David Collins (Governor)

David Collins

David Collins (born March 3, 1754 in London , United Kingdom , † March 24, 1810 in Hobart , Tasmania ) was a British officer and the first lieutenant governor of the colony of Van Diemens Land , now Tasmania.

Early life

Collins was born in 1754, the third child of Henrietta Fraser and naval officer Arthur Tooker Collins . His paternal grandfather was the historian Arthur Collins. After attending Exeter Grammar School , he joined the Royal Navy at the age of 14 . On February 20, 1771 he was promoted to lieutenant .

In 1775 Collins took part in the American Revolutionary War. He was promoted to first lieutenant after the Battle of Bunker Hill . From November 1776 he was stationed in Halifax , where he married Maria Stuart (Mary) Proctor on June 13, 1777 .

Penal Colony Australia

Without his wife he sailed with the HMS Sirius in Botany Bay , which he reached on January 20, 1788. For the proclamation of the Australian convict colony on February 7, 1788, he wrote all relevant laws, gazettes and official letters.

Under Governor Arthur Phillip , he was responsible for establishing the law in the colony. Although he was not a lawyer, he also judged civil law matters together with two nominees in the early days of the new colony. Six naval and military officers sat with him in the newly established criminal court, which he presided over. Collins was occasionally involved in the arguments between Governor Phillip and Major Robert Ross , who commanded the four companies of the Royal Marines , if they went to the criminal court on the matter. In all disputes, Collins sided with Phillip. When Ross was made lieutenant governor of Norfolk Island in March 1790 and embarked there, Collins wrote to his father that calm had now returned and that the day of retribution would come.

In June 1788 he was appointed secretary to Governor Phillip, with which he was involved with other official duties, such as criminal justice and punishments, convict labor, health issues, the size of rations and supplies. Like Phillip, he was against all forms of racism, condemned all forms of violence against Aborigines and was interested in their culture and life. However, he strongly opposed any refusal by convicts to disobey orders from the governor. In August 1779, Collins was made lieutenant captain.

After the arrival of the Second Fleet , the Marines should be transferred to the New South Wales Corps or return to England. Most of them left Australia on the HMS Gorgon . Collins stayed because he did not want to leave Phillip until his return in December 1792. He stayed longer because he wanted to train Francis Grose in his duties as the new lieutenant governor. The following year Grose asked if he could stay until Lieutenant Governor William Paterson arrived . Therefore, he did not leave Australia on the HMS Britannia until August 1796, although he had requested his return two years earlier. However, he had received no answer to his request.

When he arrived in London in June 1797, he found his wife Maria ill. His pay was halved and on January 1, 1798, he was appointed lieutenant colonel without command and received no additional pay for his higher qualifications. In May 1798 he completed his first publication An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales . It was successful and came out in 1779 in a German version. Another publication on this subject was published in 1802.

Van Diemen's Land

In 1802 he was tasked with establishing a settlement on Bass Strait and on January 4, 1803, was appointed lieutenant governor of Tasmania. He sailed there on HMS Calcutta and arrived on October 9th. The establishment of this settlement at Port Phillip in what is now Melbourne , however, he gave up after researching the area.

Collins sailed further south to Van Diemen's Land, what is now Tasmania , where John Bowen established the Hobart settlement at the time . In February 1804 he reached Hobart and took on the further development of the city.

Collins's time as lieutenant governor of the young colony was marked by a lack of food and tools. He often wrote to the governors of other colonies, such as New South Wales or even the Cape Colony , as well as the English government, asking for assistance, which he was rarely given. On the contrary, his demands were even criticized as excessive and he was warned to use the goods delivered more sparingly. In October 1808, more than 550 new settlers arrived in Hobart, who had been sent from the Norfolk Islands to Tasmania by the English Crown with the promise of land, houses and slave labor from the nearby penal colony. This doubled the population of Hobart in one fell swoop and Collins had great difficulty in keeping the settlers happy.

On March 30, 1809, William Bligh , who had previously been overthrown as governor of New South Wales in the course of the Rum Rebellion by insurgents, reached Hobart. After Collins had received him kindly at first, the mood soon deteriorated and Bligh anchored his ship off Hobart. He now demanded tolls from every ship and opened fire if the ship refused to pay. It was not until January 4, 1810, that Bligh left and sailed back to Sydney , where the new Governor Lachlan Macquarie had now taken over his office.

Collins died on March 24, 1810 with no prior notice and was buried on the site of what is now St David's Cathedral.

progeny

With his wife Maria he had a daughter who died in childhood. In Sydney he had a daughter and a son with Ann Yeates and in Hobart two children with Margaret Eddington.

literature

• Collins, David . In: Douglas Pike (Ed.): Australian Dictionary of Biography . Melbourne University Press, Carlton (Victoria) 1966–2012 (English).