Everything about Governor Macquarie totally explained
Major-General Lachlan Macquarie CB (
31 January,
1762 –
1 July,
1824;
Scottish Gaelic spelling:
Lachlan MacGuaire),
British military officer and colonial administrator, served as
Governor of New South Wales from
1810 to
1821 and had a leading role in the social, economic and architectural development of that colony. Historians assess his influence on the transition of New South Wales from a penal colony to a free settlement as being crucial to the shaping of
Australian society.
Early life and career
Lachlan Macquarie was born on the island of
Ulva off the coast of the
Isle of Mull in the
Inner Hebrides, a chain of islands off the West Coast of
Scotland. He left the island at the age of 14. He was educated at the
Royal High School of Edinburgh.
Macquarie joined the
84th Regiment of Foot in
1776 and served in
North America,
India and
Egypt. Macquarie became a Freemason in January 1793 at Bombay, India, in Lodge No. 1 (No. 139 on the register of the English "Moderns" Grand Lodge) . He was promoted
captain in 1789,
major in 1801, and
lieutenant-colonel, commanding the
73rd Regiment of Foot, in 1805.
In November 1807, Macquarie's cousin Elizabeth Henrietta Campbell became his second wife. In April 1809 Macquarie was appointed Governor of
New South Wales. He was given a mandate to restore government and discipline in the colony following the
Rum Rebellion against Governor
William Bligh. The British government decided to reverse its practice of appointing naval officers as Governor and chose an army commander in the hope that he could secure the co-operation of the unruly
New South Wales Corps. He was promoted
colonel in 1810,
brigadier in 1811 and
major-general in 1813, while serving as governor. Macquarie is also a very great, skilled builder whose constructions still famously stand today.
As Governor
Macquarie was a conservative disciplinarian who believed, in the words of the historian
Manning Clark, "that the
Protestant religion and
British institutions were indispensable both for liberty and for a high material civilisation." When he arrived in
Sydney in December
1809. Macquarie ruled the colony as an enlightened despot, breaking the power of the Army officers such as
John Macarthur, who had been the colony's
de facto ruler since Bligh's overthrow.
In
1812, the first detailed inquiry into the
convict system in Australia by a
Select Committee on
Transportation, supported in general Macquarie's liberal policies. However, the committee thought that fewer
tickets-of-leave should be issued and opposed the governor having the power to grant
pardons. The committee concluded that the colony should be made as prosperous as possible so as to provide work for the convicts and to encourage them to become settlers after being given their freedom.
On a visit of inspection to the settlement of
Hobart Town on the
Derwent River in
Van Diemen's Land (now
Tasmania), Macquarie was appalled at the ramshackle arrangement of the town and ordered the government surveyor
James Meehan to survey a regular street layout. This survey determined the form of the current centre of the city of Hobart.
The end of the
Napoleonic Wars in
1815 brought a renewed flood of both convicts and settlers to New South Wales, as the sealanes became free and as the rate of unemployment and crime in Britain rose (as they always did when armies and navies were demobilised). Macquarie presided over a rapid increase in population and in economic activity - by the time of his departure the population had reached 35,000. The colony began to have a life beyond its functions as a penal settlement, and an increasing proportion of the population earned their own living. All this, in Macquarie's eyes, made a new social policy necessary.
As reformer and explorer
Central to Macquarie's policy was his treatment of the
emancipists: convicts whose sentences had expired or who had been given conditional or absolute pardons. By
1810 these outnumbered the free settlers, and Macquarie insisted that they be treated as social equals. He set the tone himself by appointing emancipists to government positions:
Francis Greenway as colonial architect and Dr
William Redfern as colonial
surgeon. He scandalised settler opinion by appointing an emancipist,
Andrew Thompson, as a magistrate, and by inviting emancipists to tea at Government House. In exchange, Macquarie demanded that the ex-convicts live reformed lives, and in particular insisted on proper
marriages.
Macquarie was the greatest sponsor of exploration the colony had yet seen. In
1813 he sent
Blaxland,
Wentworth and
Lawson across the
Blue Mountains, where they found the great plains of the interior. There he ordered the establishment of
Bathurst, Australia's first inland city. He appointed
John Oxley as surveyor-general and sent him on expeditions up the coast of New South Wales and inland to find new rivers and new lands for settlement. Oxley discovered the rich
Northern Rivers and
New England regions of New South Wales, and in what is now
Queensland he explored the present site of
Brisbane.
Macquarie established the colony's most prestigious buildings on
Macquarie Street, which remains the city's preeminent address. Explorers soon noticed that the Governor liked things named after him: so Australia has the
Macquarie River and
Mount Macquarie,
Lake Macquarie and
Port Macquarie,
Macquarie Harbour and
Macquarie Island.
Elizabeth Bay,
Elizabeth Street and
Mrs Macquarie's Chair (a carved chair on the eponymous point in
Sydney Harbour) are named for his wife. Macquarie's own contribution to Australian nomenclature was the name "Australia," suggested by
Matthew Flinders but first used in an official despatch by Macquarie in
1817.
Macquarie's policies, especially his championing of the emancipists and the lavish expenditure of government money on public works, aroused opposition both in the colony and in London, where the government still saw New South Wales as a place to dump convicts and not as a future dominion of the Empire. His statement, in a letter to the Colonial Secretary, that "free settlers in general... are by far the most discontented persons in the country," and that "emancipated convicts, or persons become free by
servitude, made in many instances the best description of settlers," was much held against him.
Macquarie is regarded as having been ambivalent towards the
Australian Aborigines. He ordered punitive expeditions against the aborigines. However, when dealing with friendly tribes, he developed a strategy of nominating a 'chief' to be responsible for each of the clans, identified by the wearing of a brass breast-plate engraved with his name and title. Although this was a typically European way of negotiation, it often did reflect the actual status of elders within tribes.
(External Link
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Despite opposition from the British government, Macquarie encouraged the creation of the colony's first bank, the
Bank of New South Wales (1817).
Return to Scotland, death and legacy
Leaders of the free settler community complained to London about Macquarie's policies, and in
1819 the government appointed an English judge,
John Bigge, to visit New South Wales and report on its administration. Bigge generally agreed with the settlers' criticisms, and his reports on the colony led to Macquarie's resignation in
1821: he'd however served longer than any other governor. Bigge also recommended that no governor should again be allowed to rule as an autocrat, and in
1824 the
New South Wales Legislative Council, Australia's first legislative body, was appointed to advise the governor.
(External Link)
Macquarie returned to
Scotland, and died in London in
1824 while busy defending himself against Bigge's charges. But his reputation continued to grow after his death, especially among the emancipists and their descendants, who were the majority of the Australian population until the
gold rushes. Today he's regarded by many as the real founder of Australia as a country, rather than as a prison camp. The nationalist school of Australian historians have treated him as a proto-nationalist hero. His grave in Mull is maintained at the expense of the
National Trust of Australia and is inscribed "The Father of Australia." Macquarie formally adopted the name Australia for the continent, the name earlier proposed by the first circumnavigator of Australia,
Matthew Flinders. As well as the many geographical features named after him in his lifetime, he's commemorated by
Macquarie University in Sydney.
Macquarie was buried on the
Isle of Mull in a remote mausoleum with his wife and son.
Places named after Macquarie
Many places in Australia have been named in Macquarie's honour (some of these were named by Macquarie himself). They include:
At the time of his governorship or shortly thereafter:
- Macquarie Island between Tasmania and Antarctica
- Lake Macquarie on the coast of New South Wales between Sydney and Newcastle renamed after Macquarie in 1826
- Macquarie River a significant inland river in New South Wales which passes Bathurst, Wellington, Dubbo and Warren before entering the Macquarie Marshes and the Barwon River.
- Lachlan River, another significant river in New South Wales
- Port Macquarie, a city at the mouth of the Hastings River on the North Coast, New South Wales.
- Macquarie Pass, a route traversing the escarpment between the Illawarra district and the Southern Highlands district of New South Wales.
- Macquarie Rivulet, a river 23 kilometers long which rises near Robertson, New South Wales and drains into Lake Illawarra.
- Around Sydney:
- In Tasmania:
- Macquarie Hill, formerly known as Mount Macquarie, in Wingecarribee Shire, Southern Highlands, New South Wales
- Macquarie Pass, north-east of Robertson, New South Wales
- Macquarie Pier, built in 1818 on the Hunter River for the port of Newcastle, a breakwater linking Coal Island, now known as Nobby's Head, to the mainland at South Head (now Fort Scratchley)
- The Macquarie Arms Hotel at Windsor, New South Wales built in 1815. It ceased operating in 1840, but reopened in 1874 and has been used continuously as a hotel ever since. Windsor also contains a Macquarie Street.
- Several Civil parishes in Dubbo, near Bathurst and Hastings are named after Macquarie
Many years after his governorship:
Macquarie Park and Macquarie Links, suburbs of Sydney.
Macquarie Shopping Centre, North Ryde
Macquarie, a suburb of Canberra, Australia
Lachlan Street, a street in the suburb of Macquarie, Canberra, Australia
Division of Macquarie, one of the first 75 Divisions of the Australian House of Representatives created for the Australian Parliament in 1901.
Institutions named after Macquarie:
Macquarie Hospital, Sydney
Macquarie University, Sydney
Macquarie Bank, an investment bank founded in 1970
Places named after or in honour of Macquarie's wife
Places named after or in honour of Macquarie's wife, Elizabeth (nee Campbell 1778-1835):
Elizabeth Street, another of the principal streets of Hobart, Tasmania named after Macquarie's wife
Elizabeth Street, Sydney, one of the principal streets of Sydney, named after Macquarie's wife
Elizabeth Bay a bay of Port Jackson and suburb of Sydney
Mrs Macquarie's Chair, a rock cut into a chair shape Mrs Macquarie's Point, a peninsula in Sydney Harbour, at the end of Mrs. Macquarie's Road
Campbelltown, New South Wales, a town founded in 1820, one of a series of settlements south-west of Sydney being established by Macquarie at that time
Meredith Island off the coast of New South Wales was named after Elizabeth Macquarie's close friend (External Link)
Campbell Town, Tasmania (External Link)
Elizabeth River, Tasmania (External Link)
Elizabeth Town, Tasmania (External Link).
Commemoration of Macquarie's birthplace
Mull: The Macquarie connection is distinguished, in particular, by the extremely large number of place names in New South Wales and Tasmania (Van Diemen's Land) whose origins are derived from locations and features on the Isle of Mull and its environs. Macquarie used his governorship as an opportunity to commemorate, through nostalgic place names, the places and personal associations that he'd kept with Mull since his boyhood. Place names include:
Further Information
Get more info on 'Governor Macquarie'.
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