Robert Semple was Governor of the Hudson"s Bay Company from autumn 1815 until his death.
Career
Before having been named to the post by the Earl of Selkirk, he had a career as a merchant and author of travel books His qualifications for the post of Governor have not been established. The situation quickly escalated, due in great part to Semple"s own temper, and a fifteen-minute gun battle ended with Semple and 20 of his men dead.
Membership
Semple died near the Red River Colony in the Battle of Seven Oaks when he led a party of some 25 Hudson Bay men, mostly English and Scottish colonists, to intercept a party of more than 60 members of the North West Company, mostly Métis and French-Canadians.