Information on the various members of the Richardson family. The starting point is John Richardson, born in Dumfries around 1722, whose sons Gabriel and Archibald ran breweries and were friends of the poet Robert Burns.
Follow the links below to visit pages about some of John’s descendants.
Archibald Richardson (1767-1846) – pursued the trades of brewer, distiller and wine merchant with varying degrees of success.
Archibald’s son, Archibald John (1836-1900), emigrated to Australia as a young man, where he worked as a surveyor, taking part in the Jardine expedition to Cape York, and discovering various rich deposits of gemstones, without managing to make himself or his descendants rich.
Archibald travelled to Australia on the ship Waterloo in 1861. One of his fellow passengers, Juliana Robertson, kept a diary during the voyage. Unfortunately she seems not to have come into contact with Archibald. But her diary is reproduced here anyway.
Monica Richardson, Archibald John Richardson’s granddaughter, was born in 1924. She grew up during the Depression and the war years. Her diary of the final year of the war is here. She died in 2010 at the age of 86.