Alexander Brodie Spark (1792-1856), merchant, was born on 9 August 1792 at Elgin, Scotland, the son of a watchmaker. He had a literary education at Elgin, studied French and acquired an interest in astronomy. After some experience in business he went in June 1811 to Tod’s counting house in London, where he also started a small literary society. Though aiming at ‘that Scottish modesty united to English confidence which is the character I admire’, he found living difficult on £50 a year and sought parental help. In reply he was lectured for overspending and for bad grammar in his letters, but won his father’s favour by finding supplies of low-priced watches and a design for a ‘Patent Warning Clock’. In 1817 he was still with Tod, captivated by his work in the shipping department. In 1820 he went on a continental tour, during which he spent some days with William Wordsworth and the poet’s wife and sister.

Confident that he could do better with a business of his own, Spark obtained a letter of recommendation as a free settler, sailed in the Princess Charlotte and arrived at Sydney in April 1823. He took over a store in George Street and was soon selling sugar, drapery and wines, and supplying salt meat to the commissariat at Sydney and Parramatta. By 1825 he was chartering ships for coastal trading and having the Sydney Packet built for him. Next year he started a shipping agency, selling incoming cargoes, sending stores to Hobart Town, colonial produce to Calcutta, and the first of his many wool consignments to London, backloading when possible with merchandise. He also acted as agent for country settlers, selling their produce and supplying them with livestock, stores, overseers and ploughmen. Although he owned more than 6000 acres (2428 ha) on the Hunter River and a nine-acre (4 ha) grant at Woolloomooloo his passion for buying and selling had extended to land.

However pressing his business, Spark had found time to serve in Sydney on the Grand Jury, becoming its foreman in 1826 and a justice of the peace in 1827. He also joined the committee of the Agricultural Society and the Chamber of Commerce, subscribed to such worthy causes as Scots Church, the Benevolent Society and the Female School of Industry, and readily signed petitions for the maintenance of law and order and congratulatory memorials to the governors. Despite two unsuccessful attempts to be elected a director of the Bank of New South Wales he joined the first board of the Bank of Australia in 1826 and became its managing director in 1832. By then his business activities had increased, especially his wool exports. He continued his court work and land dealings, and in 1836 became the first treasurer of the Australian Gaslight Co., a director of at least two insurance companies and an active investor in several steam navigation companies. Although Spark had several houses in Sydney, the site that pleased him most for a country residence was his farm, Tempe, at Cook’s River. There in 1831 he had begun a garden, planted an orchard and vineyard, and carefully planned a new home. By 1836 it was a rendezvous for bankers, merchants and large landowners, among them