Anti-transportation campaigner, freemason, merchant, farmer and Tasmanian separatist Richard Cleburne (1799-1864) arrived in Hobart from Ireland aroundt 1821 and quickly developed a variety of business interests centred around his store in Liverpool Street, Hobart. He seems to have been a feisty individual. In 1832, he brought an action against the collector of customs over eight casks of American tobacco seized because the relevant duty allegedly hadn’t been paid. He won that one, and his purchase of Uplands, the 1560 acres (631 ha) estate on the banks of the Derwent near Mount Direction, with an extensive frontage to the Derwent was rumoured to have been funded through illicit trade.
He seems, all the same, to have done pretty well through official channels. He opened the first direct trade between Melbourne and Hobart in the Blossom, a vessel he had built to order, was a director of the Colonial Bank and a promoter of the Derwent and Tamar Insurance and the Tasmanian Steam Navigation Companies. His other business interests included a soap, salt and candle factory on the Old Wharf, a coal-mining company that applied for a lease of Schouten Island, but rejected the government's terms of a royalty in place of rent and the Risdon Ferry, which he took over in 1860.
Cleburne was one of those who signed the 1824 petition for separation from New South Wales and fought against the continued transportation of convicts as member for Huon in the Legislative Council. When self-government was granted in 1856 and a bicameral, fully elected parliament created, he ran for the seat of Kingborough in the House of Assembly, missed out and found his way back into his old Legislative Council seat by a majority of one. He resigned in protest against a proposed constitutional amendment in 1859, one of a series of deliberate resignations that resulted in fixed six-year terms for each member of the Legislative Council. Having presumably made his point he stood at the subsequent by-election and was re-elected unopposed. He retained his seat until his death, although health issues kept him from the last two sessions. He died at Risdon on 29 October 1864, survived by two sons and eight daughters.