In 1836, former East India Company Judge and Master of the Mint, James Donnithorne [1773-1852], retired to the Sydney hamlet of Newtown with his ten year old daughter Eliza Emily [1826-1886] where he purchased Camperdown Lodge, a georgian villa situated on King Street named in honour of Lord Nelson's Napoleonic naval victory. The house had been purchased, staffed and prepared in advance of their arrival from distant Calcutta, and soon became a focal point of colonial high society.
 James Donnithorne was an industrious man. An empire builder, he invested extensively in real estate in Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales and went into partnership with prominent pastoralists, including Robert Ebden, in ambitious farming ventures. Business in Australia was good for him and as his wealth increased so did his generosity. Believing one should put back into life what one gets out of it, he became a pillar of society by endowing numerous institutions and championing as many good causes. But beyond his worldly success the great joy of his life was always his daughter Eliza Emily, who became the sole surviving female of the Donnithorne family after the Calcutta cholera outbreak of 1832. It had claimed the lives of her two teenage sisters and distraught mother, Sarah, whose epitaph in Kedgeree Cemetery noted her cause of death as "a broken heart". Preceding the epidemic James had taken Eliza and her brothers to Mysore to see visiting relatives, a decision which almost certainly saved their lives. However on becoming aware of his wife's and daughters' illness he left his children in the safety of Mysore and rushed to be with his wife and daughters. He arrived too late for his daughters but in time to nurse Sarah who died in his arms. Devastated by his loss, commerce lost its allure and his surviving children soon became the centre of his universe.  James and Eliza Emily Donnithorne were descended from ancient Cornish stock, untitled nobility whose ancestry went back into the mists of time. Cornwall and Devon are dotted with ruined castles, country houses and time-worn tombstones paying homage to past generations wealth and status. They were distantly related to William the Conqueror and served kings and queens of England in various capacities. James's father, Nicholas, represented the Prince Regent in Cornwall and proudly introduced his teenage son to the Court of George III. Thunderstruck by the glamour and excesses of Georgian society, James became an intimate of the Prince Regent (Prince George, later King George IV) and the two young dandies became notorious in London for their misbehaviour. To finance his extravagant lifestyle James amassed debts of £30,000 in his father's name, a king's ransom then as now. This almost ruined his family and forced them to sell part of their ancestral estate forever estranging him from his extended family and land of his birth. Prompted by worsening scandals, Parliament finally ordered the future king to clean-up his act and cease dissolute associations. It came as no surprise to find that James Donnithorne was high on the excommunication list, compelling his heartbroken father to send his beloved son into exile, to pursue a career in the East India Company.  |