George Arthur

Sir George Arthur, 1st Baronet

Sir George Arthur, 1st Baronet KCH PC (born June 21, 1784 in Plymouth , † September 19, 1854 in London ) was Lieutenant governor in British Honduras from 1814 to 1822 and also in what was then Van Diemens Land (now Tasmania ) from 1823 to 1837 and later from Upper Canada from 1838 to 1841. He also served as governor of Bombay from 1842 to 1846.

Early life

George Arthur was the youngest son of John Arthur and his wife Catherine. In 1804 he joined the army, where he was promoted to lieutenant in June 1805. He served during the Napoleonic Wars and took part in Sir James Craig's expedition to Italy in 1806. In 1807 he served in Egypt , where he was badly wounded in the attack on Rosetta . He recovered and became captain under Sir James Kempt in Sicily in 1808 ; the next year he took part in the Walcheren expedition in the Netherlands .

On June 13, 1814, he married Elizabeth Orde Usher Smith, with whom he had seven sons and five daughters.

Honduras

In 1814 he was appointed Lieutenant Governor of British Honduras and at the same time held the rank of colonel , which enabled him to lead both military and civil command. His reports on the suppression of the slave revolt in Honduras were read by William Wilberforce and other humanists and contributed in no small measure to the abolition of slavery by the British Empire in 1834 . On the other hand, Herbert Taylor, the secretary of the Duke of York in Honduras, criticized him for his “ most tyrannical, arbitrary and capricious conduct ” (German: most tyrannical, most arbitrary and most unpredictable behavior).

Tasmania

In 1823 he was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemens Land, later Tasmania , and took up this service on May 14, 1824. During this time, Van Diemens Land was the most important British penal colony, which had separated from New South Wales in 1825 . In 1824 there were 6,000 prisoners, half of the population of Van Diemens Land; and this number rose to 18,000 by 1836, before his end of service there. It was during his tenure that this island gained the notorious reputation of a brutal penal colony. With Port Arthur as the ideal location for the prison, he chose a peninsula that is connected to a narrow, easily protected land bridge and surrounded by a sea contaminated with sharks. His attempts to reform the colony and the prison system in his favor failed because he established autocratic and authoritarian rules without consideration.

On November 29, 1826 he ordered the capture of the leading figures of the Aborigines , those who were not well-meaning should be regarded as " open enemies " and those who are guilty of crimes should be captured and punished. He was involved in the oppression and cruel persecution of the Tasmanian indigenous population. During the 1820s, as relations between the European colonists and the Aborigines deteriorated, Arthur declared martial law on November 1, 1828, allowing the wandering white groups to either shoot Aboriginal people or capture them for deportation . The conflict became known as the Black War . After the violent clashes between Aborigines and colonists, Arthur organized the Black Line , which pursued the goal of capturing the Aborigines and deporting them to islands in order to better control and Christianize them.

During his service, he became one of the wealthiest men in the colony. He returned to Britain in March 1837 and later that year he was knighted and given the rank of major general.

Canada

Arthur was named Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada and began his service in Toronto on March 23, 1838. When he got there, he had to solve the problem with the prisoners of the previous revolution in Upper Canada. The reformers recommended a " lenient course " and the conservatives called for " firm action ". Arthur ruled that he would punish some of the leading rebels with " proportionate severity " and signed the death warrant for Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, which was carried out on April 12, despite numerous petitions demanding sentences against the two cancel.

During 1838, unrest developed on the Upper Canada border between American patriots and Canadian refugees. Since Arthur could not be sure that his orders were obeyed, he took over the military high command himself and had nearly 18,000 men under his command for 12 months until the end of 1839. In November and December 1838 another 17 prisoners were executed, with Arthur later investigating each case with “the utmost deliberation” (German: with extreme caution) and deciding that the most prominent, Nils Gustaf von Schoulltz and Joshua Gwillen Doan , should be executed.

Arthur couldn't prevent the two colonies from uniting in 1841. Lord Sydenham , his successor, finally asked George Arthur if he would be available as Deputy Governor in Upper Canada. Arthur countered that the service was priceless and later returned to Britain in 1841. There he was given the hereditary title of Baronet , of Upper Canada, in recognition of his services in Canada on June 5, 1841 .

India

On June 8, 1841 Arthur became governor of the Bombay presidency ; an office he held until 1846. It is said that he demonstrated great skill and ability in the service and that this helped advance large and important British interests.

Sir George Arthur completed the study of the land value of the Indian table land Deccan during his service, which equalized and alleviated the political pressure of the land cultivators to establish the value of this land. He gave his support for the Bombay to Cailan Railroad Project , which earned him the appreciation of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway for addressing the complaints of the Foreshore and Islands of Bombay during his tenure .

He was appointed Provisional Governor General, but he did not take up this service because illness forced him to leave India before Lord Hardinge's arrival .

Last years

On his return to Britain in 1846 he was inducted into the Privy Council and in 1853 he was promoted to Colonel in the 50th Regiment of Foot . He became lieutenant general in 1854 and died in September of the same year. His son Frederick Leopold Arthur (1816–1878) inherited his title of nobility as 2nd baronet.

The Arthur River in Tasmania is named after George Arthur.

literature

• AGL Shaw: Arthur, Sir George (1784-1854), Australian Dictionary of Biography. Pp. 32-38, Volume 1, Melbourne University Press, 1966 Available online
• Alison Alexander (Ed.): The Companion to Tasmanian History. Center for Tasmanian Historical Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart 2005, ISBN 1-86295-223-X .
• LL Robson: A history of Tasmania. Volume 1. Van Diemen's Land from the earliest times to 1855. Oxford University Press, Melbourne 1983, ISBN 0-19-554364-5 .

Web links

Commons : George Arthur  - Collection of Images

• Philipp Buckner: Arthur, Sir George . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
• World Statesmen - Belize

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Phillip Buckner: Arthur, Sir George . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
2. ^ AGL Shaw: George Arthur . In: Douglas Pike (Ed.): Australian Dictionary of Biography . Melbourne University Press, Carlton (Victoria) 1966–2012 (English).
3. ^ Ian McFarlane, The Companian to Tasmanian History - Frontier Conflict , 2006. Accessed December 27, 2008.

predecessor	Office	successor
William Sorell	Governor of Tasmania 1824–1836	John Franklin