William Barnes

William Barnes (1790–1848), brewer, from a brewing, innkeeping and farming family in Cheshire, emigrated to Van Diemen's Land in 1824. By May that year he had established the first brewery in northern Tasmania, at Launceston. He acquired much wealth and property through his astute business acumen and became a respected citizen. A director of the Cornwall, Derwent and Australasian banks and a justice of the peace, he established the 6000-acre Trevallyn estate and built Trevallyn House, retiring in the mid-1830s to another of his houses, Plaisance, at Kelso. He leased out the brewery and returned to England for a period in the 1840s to provide a public school education for his only son William, returning with a tutor, Henry Plow Kane, the first headmaster of Launceston Grammar.

Further reading: P Richards, Nyllavert, Launceston, 2003.

Paul Richards