Commissary John Palmer 1760-1833

Palmer, purser of the Sirius, was appointed Commissary General of New South Wales and a magistrate in 1791, replacing Andrew Miller.

After receiving a grant of land at Wooloomooloo, by 1795 he was described as ‘one of the three principal farmers in the Colony’; by 1803 he had pioneered efficient farming and owned locally-built trading boats, a windmill and bakery. He continued to grow his farming empire on the Hawkesbury, Bathurst and in the present Canberra area.

As Commissary he ran the government stores on which much of the colony depended, was effectively Treasurer, and by his authority to draw bills on the British Treasury, was the Colony’s banker.

He accused John Macarthur of corruption in relation to the government stores, and the pending trial accelerated the mutiny against Bligh. Palmer was imprisoned by the mutineers, and returned to England where his testimony led to conviction of the coup leader Major Johnston.

He returned to NSW in 1814 in the Commissariat, retiring in 1819. His daughter married into the Campbell family of Duntroon.