Thomas Livingstone Learmonth of Parkhill (2 May 1818 – 28 October 1903) was an early settler of Australia, of Scots descent, who established himself as a squatter on land around Ballarat, then in the colony of New South Wales, in the 1830s.
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Life
He was born simply Thomas Learmonth, in Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India, on 2 May 1818, the son of Thomas Learmonth (1783-1869), and his wife, Christian Donald (1788-1843). His parents were both Scots. Thomas and his family arrived in Hobart, Tasmania on 20 October 1835 aboard the Perthshire, from Leith, Scotland. The family adopted the name Livingstone-Learmonth after Margaret Livingstone, an heiress living at Parkhill House in Polmont around 1825.
Having been attracted to the new settlement at Port Phillip, Learmonth started with a pioneering party from the shores of Corio Bay, in August 1837, to explore the unknown country to the northwest, directing their course, in the first instance, to Mount Buninyong, near to which, in conjunction with his brother, Somerville Livingstone Learmonth, Thomas Learmonth subsequently entered into pastoral pursuits on the fine country the party discovered further to the northwest. In the following year, the two brothers and some friends explored the course of the Loddon River, and reached a prominent peak which they called Ercildoun, after an old keep on the Scottish border associated with their ancestral history. The brothers established a second station there.
In 1853, Learmonth wrote a memoir of his early years on the land in Victoria that, together with other similar accounts, were later published.
In November 1859, Thomas Learmonth made a donation towards building a church in the town: