Chapter:

Dr. James Murdoch M.D. of Craigow 1785-1848
Early Pioneer of Medicine in Van Diemens Land

10.

Here was built up a life of rich variety, shared in to the full by John, the doctor's eldest son (father of many members of the Murdoch clan prominent in Southern Tasmania today), by Robert Bruce, born shortly after his father's arrival in the colony, and by Antonia, who left England and rejoined her parents. Its combination of medical and agricultural interest was as remarkable as it was efficient.

It is not clear when Dr. James moved to Craigow, however, his journal of 1825 is headed "Craigow". He is listed in Hobart in Tas. Almanac of 1825, but does not appear thereafter.

He appears also to have held for a while a place called Paradise Farm at Risdon. The Gazette of 4th June, 1831 had this news item:

"Dr Murdoch of Risdon, has this year made from the produce of his garden there a considerable quantity of Lavender, a profitable article of produce which we are glad he intends to cultivate largely for export to London where it is of considerable value. Specimens can be seen at our office as well as at the laboratory of Dr Eldriade, Elizabeth Street".

A century later the largest lavender farm in the world was at Lilydale, in Tasmania. There is nothing to show that Dr Murdoch ever exported lavender to London.

A couple of years later he was cultivating opium. The Sydney Gazette of 18th January, 1834, had this news item from Hobart:

"Dr Murdoch has just finished his opium harvest. The crop is abundant and of fine quality".

The Hobart Town Gazette of 6th June 1834, wrote:

"Opium continues to be an article of immense consumption in China and we feel it a duty incumbent on us once more to urge upon settlers the advantage and the wide field of profit so readily open to them in the cultivation of it in Van Diemen's Land, for the growth of which there is no part of the known world more congenial. Dr Murdoch of Risdon, who has long cultivated it in considerable quantities has, as we mentioned before, favoured us with a considerable quantity of seed, some of which is heartily at the service of any industrious settler disposed to embark on its cultivation. In Canton last March, opium was selling at 700 dollars a picul".