William Westgarth

Born in Edinburgh in 1815, William Westgarth built a remarkably varied career as a merchant, financier, politician, historian, and statistician. He arrived in Melbourne in December 1840 and was soon active in business and civic life during the colony's formative years.

Westgarth served in both the New South Wales Legislative Council and, later, the Victorian Legislative Council. He also helped found the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce, and his work linked commerce, public affairs, and writing in an unusually direct way.

As an author, he is especially remembered for books such as Victoria: Late Australia Felix and Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne and Victoria, which drew on his own experiences to document the colony's early development. He died in London in 1889, leaving behind writing that still matters as a firsthand record of nineteenth-century Australia.