Robert Ramsay

Robert Ramsay (19 March 1818 - 5 July 1910) was a member of the Australian Queensland Legislative Council, the Queensland Legislative Assembly, and the eighth Treasurer of Queensland. Early life Ramsay was born in Kolkata, West Bengal, in British India, on 15 March 1818 to Robert Ramsay, a captain in His Majesty's 14th. Regt. of Foot, and his wife Margaret (née Cruickshank). He was the eldest child in a Scottish family of three sons and two daughters, the youngest of whom was the writer Elizabeth Ramsay-Laye, 1832-1932, who when she wasn't writing under her own name used the nom-de-plume Isabel Massary. Robert Ramsay was educated in Edinburgh and at Harrow. In 1836, with a military career in mind, he also attended L'École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, founded by Napoleon in 1803. Business and Pastoral Interests in Australia In about 1837, after having had second thoughts about army life, Ramsay started to see business and farming opportunities in Australia. His father was by then a partner in Cruickshank Melville & Co., a mercantile firm in London that, in addition to its main business in the West Indies, was already doing some business with Australia.