He
took what fell in his way--magistracies, bank directorships, or what
else, and lived unambitiously on his moderate but sufficient means,
always in the front social position, and, of course, in universal
respect. And how, again, so quiet a spirit adventured across amongst the
tag-rags of the earlier Launceston tide, unless indeed under some
benevolent inspiration and prescience about the magisterial needs, is a
mystery which, although I often conversed with him, I never happened to
hear him explain.
DAVID CHARTERIS McARTHUR, FATHER OF VICTORIAN BANKING.
"A man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation."
--Love's Labour Lost.
Almost as early a colonist as Simpson, his intimate friend, his
colleague in the Melbourne branch of the Bank of Australasia, of which
he was himself general manager, with Simpson as director, McArthur fitly
follows the other in this list of early colonial prominents. To the day
of his death he held the first position, active or honorary, in
Victorian banking. But he was even better known, or at least better
regarded, as, par excellence, "mine host" of the early community. During
a long life, of which the later and much the larger half was spent in
Victoria, there was none who entered more readily, constantly, or
acceptably into the varied life of the community.
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