Collection RS116 - Jacob Mountgarrett: ships accounts

Jacob Mountgarrett (1773?-1828), colonial surgeon, was probably the son of Rev. John Mountgarrett, curate of Drumbanagher, near Killeavy, County Armagh, Ireland. He was admitted as a member of the Company of Surgeons, London, on 17 May 1798, and thus qualified as a naval surgeon third rate, for he had been in the navy since 1790, and had seen service in the Mediterranean and at Cape St Vincent. After being paid off in 1802, he joined H.M.S. Glatton carrying convicts to New South Wales, as surgeon. He arrived in March 1803 and was immediately appointed surgeon to the new settlement proposed at the Derwent. He sailed with Lieutenant John Bowen but when Lieutenant-Governor David Collins arrived next February he told Mountgarrett that his medical staff was complete and gave him the opportunity to return to Sydney. Mountgarrett refused and asked that he should be considered a settler. He was the first to harvest wheat in the colony. He was notorious as a bad debtor and was suspected of cattle stealing and misappropriating the stores and medicines for which he was responsible.
For more information see: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mountgarrett-jacob-2486