[Index]
Edward RILEY (1784 - 1825)
Children Self + Spouses Parents Grandparents Greatgrandparents
Edward RILEY (1806 - 1840)
Anne Sophia RILEY (1817 - 1881)
Edward RILEY (1784 - 1825)

+

Anne MORAN ( - 1810)

Anne WILKINSON
George RILEY











Margaret RABY












b. 30 Jan 1784 at London, Middlesex, England
m. (1) 1805 Anne MORAN ( - 1810) at Calcutta, India
m. (2) 1815 Anne WILKINSON at Calcutta, India
d. 21 Feb 1825 at New South Wales, Australia aged 41
Near Relatives of Edward RILEY (1784 - 1825)
Relationship Person Born Birth Place Died Death Place Age
Father George RILEY
Mother Margaret RABY

Self Edward RILEY 30 Jan 1784 London, Middlesex, England 21 Feb 1825 New South Wales, Australia 41

Wife Anne MORAN 13 May 1810 Calcutta, India
Wife Anne WILKINSON

Son Edward RILEY 20 Jul 1806 1840 34
Daughter Anne Sophia RILEY 1817 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 10 May 1881 South Kensington, London, England 64

Sister Margaret RILEY London, Middlesex, England
Brother Alexander RILEY 1778 London, Middlesex, England 17 Nov 1833 London, Middlesex, England 55
Sister Elizabeth RILEY 1786 London, Middlesex, England Oct 1865 79

Son in Law Robert CAMPBELL 05 Oct 1804 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 1859 Queanbeyan, New South Wales, Australia 55

Granddaughter Anne Sophia CAMPBELL 1837 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Grandson William Robert CAMPBELL 1838 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 03 Jul 1906 Elizabeth Bay, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 68
Granddaughter Fanny CAMPBELL 1840 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Granddaughter Lucy CAMPBELL 1845 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Granddaughter Florence CAMPBELL 1846 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Grandson Francis Selwyn CAMPBELL 1850 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Granddaughter Mary Louisa CAMPBELL 1854 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Niece Emelia WILSON 1803 New South Wales, Australia
Niece Emily WILSON 1806 New South Wales, Australia
Niece Elizabeth M RILEY 1806 New South Wales, Australia
Nephew William E RILEY 1807 New South Wales, Australia
Nephew Alexander RILEY 1812 New South Wales, Australia
Niece Sophia RILEY 1816 New South Wales, Australia
Nephew William KEMP 1803 New South Wales, Australia
Niece Elizabeth KEMP 1808 New South Wales, Australia
Niece Frances S KEMP 1809 New South Wales, Australia

Brother in Law Ralph WILSON
Sister in Law Sophia Sarah HARDWICKE
Brother in Law Anthony Fenn KEMP 1773 Aldgate, London, Middlesex, England 28 Oct 1868 Sandy Bay, Tasmania, Australia 95
Events in Edward RILEY (1784 - 1825)'s life
Date Age Event Place Notes Src
30 Jan 1784 Edward RILEY was born London, Middlesex, England
1805 21 Married Anne MORAN Calcutta, India
20 Jul 1806 22 Birth of son Edward RILEY
13 May 1810 26 Death of wife Anne MORAN Calcutta, India
1815 31 Married Anne WILKINSON Calcutta, India
1817 33 Birth of daughter Anne Sophia RILEY Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
21 Feb 1825 41 Edward RILEY died New South Wales, Australia V18256364 2B/1825
Personal Notes:
http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020336b.htm

RILEY, EDWARD (1784-1825), merchant and pastoralist, was born on 30 January 1784 in London, younger brother of Alexander Riley. He was the first of the family to be fascinated by colonial life and he went to Calcutta to engage in the colonial trade. There in 1805 he married Anne Moran, who bore him three sons and a daughter. He dealt in every possible kind of shipment to Canton and to the Australian colonies. In the trade with New South Wales he dealt with his brother and Richard Jones, shipping to them regular cargoes of rum, clothing and food. He enjoyed Anglo-Indian life despite violent fluctuations in his fortunes, and acquired in Calcutta a taste for splendid living, but he was not really gifted in business matters and came to rely more and more on the judgment of his elder brother.

After the death of his wife in Calcutta on 13 May 1810, he experienced such deep fits of depression that his brother began to urge him to settle in New South Wales, which he visited several times between 1811 and 1814. Always mercurial, Edward then suddenly rallied and took a second wife, Anne Wilkinson, the daughter of a colonel in Calcutta. In 1816 he went to Sydney to settle and quickly became one of its leading citizens. Governor Lachlan Macquarie gave him a grant of land and soon made him a magistrate. In 1818 he was a director of the Bank of New South Wales. He took the largest house available in the colony, Surgeon John Harris's Ultimo House, and began to live there in a style and degree of luxury little known in New South Wales. Advertisements for cooks, butlers and well-trained servants appeared in the Sydney Gazette to the amusement of experienced colonists acquainted with the ways of convict servants. All did not go well. His second wife bore him three sons and three daughters but his business affairs fluctuated; after one serious reverse his effects at Ultimo House went up for sale while the family moved to a smaller house at Woolloomooloo where he had secured a large tract of land. In the early 1820s his brother Alexander, then in London, confidently relying on his brother's business ability, began to urge a plan for introducing Saxon merinos to the colony, but Edward seems to have been too sunk in melancholy to confide in his brother his fears concerning his business affairs. Edward rallied and suddenly made a long trip into the interior to search for good grazing land, and wrote enthusiastically about the new country around Yass and Goulburn, but his health began to deteriorate and the alterations in his moods became more and more violent. He suffered severely from gout, and this together with his irritation at the limitations of colonial life brought on deep fits of depression. On 21 February 1825 he retired to his room after dinner, placed a shotgun barrel in his mouth, and blew out his brains.

He had considerable charm and engaging honesty, and was devoted to his family. His failures were more imagined than real for, after his death, confusion about the validity of two conflicting wills which he left involved an immense litigation about the settlement of his estate, which proved to be of substantial value. The Riley land and buildings at Raby had been very neglected under his care. His own land was not developed, although it was supposed to support some of the Saxon sheep already on their voyage out to Australia. In mercantile ventures he had not managed to develop the insights into the future economic growth of the colony which brought such success to other merchants. Indeed in his few years residence in the colony he had little personal effect on events. Yet he was an important link in the chain of family command which worked so effectively to introduce Saxon merinos to the colony, and in his role in India the family relationship had served well to bring success to the partnership of Jones & Riley. After his death his eldest son, Edward, who was born in India on 20 July 1806, succeeded in carrying out the pastoral venture which Alexander and Edward Riley senior had begun.
Select Bibliography

J. Ker, ‘Merchants and Merinos’, Journal and Proceedings (Royal Australian Historical Society), vol 46, part 4, 1960, pp 206-223; Riley family papers (State Library of New South Wales); Riley estate papers (State Library of New South Wales).

Author: Jill Conway

Print Publication Details: Jill Conway, 'Riley, Edward (1784 - 1825)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 2, Melbourne University Press, 1967, pp 381-182.
Source References:
6. Type: Book, Abbr: Queanbeyan Register, Title: Biographical register of Canberra and Queanbeyan: from the district to the Australian Capital Territory 1820-1930, Auth: Peter Proctor, Publ: The Heraldry & Genealogical Society of Canberra, Date: 2001
- Reference = 40 (Name, Notes)

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