Deposit 75 - Australian Mercantile Land and Finance London Office deposit 1

This company was registered in England on 5 November 1863 as the Australian Mortgage Land and Finance Company Limited. The company's first Australian Office was opened in Brisbane in the same year. The company carried on business as wool brokers, pastoral finance, stock and property agents and as a pastoral company in NSW, Victoria, the Riverina and Queensland. In 1865 the business moved to Victoria with the purchase of the firm of Gibbs Ronald and Company of Melbourne and Geelong, the Australian branch of the London firm of Richard Gibbs and Company. The partners of the two firms continued their work in the new company with the Australian branch managed by R B Ronald in Geelong and by Sir James MacBain in Melbourne. Richard Gibbs and Byron L Ronald joined the London Board. In November 1910 the company changed its name to the Australian Mercantile Land and Finance Company Limited (AML&F Co Ltd). In 1971 AML&F Co Ltd was taken over by the UK firm Wood Hall Trust Limited. The company operated under the name AML&F Co Ltd until Elders IXL took over Wood Hall Trust Limited in 1981. Elders Pastoral Division was established incorporating all the pastoral interests of the AML&F Co Ltd.

The Directors of the Australian Mercantile Land & Finance (AML&F) Company Limited promoted the Freehold Trust Company of Australia in London in 1887 to lend money on mortgages of freehold land. The new company acted as a finance subsidiary of the AML&F Co Ltd with shares held by the British public. Its directors were the same as the AML&F Co Ltd. The Freehold Trust Company of Australia served to release part of the funds of the AML&F Co Ltd until this position became untenable when profits declined and in September 1898 the company was liquidated.

The Australian Sheep Farms Company Limited was promoted at the end of 1924 by R H Caird, of the Australian Mercantile Land & Finance (AML&F) Company, to purchase three New South Wales properties: Dunlop, Toorale and Nocoleche, to which Ringorah was later added. The new company was floated in London and backed by the same Directors as the AML&F Company. The drought in 1927, along with further collapse in wool prices and dry seasons, reduced the company's profits and it went into voluntary liquidation in December 1937.