The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Towns, Hon. Robert
Towns, Hon. Robert, M.L.C., was born on Nov. 10th, 1794, at Long Horseley, in Northumberland, and educated at the village school. After some years experience as a sailor, he became captain and owner of a crack passenger ship to the colonies, called The Brothers. He married, in 1833, a sister of William Charles Wentworth, the Australian patriot, and nine years later retired from the sea and settled in Sydney as a merchant, when he took Mr. (afterwards Sir) Alexander Stuart into partnership. In 1851 he took an active part in reorganising the Bank of New South Wales, increasing the capital, and otherwise developing its operations, to meet the growing demands of the colony. He held a number of stations in the north of Australia; and Townsville, in Queensland, was named in his honour. He was the first to introduce cotton cultivation on an extensive scale, and formed a plantation of two thousand acres, on which he employed several South Sea Islanders. He was nominated to the Legislative Council in 1856, and died on April 4th, 1873, in Sydney. He was concerned with the late Sir Charles Cowper and Sir John Robertson in squatting operations on the Gulf of Carpentaria.