Thomas Peel
Thomas Peel (* 1793 in Lancashire , Great Britain , † December 22, 1865 in Mandurah , Western Australia , Australia ) was a colonist and one of the first settlers and landowners of the Swan River Colony , later Western Australia. Peel tried to found a new British colony without the use of state capital, which failed and earned him violent ridicule.
Early life
Thomas Peel was the second son of Thomas Peel and his wife Dorothy, nee Bolton. He went to Harrow School and worked for a lawyer. In 1823 he married Mary Charlotte Dorking Ayrton. After giving birth to their children Julia and Thomas, they moved to Carnoustie in Banffshire , Scotland , where their second daughter Dorothy was born in 1827.
Colony establishment
Thomas Peel went to London in 1828, where he planned to emigrate to New South Wales . He founded an association there with three other partners to build a British colony on the Australian continent.
The intention was to send 10,000 settlers with all necessary goods and materials for the Swan River Colony to be founded , later Western Australia . The British Colonial Office should guarantee him 4,000,000 acres of land (about 16,000 km²).
The British Colonial Office , the British colonial government at the time, was under political pressure from James Stirling , who had explored the area on the Swan River in 1827 and demanded that the Colonial Office grant the right to develop this area and be appointed governor of the new crown colony. When George Murray took over the Colonial Office as Secretary of State in May 1828 , he did not want to give a binding commitment, because he had little interest in the establishment of the new colony. Possibly through the influence of Thomas Peel's cousin , then Interior Minister Robert Peel (1778–1850) and through the offer of the corporation by Thomas Peel, he changed his attitude, because this way a new British colony could be founded without the use of state capital Initiative to be followed by Stirling. The Colonial Office has now agreed to guarantee Peel land under certain conditions, but only 1,000,000 acres (4,000 km²). When Peel hesitated, Solomon Levey , who already owned land in New South Wales , offered him a long-term sponsor partnership as he figured out economic opportunities in the new colony. Levey, who had previously been a convict himself, sent a ship with 179 convicts from London, which, however, arrived six weeks later than agreed on December 15, 1828, due to adverse weather. Other sources cite 300 or 400 convicts. Levey ran the business in London and Peel was to run it in Australia.
Due to this delay, the land pledge by the British Colonial Office became obsolete and was reduced to 250,000 acres (1,000 km²) in the Cockburn Sound and Murray River area . The agreement between Peel and Levey to ship more goods and materials with Cooper & Levey from Sydney was not honored. The freight never arrived even though it was paid for. Peel never reported the problems to London, which resulted in him ruining the financier Levey.
Failure to found the colony
Peel was a poor organizer, there was also a lack of enough work for the settlers and enough good arable land for successful agriculture. Cattle breeding was also difficult; the sheep ate poisonous plants and died or were attacked by dingoes . There were also several Aboriginal attacks on the settlers and devastating bushfires . Peel fell ill during this difficult time; he had a gunshot wound on his right hand, probably sustained in a duel with the Rockingham's captain who wrecked his last ship while landing in Cockburn Sound. The settlers protested and refused to make payments. Thomas Peel had out-of-pocket expenses of £ 50,000 in the first two years, and numerous settlers, including James Henty , left him and went to Port Phillip or Tasmania . In 1833 his partner Levey died. So the first settlement of the colony had failed.
After this attempt at the private development of a state colony had failed, Karl Marx polemicized the British colonial politician Edward Gibbon Wakefield in a dispute about modern colonization theory :
“First of all, Wakefield discovered in the colonies that the ownership of money, food, machines and other means of production does not yet mark a person as a capitalist if the supplement is missing, the wage worker, the other person who is forced to sell himself voluntarily. He discovered that capital is not a thing, but a social relationship between people mediated by things. Mr. Peel, he complains to us, took food and means of production to the amount of £ 50,000 with him from England to the Swan River, New Holland. Mr. Peel was careful not to bring along 3,000 working class people, men, women and children. Once at the place of destination, 'Mr Peel stayed without a servant to make his bed or to draw water from the river for him.' Unfortunate Mr. Peel, who provided for everything except the export of the English production conditions to the Swan River! "
Late life
On July 31, 1832, 250,000 acres of land were pledged to Peel, and in 1833 he began building a farmhouse on the Serpentine River , which was completed in 1839. Peel's family arrived with his wife's mother and a maid in April 1834; In 1838 Thomas Peel founded a whaling company with a partner. In 1839 he was elected to the Legislative Council , but gave up this mandate in 1841, after fourteen months. In 1839 his family returned to England, but was not allowed to return. Peel's eldest daughter Julia died in 1856, and his wife the following year. Thomas Peel died impoverished in Mandurah in Western Australia in 1865.
Others
The Peel region and an estuary , the Peel Inlet , were named after Peel in Western Australia . Despite his failure, he is considered one of the founding fathers of Western Australia alongside the first Governor James Stirling.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Thomas Peel at www.adb.online.anu.edu.au . Retrieved February 3, 2011
- ↑ a b Peel, Thomas (c. 1795–1864) on gutenberg.net.au . Retrieved February 3, 2011
- ^ Karl Marx - Friedrich Engels - Works, Volume 23, Das Kapital. Vol. I, Seventh Section, pp. 793/794 Dietz Verlag, Berlin / GDR 1973 Das Kapital Online at www.mlwerke.de
- ↑ Information from the Mandurah Museum at www.mandurahcommunitymuseum.org ( Memento of the original from September 12, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 142 kB). Retrieved February 3, 2011
- ^ Warren Bert Kimberly: History of West Australia by Warren Bert Kimberly. Foundation of the Colony. Chapter 5 on en.wikisource . Retrieved February 6, 2011
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Peel, Thomas |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Australian settler and one of the first landowners in Western Australia |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1793 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Carnoustie , Lancashire , UK |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 22, 1865 |
| Place of death | Mandurah , Western Australia Australia |