Richard Bourke

Richard Bourke (1829)

Richard Bourke statue in front of the State Library of New South Wales in Sydney .

Sir Richard Bourke KCB (born May 4, 1777 in Dublin , † August 13, 1855 in Limerick ) was a general in the British Army , and between 1831 and 1837 he was governor of the Australian colony of New South Wales .

Life

Bourke went to school in Westminster and studied law at Christ Church College . In 1800 he married Elizabeth, the youngest daughter of John Bourke, with whom he had two sons and three daughters. His son John was an invalid and his son Richard (1812-1904) was his private secretary in New South Wales from 1831 to 1834 before returning to England to study law. Bourke died near Limerick , Ireland in 1855 and was buried in Castleconnell .

Military career

On November 22, 1798 he joined the Grenadier Guards in the British Army, served in the Netherlands under Friedrich August, Duke of York and Albany , where he was wounded. He became lieutenant and captain on November 25, 1799 and major on August 27, 1805. In 1806 he became superintendent of the Royal Military College with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was ordered to South America and took part in the siege of Montevideo and an expedition against Buenos Aires . From 1812 to 1814 he was stationed in A Coruña in Galicia, Spain, and was appointed colonel on June 4, 1814. On June 15, 1825, he was promoted to major general in Malta . Bourke was named Lieutenant-Governor of the Eastern District of the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa for his services . Bourke left the Cape in September 1828 and went to New South Wales as governor in 1831 . In 1837 he was promoted to lieutenant general there and after his return to Ireland in 1851 to general.

Governorship

Bourke was a capable but controversial governor. He took action against the inhuman treatment and punishment of prisoners. He passed the "The Magistrates Act", which limited the number of lashes and limited the number of prisoners per entrepreneur to 70. Bourke ordered adequate food rations for prisoners. He also made it possible for this to be controlled by accessing the property of the entrepreneurs and for accused prisoners to receive legal support. There are views that the suspension of the prisoner transports to Australia in 1840 go back to him and his orders.

Bourke, who found that the children in New South Wales received little or very poor schooling at church-run missions, declared against the Anglican Church of Australia and the State Church of New South Wales that everyone is equal before the law. He supported and promoted the formation of schools.

In 1835, Bourke proclaimed Australia to be terra nullius (no man's land) when John Batman signed a treaty, the Batman's Treaty , with Aborigines for the use of 2,000 square kilometers of land. This meant that the Aborigines had no property rights whatsoever to their traditional land, that they could neither own land nor enter into contractual arrangements for the use of it.

Naming

He named the city of Melbourne after William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne , a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom . There is Bourke Street in Melbourne, which is in the city's central business district, and here is Bourke Place , a skyscraper. There is also the city of Bourke in New South Wales. A statue of him stands in front of the Library of New South Wales in Sydney .

The Australian Bourke Islands in the Torres Strait are named after Richard Bourke . The Bourke's Parakeet is also named after him.

literature

• Hazel King: Bourke, Sir Richard (1777-1855) . In: Australian Dictionary of Biography , Volume 1, Melbourne University Press, 1966, pp. 128-133. (Available online ).

Web links

• Pictures and writing from the Richard Bourke Journal in the State Library of Victoria .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hazel King: Bourke, Sir Richard (1777–1855) . In: Australian Dictionary of Biography , Volume 1, Melbourne University Press, 1966, pp. 128-133.