Career
Emmett worked as an auctioneer in Adelaide, South Australia. He lived in Bendigo from 1852 to 1870, first as a gold digger and auctioneer He was said to be the first discoverer of the Hustler"s Reef near Bendigo. and later, with Hugh Smith, he established the Bendigo Bank (subsequently purchased by the then Bank of Victoria). He later started a brewery and a number of mining companies.
To secure Bendigo’s future, Emmett worked to establish a reliable water supply and was the main promoter of the Bendigo Waterworks Company (now part of Coliban Water).
Given the financial problems of the Victorian colonial government and the lack of local government funds he worked to privately fund a new water supply. The council controlled a 22-acre water reserve site along the Bendigo Creek at Golden Square.
With funding from wealthy investors in Melbourne he formed the company which was incorporated by parliament. Joseph Brady was the first engineer for the project
He went to Sydney after 1870 where he was a broker, legal manager and mining agent.
Government
He was first chairman of the Sandhurst municipal council and, subsequently, of the municipality of Raywood of which also he was the first chairman. Emmett was the son of Henry James Emmett and Mary Elizabeth Thompson Emmett (née Townsend) who immigrated to Van Diemen"s Land from England with their young family in 1819 fifteen years after the establishment of Hobart Town (1804).