Charles Fitzgerald (Governor)

Charles Fitzgerald

Charles Fitzgerald (* 1791 - December 29, 1887 in Kilkee , Ireland ), Captain of the Royal Navy , was Governor of Gambia and Western Australia . He represented Queen Victoria in the British colonies.

Life

Fitzgerald was the son of Robert Fitzgerald, who came from Kilkee, Ireland. In March 1809 he joined the Royal Navy and served for a long time in the Coast Guard. As captain of the ships Cruiser and Belvidera he was employed in the waters of North America and the Caribbean from 1833 to 1836, in 1838 he fought the slave trade off the West African coast. Two years later he suffered severe wounds and returned to England as an invalid , where he received half pay .

From 1844 to 1847, Fitzgerald held the post of governor of the Gambia colony . After an uneventful period of service, he was appointed Governor of Western Australia in July 1847. However, since he insisted on taking the leave he was entitled to first, he did not arrive in Perth until August 1848 .

Upon arrival, Fitzgerald found that the colony's financial reserves were almost exhausted. The colony consisted of roughly 5,000 settlers and the difficult economic situation made it difficult to attract new settlers. Fitzgerald managed to revive the colony's economy. After convincing the settlers, he arranged for several groups of convicts to be transferred from England to the colony so that their forced labor could advance the colony. By 1855, at the end of Fitzgerald's tenure, a total of 3,668 convicts had been brought to Western Australia, half of whom had the right to work in the private sector. Overall, the population of the colony under Fitzgerald grew to about 12,000.

In 1855, after the end of his tenure, he returned to the family estate in Kilkee, Ireland, where he died in 1887 at the age of over 90.

Awards and honors

• Companion of the Order of the Bath (1855)

The city of Geraldton in Western Australia is named in his honor.

literature

• FK Crowley: FitzGerald, Charles (1791-1887) . In: Douglas Pike (Ed.): Australian Dictionary of Biography . Volume 1. Melbourne University Press, Carlton (Victoria) 1966. 2nd revised edition 1977, ISBN 0-522-84121-X (English).

predecessor	Office	successor
Edmund Norcott	Governor of Gambia 1844–1847	Richard Graves MacDonnell