Lot 1506

Description

Lempriere & Company. Hobart Town, currency note, one Spanish dollar, 2 June 1823 (year 182 printed), No. M52, hand signed by Thomas James Lempriere, on printed form by S. Clayton, Sydney, red-brown on white, on unwatermarked paper, 'Exhibited / Et' written across. Corner missing, various folds, two stain marks on the back, otherwise nearly very fine, the note overall being in better than average condition, and rare.

This note was crossed officially when the firm became insolvent in 1827. Thomas James Lempriere (1796-1852) emigrated to Van Diemen's Land in 1822 and was married in May 1823. He received a grant of land and became a merchant and a shareholder of the Bank of Van Diemen's Land. He formed a company and merchant business in Hobart Town trading as Lempriere & Co. which failed in 1827, but he had left the company the previous year. He was an artist and diarist whose observations were recorded including a publication on the Penal Settlements of Van Diemen's Land, (see Australian Dictionary of Biography p.106 for more detailed biography).