Macquarie, Lachlan - Encyclopedia Hub

Macquarie, Lachlan << muh KWAHR ee or muh KWAWR ee, LAK luhn or LAHK luhn >> (1762-1824), a Scottish military officer, served as governor of New South Wales, Australia, from 1810 to 1821. He replaced William Bligh (see Rum Rebellion). Macquarie helped to develop New South Wales into a thriving colony.

Early life.

Macquarie was born on Jan. 31, 1762, on the island of Ulva, off the northwestern coast of Scotland. He joined the British Army in 1776 and served in the American Colonies, India, and the Middle East.

Appointment as governor.

In January 1808, military officers in New South Wales arrested Governor William Bligh and took over the colony. The British appointed Macquarie governor in 1809. Macquarie and his wife, Elizabeth, reached Sydney in December, and Macquarie was sworn in as governor on Jan. 1, 1810. Macquarie’s orders were “to improve the morals of the colonists, to encourage marriage, to provide for education, to prohibit the use of spirituous liquors, [and] to increase the agriculture and stock.” At the time of Macquarie’s arrival, the governor of New South Wales had great power. The colony did not hold elections for any office and did not have a parliament.

Developing the colony.

Macquarie had a warm regard for the country and was the first governor to use the name Australia regularly. He promoted education in the colony, reformed the government, and provided funding and convict labor for public buildings and roads. Macquarie extended coastal settlement southward to the Illawarra region and northward to what is now Port Macquarie, where he established a penal (prison) settlement for convicts. In 1810, he established five townships along the Hawkesbury and Nepean rivers. That same year, he founded Liverpool, near the head of the George’s (now spelled Georges) River.

Macquarie strongly supported the expansion of farming. During his administration, the area of farmland in the colony quadrupled. The number of sheep and cattle also grew enormously. To open up new lands for farmers and graziers (farmers who graze livestock), Macquarie encouraged westward expeditions. While searching for badly needed pastureland in 1813, graziers Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson, and William Charles Wentworth discovered a route across the Blue Mountains. It led westward to the lands of the Gandangara and Wiradjuri peoples, the Aboriginal inhabitants of that region. To provide access to this region, Macquarie approved the construction of a rough track called Cox’s Road. While touring the area in 1815, he chose the site for the city of Bathurst, which he named after his British supervisor, Earl Bathurst. Because Macquarie was concerned about security in the newly accessible, thinly populated area, he forbade movement over the mountains without permission.

Macquarie created import taxes to raise money for his ambitious plans. To overcome a shortage of coins, Macquarie gave the colony its own coinage. In 1813, he imported silver Spanish dollars and had their centers punched out to make two separate coins called holey dollars and dumps. The government and private individuals also used rum as currency. Despite opposition from the British government, Macquarie established Australia’s first bank, the Bank of New South Wales, in 1817.

Convict policy

was one of the most important features of Macquarie’s administration. He granted British convicts transported to the colony tickets of leave (a type of parole) and pardons in exchange for good behavior or work on his projects. Macquarie especially supported educated, talented, and wealthy emancipists (pardoned convicts). In 1810, he showed his faith in such men by appointing two of them, Simeon Lord and Andrew Thompson, to serve as magistrates—that is, judges in minor courts. Macquarie’s architect, Francis Greenway, and his personal physician, William Redfern, were also emancipists.

Some colonists opposed Macquarie’s favorable treatment of emancipists. Among this group were military officers, including Lieutenant Governor George Molle; legal officers, such as the brothers Ellis Bent and Jeffery Hart Bent; and some wealthy free settlers, especially the senior chaplain, Samuel Marsden. They sought to damage the governor’s reputation among officials in the United Kingdom. Macquarie and Marsden became bitter opponents.

After the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815, thousands of British soldiers who had been fighting against France returned home. The presence of so many unemployed former soldiers contributed to a rise in the crime rate. As a result, the British government sent more convicts to New South Wales, and the convict population increased greatly. Macquarie then tightened regulations for tickets of leave but also tried to discourage magistrates from ordering excessive floggings. He also built Australia’s first barracks for convicts at Sydney, Parramatta, and Windsor. Previously, convicts had to find their own lodgings. Most lived in households with other convicts or ex-convicts.

Aboriginal policy.

Like governors before him, Macquarie tried to gain the good will of the region’s Aboriginal peoples and integrate them into the colonial society. His desire to convert the Aboriginal people to Christianity brought further conflict with Marsden, who regarded Aboriginal people as little better than animals. Macquarie organized a school for Aboriginal children, a village of their own for the Aboriginal inhabitants of Sydney, a farm to teach them agriculture, and a yearly gathering at Parramatta. However, these endeavors failed because the Aboriginal people preferred their traditional way of life.

Before and during Macquarie’s administration, the Aboriginal peoples of the Cumberland Plain fiercely resisted European settlement in the Hawkesbury and Nepean river valleys and along the George’s River. After a series of attacks on livestock and settlers in 1816, Macquarie ordered three expeditions against them. During one of these, his men killed 14 sleeping Aboriginal people—men, women, and children. Known as the Appin Massacre, this event marked the end of major hostilities between Aboriginal peoples and colonizers in the area.

Macquarie’s building projects.

Macquarie undertook an extensive program of public works, despite the British government’s warnings about budget restrictions. His first projects included a military barracks, a general hospital in Sydney, and a toll road extending beyond Parramatta. He commissioned architect Francis Greenway to design many of the buildings and supervise their construction by convicts. Macquarie commissioned the hospital soon after his arrival to replace the decaying colonial hospital near Sydney Cove. Greenway designed Hyde Park Barracks to house convicts working for the government. He also designed the Parish Church of St. James the Greater. These buildings still stand in Macquarie Street. Sydney grew rapidly during Macquarie’s governorship.

Political difficulties.

The British government worried about the costs of Macquarie’s public works program. In 1819, it appointed the lawyer John Thomas Bigge to investigate Macquarie’s administration. Bigge strongly criticized the way Macquarie had handled finances and administered the colony, especially the freedoms and rights given to convicts and emancipists. Macquarie resigned in 1820 but remained as governor until his successor took office in December 1821. He left New South Wales in 1822, and sorrowing admirers thronged Sydney Harbour to see him off. Macquarie returned to the United Kingdom embittered and ill. He died in London on July 1, 1824, and was buried on the island of Mull in the Hebrides, Scotland. An inscription on his tomb reads “The Father of Australia.”