 1745 before returning to Plymouth to work as a linen draper and mercer.

In June 1789, Macarthur secured a lieutenancy with the New South Wales (NSW) Corps, a regiment formed to serve at the recently established convict outpost of Sydney.

[7] John and Elizabeth Macarthur, with their infant son Edward, were subsequently enlisted to sail to Sydney with the NSW Corps and 1,006 convicts as part of the Second Fleet on board the Neptune.

[9] Before the Neptune had even departed the British Isles, Macarthur's 'passionate temper' that came to define much of his future career, saw him become involved in a heated disputation with the vessel's commander Captain Thomas Gilbert.

An issue with the size of his cabin caused Macarthur to publicly denounce Gilbert as a great scoundrel and the two fought a duel with pistols on the Plymouth docks in which neither were injured.

[12] Despite the removal of Captain Gilbert, the cramped and squalid accommodation provided for his wife and infant son on board the Neptune provoked further disputes, with Macarthur successfully requesting half-way through the voyage that he and his family be transferred to another vessel of the fleet.

[14] Macarthur seems to have been a favoured racketeer of Grose who in February 1793 granted him 40 hectares (100 acres) of the best land in the colony at Rose Hill near Parramatta together with 40 convicts to labour on it.

Grose also appointed him as paymaster for the regiment and as Inspector of Public Works, giving Macarthur almost complete control of the finances and administration of both the military and civil sections of the colony.

Hunter began a process of reform by attempting to separate the military and civil functions, resulting in Macarthur being forced to resign from his position of Inspector of Public Works.

In 1797, Captain Henry Waterhouse of HMS Reliance arrived in Sydney from the Cape Colony with eight Merino sheep purchased from the stock of the recently deposed Dutch governor.

[19][6][20] In order to advance the breeding of these sheep Macarthur later purchased a large parcel of land at Toongabbie from fellow 'Rum Corps' officer Joseph Foveaux.

In July 1801, King overturned a sentence of imprisonment against navy lieutenant James Marshall, who had been convicted of assaulting Macarthur by a court stacked with 'Rum Corps' officers.

[6][25] When Macarthur eventually reached England in December 1802, the legal authorities advised that his court martial should have been conducted in Sydney and the case was quietly dropped.

[27] Macarthur, encouraged by these findings, quit his position in the army and petitioned the government for permission to occupy 10,000 acres of 'unoccupied land' in New South Wales to raise Merino sheep for the large scale production of colonial British wool.

[28][6] Indicative of the success he had found in London in regard to his wool-growing interests, Macarthur purchased a ship he named Argo to which he had a large Golden Fleece figurehead attached.

[6] Macarthur arrived back in Sydney in June 1805 after an absence of nearly four years[29] to claim the large land grants promised to him by Camden and to establish his Merino wool industry.

[6] Commodore William Bligh, who became Governor of New South Wales in 1806, was firmly opposed to Macarthur's venture and turned down his request for the remaining 5,000 acres of his grant.

Bligh notified the officers, which included Anthony Fenn Kemp and William Lawson, that their actions were treasonous and ordered them to present themselves the following day to the Governor's House.

[38] For instance, William Gore, who was the provost-marshal and loyal to Bligh, was jailed on trumped-up charges of perjury and sentenced to seven years imprisonment at the convict colony of Newcastle.

In spite of this, Macarthur's other mercantile interests in sandalwood, whaling, seal hunting and general trade were faring badly and had left him in considerable debt.

[6] He became increasingly focused on returning to New South Wales to develop his profitable Merino wool business and to establish olive and viticulture industries in the colony.

In 1816 he used his political contacts to influence the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, Lord Bathurst to revoke Macquarie's orders to arrest him and to allow him to return to New South Wales.

He wanted the colony to be a place where "men of real capital" would be given large selections of land to graze sheep, produce high quality wool and become an aristocratic ruling class.

In his subsequent reports, Bigge discredited Macquarie and agreed with Macarthur that rich capitalists should be given large tracts of land with cheap convict labour to advance the wool industry in the colony.

Macquarie was replaced as Governor by Thomas Brisbane who put into practice Bigge's recommendations, allowing Macarthur and other wealthy colonists to expand their assets and power.

A royal charter allowed the company of 365 initial shareholders investing a combined capital of £1,000,000 to acquire a 1,000,000 acre land grant north of Port Stephens.

Macarthur was one of the original directors of the London company and the committee established in New South Wales to manage its operations consisted of his son, son-in-law and nephew.

For example, he attempted to have Chief Justice Francis Forbes impeached for ordering him to pay costs in a legal case where Macarthur was alleged to have instigated a riot.

[1] In recognition of his contribution to Australian agriculture, Macarthur was honoured by a set of three postage stamps issued on the centenary of his death in 1934 (depicting a merino ram).