Charles Nicholson, 1st Baronet


Sir Charles Nicholson, 1st Baronet was an English-Australian politician, university founder, explorer, pastoralist, antiquarian and philanthropist. The Nicholson Museum at the University of Sydney was named after him.

Early life and family

Nicholson was born in Whitby, Yorkshire, the illegitimate and only surviving son of teenager Barbara Ascough of Iburndale, and Charles Nicholson of London. He was christened Isaac Ascough. His mother died in 1814, aged 24, and his father died in 1824. His mother was the daughter of a wealthy merchant, J. Ascough from Bedale, Yorkshire, and his grandfather was also named Charles Nicholson, of Cockermouth, Cumberland.
He was educated at Edinburgh University.

Early career in Australia

On 9 October 1833, Nicholson sailed for Sydney as ship's surgeon on the James Harris at the behest of his uncle, William Ascough. Ascough had made a considerable fortune as a ship's captain and owner bringing convicts to the Colony, where he had also become an extensive landowner. Nicholson arrived on 1 May 1834 and set up as a doctor in Sydney on Jamieson Street, Wynyard close to The Rocks. In 1836, William Ascough drowned at sea while sailing from Sydney to his property on the Hawkesbury River. Nicholson was the main beneficiary of his uncle's will and soon began acquiring extensive property in his own right throughout Australia.
In 1841, Nicholson blazed a cart route and shifted half a ton of tobacco from Broulee to the Monaro, in fourteen days. He was planning to return, carrying six bales of wool. William Oldrey, William Sandys Elrington, and Terence Aubrey Murray attempted to raise funds for a private road, from Bellalaba to Broulee, following Nicholson's route to the coast, but it was never built. In 1845, Nicholson bought William Sandys Elrington's estate, 'Mount Elrington', near Braidwood.
In 1843, he was one of the first elected members of the New South Wales Legislative Council as one of the representatives of Port Phillip District until 1848 and then as the representatives of the County of Argyle until 1856. He was elected speaker in 1846.
Explorer Ludwig Leichhardt named a mountain in Queensland after him in 1844.

Sydney University

Nicholson's donation of nearly 1000 artefacts was the genesis of the Nicholson Museum at the University of Sydney, which has since been absorbed into the Chau Chak Wing Museum. A catalogue of the collection was published in 1870 by the curator Edward Reeve.

Return to England

His eldest son, Charles Archibald Nicholson, the second baronet, became well known as an ecclesiastical architect. His other sons were Archibald Keightley Nicholson, a stained-glass artist and Sir Sydney Hugo Nicholson, founder of the Royal School of Church Music.

Death

Nicholson died in England on 8 November 1903 shortly before his ninety-fifth birthday.