 He became a pastoralist and pioneered the cultivation of cotton in Queensland.The head office of Robert Towns & Company was in Sydney with branch offices in Melbourne, Brisbane, Dunedin and Townsville.His far flung trading connections saw him do business with merchants in Mauritius, India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), the Philippines, New Zealand, New Caledonia, China, the New Hebrides, California and Chile.