In the history of enterprise, Mary Reibey is one of the names that keeps returning.
The record lists Mary Reibey as Australian businesswoman.
Mary Reibey was born at Bury in 1777. Her recorded nationality is Australia.
This was the age of chartered companies and long-distance trade, when a single voyage could make or ruin a house.
She worked as businessperson and entrepreneur.
Business reputations are unusually sensitive to the decade in which they were made.
That the business was built from Australia shaped it: capital, regulation and market size differ by country, and they decide what is even attemptable.
Mary Reibey died in 1855, aged 78. What remains is the enterprise and its consequences, which is the only durable measure of a commercial life.
