Thomas Chirnside

Thomas Chirnside (1815–1887) was a pastoralist.

Background In 1815, Thomas Chirnside was born to Robert and Mary Chirnside in the Scottish village of Cockburnspath. In the 1820s and the 1830s, thousands of Scots were spurred on by poverty and famine to try and make a living in colonial Australia. Scottish squatters and rural workers started farms. In January 1839, Thomas Chirnside arrived in Adelaide with a Bible from his mother and several hundred pounds from his father. Thomas had told his parents that he would only return home if he became a rich and respected man, before boarding the in Liverpool.

Thomas was raising sheep on the Murrumbidgee by April, but drought forced him to abandon his flock. He joined his itinerant brother, Andrew, in Melbourne,

In 1887, suffering from depression, Thomas Chirnside committed suicide with a shotgun in the garden of the Werribee Park Mansion. Andrew Spencer Chirnside inherited the property, but died three years later.