Robert Towns (10 November 1794 – 11 April 1873) was a British master mariner who settled in Australia as a businessman, sandalwood merchant, colonist, shipowner, pastoralist, politician, whaler and civic leader.

After a career at sea as a master mariner based in Britain, Towns came to Australia in 1843 as the agent for London merchant Robert Brooks (MP).

[1] His far-flung trading connections saw him do business with merchants in Mauritius, India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), the Philippines, New Zealand, New Caledonia, China, the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), California and Chile.

[citation needed] Towns reached Port Jackson in March 1843, and took charge of the Sydney agency of Robert Brooks & Co.[2] He was joined by his wife and son the following year.

Brooks provided capital for joint ventures, made advances against Australian exports and provided general financial backing for Robert Towns & Co.[citation needed] The depressed colonial economy of the early 1840s, and his ready access to credit, allowed Towns to quickly become established as a leading figure in the shipping industry.

[13] It was sent to China where it arrived at a time of high prices of almost £50 a ton for a commodity the gathering of which by the natives at Eromanga had been paid for with old hoop-iron, axes and assorted ironmongery.

[16] The ship Orwell arrived in Sydney 23 March 1846 with 56 male and 13 female “coolies”,[17] recruited for Robert Towns in Calcutta, supposedly to work as “domestic servants”.

[21] He tried to import Chinese and Indian labourers to work on his cotton plantation in Queensland but was frustrated by British government emigration agents in India and Hong Kong.

[citation needed] The South Sea islanders who served as seamen on Towns' sandalwood vessels and pelagic whaling ships performed well and may have prompted him to import large numbers of them into Australia to work on his pastoral properties and cotton plantation in Queensland.

[23] Allegations of kidnap and slavery were frequently levelled at Towns during this period,[24] who responded with the publication of a pamphlet outlining the instructions he gave to Ross-Lewin in regards to recruitment of the labourers.

[25] This pamphlet was later criticised for possibly being written after voyage and for the conditions specified for the labourers not being met in that shelter was not provided, wages not paid and the Islanders not returned home.

[27] He thought the close proximity of Port Jackson to the whaling grounds of the western Pacific made it a "legitimate" enterprise for maritime entrepreneurs based in Sydney.

[28] The "lottery aspect" of the industry he felt could be eliminated with a sufficient number of vessels and so he tried to have a fleet of a dozen deep-sea whalers operating at any one time.

These made 125 voyages from Port Jackson during his thirty or so years involvement in the trade, this in spite of the fact he arrived late on the scene, the industry having peaked in the 1830s.

[30] His strategy was to purchase old and inexpensive vessels and crew them with South Sea islanders who were more tractable and prepared to work on the "lay" or share system of payment.

[31] Crews were difficult to find at times, especially during the gold rush period in the 1850s, forcing him to send his ships to Hobart or the South Sea islands for men.

[35] At the opening of the latter institution in 1865 Towns claimed to be the, “father of the tars in the colony, having commenced his career in 1809.”[36] He was also a supporter and promoter of trans-Pacific steam navigation.

[39] One of Towns' vessels, the Don Juan under the command of Captain Grueber and labour recruiter Henry Ross Lewin, brought 73 South Sea Islanders to the port of Brisbane in August 1863.

[46] Apart from a small amount of Melanesian labour imported for the beche-de-mer trade around Bowen,[47] Towns was the major exploiter of blackbirded workers in Queensland prior to 1867.

[48][failed verification] One of Town's agents paid the workers with trinkets, claiming that the labourers were "savages who did not know the use of money" and therefore did not deserve cash wages.

As a result, the memorial stone from Robert Towns' grave was relocated to stand atop a monument at Castle Hill, Townsville.