George Johnston (Lieutenant Governor)
George Bain Johnston (born March 19, 1764 in Annan , Dumfriesshire , Scotland , † January 5, 1823 ) was Lieutenant Governor of New South Wales , Australia , shortly after the Rum Rebellion .
Military career
He was from 1776 second lieutenant in the marine infantry and was promoted to lieutenant in 1778 . After serving in America and the East Indies , he volunteered for service with the First Fleet in New South Wales . He worked as an adjutant to Governor Arthur Phillip and was ordered to Norfolk Island in 1790 and later transferred to the New South Wales Corps , where he was promoted to captain in September 1792 .
In September 1796 he was promoted to adjutant to John Hunter and in 1800 to major . In the same year William Paterson took him under arrest, because of " paying spirits to a sergeant as part of his pay - and disobedience of orders " (German: selling spirits to a sergeant on his own account - and for failure to follow orders.) He was before a court martial and Hunter sent him back to England. Because there were problems with the court martial, the process was stopped and he came back to New South Wales in 1802. In 1803 he became temporary commander of the New South Wales Corps and, with Paterson being ill, he was drawn into a conflict between Philip Gidley King and the military. In March 1804 he acted decisively in the Castle Hill uprising attempted by Irish convicts. He knocked him down at gunpoint. When Paterson sent him to Port Dalrymple (now Launceston), he became commander of the New South Wales Corps.
On January 26, 1808, he played the key role in the armed conflict, the Rum Rebellion. Johnston led the troops William Bligh put at his disposal as lieutenant governor, putting aside legal and other official concerns. This was completely unlawful, the orders of the judiciary were taken ad absurdum and there was strong uproar among the settlers.
Johnston was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel on April 25, 1808 , and on July 28 he replaced veteran officer Joseph Foveaux , who was Lieutenant Governor on Norfolk Island . He sailed to England with Macarthur and Henry Fulton in March 1809 and was tried before a court martial in May 1811, which found him guilty of mutiny and fined him. This extremely mild judgment was based on the fact that the court found that he was merely another person's tool.
He returned to New South Wales as a private individual and lived on his land near Annandale , Sydney , died on January 5, 1823, leaving a large family. He was first buried in a private mausoleum on his Annadale property, but after the land was divided, he was buried in a new mausoleum in Waverley Cemetery in 1904.
Legacy
Johnston was granted extensive land rights in the Petersham , Bankstown and Cabramatta area . The borough of Georges Hall bears his name as well as his farmhouse and the land near the station on the Georges River and Prospect Creek .
The building still exists today and is now one of the oldest houses in this country. Johnston had received additional land rights in the suburb of Annandale, named after his property and his place of birth. He and Ester Abrahams worked in agriculture and lived in the land with their children until 1870 when it was divided up and sold for residential construction. Annandale Main Street is named after Johnston and the entrance to their property is now on the grounds of Annandale Public School.
literature
- AT Yarwood, ' Johnston, George (1764-1823) ', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 2, pp. 20-22, Melbourne University Press 1967.
Web links
- George's Hall, Major Johnston's Bankstown Estate ( April 9, 2002 memento on the Internet Archive )
- History of Annandale 1770-1876
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Johnston, George |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Johnston, George Bain |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British navigator and lieutenant governor of New South Wales |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 19, 1764 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Annan |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 5, 1823 |