Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/86

 council, the court re-established this control, which they gave to Goldsborough on 2 Oct. 1691. In his first commission, dated 10 Feb. 1691–2, he is named their ‘supervisor-commissary-general and chief governor,’ and a year later their ‘captain-general and commander-in-chief.’ Just before the date of his first commission he was knighted, 8 Feb. 1691–2. He sailed in March, and arrived at Fort St. George on 23 Nov. 1692, where he investigated the quarrel between the late governor, Elihu Yale, and his council. In June he went to Fort St. David, and after some stay there returned by land to Madras on 11 July 1693. On the 29th he embarked for the Bay of Bengal, leaving his wife at the fort. He reached Chatánatí (now Calcutta) on 12 Aug., and reported very unfavourably of the late agent in Bengal, Job Charnock [q. v.], and the company's servants. On his recommendation Francis Ellis, who had succeeded Charnock as agent, was afterwards remanded to Fort St. George, and Charles (later Sir Charles) Eyre or Eyres appointed to the post. While staying at Chatánatí Goldsborough was struck down by fever and died ‘within some few days after’ 28 Nov. 1693. Before leaving London he made a will, dated 7 March 1691, wherein he described himself as ‘of Bethnall Green, in the county of Middlesex, knight, being bound on a voyage to the East India beyond the seas in the shipp Berkly Castle’ (registered in P. C. C. 12, Bond). Not long after his death his widow Mary married Roger Braddyll, the troublesome member of Governor Pitt's council at Fort St. George. She died in India some time previously to 4 Nov. 1702, on which day her husband administered to her estate at London (Administration Act Book, P. C. C., 1702, f. 211 b). Goldsborough's papers give the impression that he was an honest, sensible man.

[Diary of William Hedges, esq., ed. Colonel Yule (Hakluyt Soc.), ii. xc, xci–xciv, clv–clx, ccxcix; Coxe's Cat. Codicum MSS. Bibl. Bodl. pars v. fasc. i.] 

GOLDSBOROUGH, RICHARD (1821–1886), colonial wool trader, was born at Shipley, near Bradford, Yorkshire, in 1821. He was apprenticed as a boy to a Bradford woolstapling firm, and at twenty-one years of age started as a merchant in a small way in the same town, purchasing the clips of graziers in the neighbourhood, and sorting the wool for the manufacturers. He became interested in Australia, from its capacity of producing wool, and at length determined to emigrate. He first went to Adelaide, and finally settled in Melbourne in 1847. In 1848 he commenced business in a small weather-board building. He succeeded rapidly, and ultimately erected the large stores by the Market Square in Melbourne. While building his operations were much disturbed by the excitement which followed the gold discoveries. In 1853 he went into partnership with Edward Row and George Kirk, and the new firm transacted a large and lucrative business in buying and selling stations and stock, as well as immensely expanding Goldsborough's wool operations. From 1857, however, he concentrated all his energies upon wool. In 1862 he erected buildings at the corner of Bourke and William Streets, Melbourne, having a floor space of over five acres. Under the joint management of Goldsborough and Hugh Parker, his brother-in-law, the business continued to develope rapidly, and in 1881 the house was amalgamated with the Australian Agency and Banking Corporation, when the consolidated concern became a limited liability company, with Goldsborough as chairman of directors. The company began with a capital of three millions, and prospered exceedingly. The Sydney business of Goldsborough & Co. became scarcely less extensive than that of the Melbourne house.

Goldsborough found the entire wool export of Melbourne in 1848 some thirty thousand bales, and in the last twelve months of his life his own firm sold more than twice that amount in Melbourne alone. His company had also worked up a great connection in the grain trade, and carried on immense operations in skins, hides, tallow, and other station produce. Their periodical property sales became an important Australasian feature.

Goldsborough always refused to have any hand in political matters, but subscribed liberally to institutions and charities. It was said that he would have been as little likely to make a bad bargain as attempt a platform speech; but he was held in high esteem throughout the colonies as well as in Yorkshire, which he several times revisited. He was a great encourager of horse-racing in Australia. He died in Melbourne on 8 April 1886.

[Memoirs in Australian papers; article on the Australian Wool Trade in Bradford Observer, May 1884; Heaton's Australian Dict. of Dates.] 

GOLDSCHMIDT, JENNY LIND (1821– 1887), vocalist. [See .]

GOLDSMID, ABRAHAM (1756?–1810), Jewish financier, was born in Holland about 1756. His father, Aaron Goldsmid, a merchant by profession, married Catherine, daughter of Abraham de Vries, M.D., of Amsterdam,