David Fowler
(1828-1881) Merchant, London and Adeleide
The Fowler family had a successful grocer’s business in the East Neuk. In the 1841 Census, David Fowler was a 13-year-old apprentice cooper, living in Main Street, Kilrenny, with his parents and 7 siblings.
Between 1851 and 1860, 100,000 Scots went to Australia for the Gold Rush but not everyone who emigrated was motivated by a desire to dig for gold. David sailed for Australia in 1854 with his wife Jessie and sons James (2) and David (1) and their servant, to join his brother James and sister Margaret who had emigrated in 1850.
David and James opened a retail grocery in Adelaide – by 1857 their expanding business enabled them to acquire new headquarters in King William Street and to enter the import trade. When James died in 1859 David and George pooled their assets to form a Company, D & J Fowler, which by 1865 became entirely wholesale.
David visited Britain to set up a buying office in London and settled there in 1873 to exploit the commercial advantages of the telegraphic link with Australia. With David Murray, he acquired Pandura Station near Port Augusta in 1877.
With his brother George, David Fowler donated over £5000 for the new Town Hall in Cellardyke.
Noted for his “enterprise, integrity and skill as a commercial statistician”, David died in London in 1881, aged only 55.
By the time of his death, D & J Fowler had reached the front rank of the commercial houses in the Southern Hemisphere, with branches in London and Fremantle, agencies in the Northern Territory and on the Murray River, large stores in Port Adelaide, and big depots for kerosene, factories for jam, condiments, confectionery and preserved fruit. They also ran a large shipping agency, importing foodstuffs and exporting wool, wheat, flour, meat, butter, copper and tanning bark.
The D & J Fowler Company flourished until 1982, when it was taken over by Southern Farmers Ltd.
Research by Christine Keay
