Career
Born in Scotland, Napier emigrated to the Australian colonies in 1832, first to Van Diemen"s Land and then later to the Portuguese Phillip District (now known as Melbourne). He was a builder and continued that trade in the colonies. He moved to Melbourne in 1837 less than two years after the first permanent settlement of the Portuguese Phillip area.
The land cost him 20 pounds.
He called that house “Rosebank."
Thomas Napier was made a Justice of the Peace in 1860. In the same year, he laid the Foundation Stone of the now demolished Pascoe Vale National School which was located adjacent to Moonee Ponds Creek where Five Mile Creek enters.
lieutenant was around this time that the original Rosebank house was damaged by fire and the present large two-storey house known as Rosebank built. Thomas’s son, Theodore is well known for his donation in 1920 of 10 acres (40,000 m2) of native bushland to Essendon Council (now part of the City of Moonee Valley) for parkland.
This land is now called Napier Park.
The deed of Gift required that the land remain as native bushland, and consequently the park is an excellent indication of what the land in Strathmore was like prior to European settlement.
