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Son of John Westgarth,
surveyor-general of customs for Scotland, was born at Edinburgh, in June
1815. He was educated at the high schools at Leith and Edinburgh, and at
Dr Bruce's school at Newcastle-on-Tyne. He then entered the office of G.
Young and Company of Leith, who were engaged in the Australian trade, and
realizing the possibilities of the new land, decided to emigrate to
Australia. He arrived in Melbourne, then a town of three or four thousand
inhabitants, in December 1840. How close it still was to primitive
conditions may be realized from the fact, that about four years later
Westgarth saw an aboriginal corroboree in which 700 natives took part, on
a spot little more than a mile to the north of the present general post
office. He went into business as a merchant and general importer, and the
firm was later in Market-street under the name of Westgarth, Ross and
Spowers. Westgarth was in every movement for the advancement of Melbourne
and the Port Phillip district. He became a member of the national board of
education, in 1850 was elected to represent Melbourne in the legislative
council of New South Wales, and he took an important part in the
separation movement. It was he who originated the idea that the hoofs of
the bullocks should settle the boundary question. If they showed that the
droves were heading north, that country should remain in New South Wales,
if south it should become part of the new colony.
When the new colony was
constituted Westgarth headed the poll for Melbourne at the election for
the legislative council. He had had many activities during the previous 10
years. In 1842 he was one of the founders of the Melbourne Mechanics'
Institute, afterwards the Athenaeum; he had done much writing, beginning
in 1845 with a half-yearly Report Commercial Statistical and General on
the District of Port Phillip, followed in 1846 by a pamphlet, A
Report on the Condition, Capabilities and Prospects of the Australian
Aborigines, and in 1848 by Australia Felix, A Historical and
Descriptive Account of the Settlement of Port Phillip. In 1851 he
founded the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce and was elected its first
president. He visited England in 1853 and brought out another version of
his last book under the title Victoria; late Australia Felix. Soon
after his return to Australia in 1854 he was appointed a member of the
commission of inquiry to go into the circumstances of the Eureka
rebellion. Westgarth was elected chairman and showed much tact in his
conduct of the inquiry. The commission recommended a general amnesty to
the prisoners, who, however, were tried and acquitted.
In 1857 Westgarth went to
England, settled in London, and as William Westgarth and Company began
business as colonial agents and brokers. He established a great reputation
as the adviser of various colonial governments floating loans in London,
and was continually consulted during the next 30 years. The finding of
gold in Victoria having entirely altered the conditions, Westgarth
published a fresh book on the colony, Victoria and the Australian Gold
Mines in 1857. In 1861 he published Australia its Rise, Progress
and Present Conditions, largely based on articles written by him for
the Encyclopedia Britannica, and in 1864 he brought out his fourth
book on Victoria, The Colony of Victoria; its Social and Political
Institutions. In the preface to this he stated that though he had
written four times on this subject, each volume had been a fresh work,
written without even opening the pages of the previous volumes. He also
wrote some pamphlets on economic and social subjects, and edited in 1863,
Tracks of McKinlay and Party across Australia. Another piece of
editing was a volume of Essays, dealing with the reconstruction of
London and the housing of the poor which appeared in 1886. For many years
he endeavoured to form a chamber of commerce in London, and at last
succeeded in getting sufficient support in 1881. He revisited Australia in
1888 and was everywhere welcomed. When the Melbourne international
exhibition was opened he walked in the procession through the avenue of
nations alongside Mr Francis Henty, then the sole survivor of the
brotherhood who founded Victoria. As a result of his visit two volumes
appeared Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne and Victoria, in
1888, and Half a Century of Australasian Progress, in 1889.
Returning to Great Britain Westgarth died suddenly at Edinburgh on 28
October 1889. He married in 1853 and left a widow and two daughters.
Good-looking, quiet and
genial, Westgarth was a man of much energy and sagacity, who inspired
complete confidence. He did remarkably able work as a Victorian pioneer,
as an historian of his period, and as a financial adviser in London.
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