Thomas Learmonth and Sons: Family capitalism, Scottish identity and the architecture of Victorian pastoralism

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the family as one of the key entrepreneurial and capitalist agents in the colonisation of Australia. Private enterprise has long been understood to be one of the prime factors in this history and Scottish families were particularly active. My case study is the Learmonth family who hailed from the Falkirk area in Stirlingshire, 44 km west of Edinburgh. Their story exemplifies the imbrication of family identity in its dynastic character with the opportunities afforded by the colonial expansion of the British empire and how this was figured in built works. Of significance for the paper is an understanding of what was at stake in Scotland for the Learmonth family and its lineage and how Thomas Learmonth, youngest of four sons, and his sons used colonial acquisitions to embellish their family status and identity at home. Ercildoun, the famous sheep station they established near Ballarat in Victoria was the final achievement of their Australian sojourn and it propelled them from the margins of Scottish life to somewhere much nearer its centre. The paper will show how they, as pastoralists and breeders of the “pure Australian merino” operated in the colonial enterprise-driven and global modality of economic migration that drove the expansion of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales in the 1830s and 1840s.