Ambrose Eldridge

Ambrose Eldridge was a chemist and experimental farmer in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Ambrose Eldridge was born about 1815 in England, the son of John York Eldridge.

Ambrose Eldridge was a Sydney chemist who arrived in Moreton Bay in late July 1847 to work in John Taggart's Medical Hall, a chemist shop in Queen Street. Taggart eventually sold out to Eldridge, who took over from 1 October 1849, and developed the business as a chemist, druggist, oilman, and grocer.

In the late 1840s and 1850s, Eldridge adopted an active and enthusiastic role in the development of Brisbane and Queensland. He was prominent in the Separation movement and served on a wide variety of local committees (for most of which he was a founding member), including those of the Hospital, the proposed Brisbane Market (1851), the Moreton Bay Steam Navigation Company, the Moreton Bay Horticultural Society, the Brisbane Exchange, the Northern Districts Agricultural and Pastoral Association, the Moreton Bay Immigration and Land Company (first chairman of directors in 1855-56), and the Moreton Bay Building Society, which was dissolved in 1854 to re-emerge as the Moreton Bay Permanent Investment and Building Society in 1855. He was active in promoting local issues such as a bridge over Breakfast Creek, a committee to communicate between the electors of Moreton Bay and their representative in the Legislative Council in Sydney, a survey of the Brisbane River entrance and bar, direct emigration to Moreton Bay, government funding to churches, and regularly subscribed to rewards for the discovery of gold in the Moreton and Darling Downs districts. He was a prominent member of St John's Anglican Church, and an active participant in the Brisbane School of Arts and Sciences and the Moreton Bay Musical Society. During the early 1850s his business flourished and he acquired a number of Brisbane town and suburban allotments.

Eldridge was a well-respected townsman with a clear commitment to the development of Brisbane at political, civic, economic and social levels, but he was also something of a visionary. Like the indomitable Dr John Dunmore Lang, who envisioned a Moreton Bay populated by yeomen farmers, Eldridge was determined to prove that agriculture in the Northern Districts of New South Wales was economically viable.

...
Wikipedia