Robert Alfred Tarlton | |
---|---|
Born |
Birmingham, England |
21 April 1828
Died | 29 November 1918 Johannesburg, Orange Free State |
(aged 90)
Occupation | draper, company director, politician |
Spouse(s) | Caroline Walters, Sophia Walters Turner |
Parent(s) | Robert Tarlton and Mary Tarlton nee Green |
Relatives | James Jefferis (brother-in-law) |
member of the South Australian Legislative Council | |
In office 1873 - 1888 |
Robert Alfred Tarlton (21 April 1828 – 29 November 1918) was a businessman and politician in the early days of the colony South Australia.
Tarlton was born in Birmingham, England and trained for the Ministry. He married Caroline Walters in 1854 and emigrated to South Australia in 1858. In 1860 he had a draper's shop on Rundle Street and by 1861 was a director of G. & R. Wills & Co. Ltd., a position he held until 1869. He was in 1865 a founder of the Bank of Adelaide, along with Henry Ayers, Fred. C. Bayer, John Dunn, Thomas Magarey, William Morgan, William Peacock, Robert Barr Smith, Thomas Greaves Waterhouse and others. He was chairman of directors, Commercial Bank of South Australia in 1886 when manager Alexander Crooks and accountant Alexander McKenzie Wilson were charged with embezzlement. The bank's liquidators subsequently sued him and fellow Directors James Crabb Verco, Alfred Tennant, Charles Rischbieth and Maurice Salom for £320,000 damages, claiming negligence.
Tarlton was a devout Congregationalist, and one of the first deacons of the North Adelaide Congregational Church, whose pastor, the Rev. Dr. James Jefferis,was a close friend, and later his brother-in-law, when the two married sisters (Jefferis's second wife). Two of Jefferis's children were given "Tarlton" as a middle name: Nellie Tarlton Jefferis (1874–1959) and (Arthur) Tarlton Jefferis (1884–1965), father of Barbara Jefferis. And Tarlton's daughter Louie married J(ames) Eddington Jefferis (1860–1901), Jefferis's eldest son, by his first marriage.