ize and exploit to advantage a general dissatisfaction with var ious aspects of imperial land administration...M The split, when it did come, was a split between urban and pastoral inter
ests rather than between bosses and workers. Initially, urban interests allied themselves to some extent with the neglected agri cultural interest but finally a town versus country dichotomy evolved which persists to this day. Each section of the com munity developed its own identity --- its own myth --- and each warrants closer examination against a wider background that is usually accorded Australian myth-making.
At the beginning of a momentous decade, however, all this was implicit rather than explicit in the various social groupings and economic interests that joined to celebrate the col ony's Jubilee in January 1838 and to sign Addresses of Welcome to the new Governor, Sir George Gipps, in Februaxy of the same year.
42 Peter Burroughs, Britain and Australia, 1967),
p. n.
Chapter Two
Jubilee Year: 1838
It is the Jubilee; it shall be Holy unto you Lev. xxv. 12
On 26 January, 1838, New South Wales, the Penal Colony of Her Uncrowned Majesty Queen Victoria, celebrated its
50
th anni versary, There is no record that the young Queen (who was 20) thought anything of the matter. In 1838 Benjamin Disraeli, her favourite-to-be, had not discovered the Empire. At thirty- three, he was too busy providing himself with a firm political base by marrying a rich widow to concern himself with Imperial matters. Besides, the Queen was a Whig. Whether from con viction or from fervent admiration for her Prime Minister, the charming, aging, ex-roue, Lord Melbourne, is a matter of con-p
jecture.'"
Lord Melbourne's Whiggism was traditional and lazy rather than vigorous and idealistic. . His instinct was always to let well alone but he did not agree with what he told the Queen was the current and dangerous 'fashionable theory' of letting colon ies go the instant they caused trouble. As the Queen recorded in her Journal, "Lord Melbourne observed with great justice that would be just the way to encourage them to revolt, for they would
say then, 'Why, we have nothing to do but to revolt to get rid
•y
of our masters J' " J
The Prime Minister's homilies to his Royal Mistress on col onial affairs were couched in simple terms. "Lord Melbourne ob served," she wrote on 31 August, 1838, "(that) George 111 was deeply hurt at the loss of the American provinces, which I obser ved was no wonder; I said I thought it was his fault. Lord M.
said most likely it was; but that it was impossible any longer to 1. The young Princess Victoria became Queen on 20th June 1837;
the Coronation took place on 28 June,
1838
.2. C. Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria (London, 1972), p. 143« 3. Viscount Esther, The Girlhood of Queen Victoria vols.
London, 1912), Vol. 1, pp. 338-9.
Decade 35
keep up the great Colonial Policy, namely that they should exclu sively trade with England and make nothing for themselves ...."
He addedt "The Separation was easily done, they had nothing
to do but to declare it ... the first settlers were composed of
people who left England in discontent, — of dissenters, etc.,
<}• and consequently no loyal people could spring from them ...."
The first settlers in New South Wales also left England in discontent for they were convicts and had no choice in the matter
nor, as the first Governor, Capt. Arthur Phillip R.N. observed,
were they colonists fit "to lay the foundations of an Empire"* In
deed, he thought "they should ever remain separated from the gar
rison and other settlers that may come from Europe, and not be
allowed to mix with them, even after the
7
or14
years for whichthey are transported may be e x p i r e d . T h i n g s did not turn out
like that and by
1838
many of the leading colonists were convictEmancipists clamouring, through the Australian Patriotic Assoc
iation, for civil and political rights equal to those accorded
free-born Englishmen elsewhere. Some even demanded rights be
yond anything the British Parliament had been prepared to grant
home-keeping Englishmen in the Reform Bill of 1832. Yet, as
Charles Buller the Australian Patriotic Association’s agent at
Westminster, made clear to Emancipist leaders in Sydney, as
long as New South Wales remained a penal settlement, transport
ation would remain "the great obstacle to your gaining a represen
tative government
...."5
those who lived "in a place in whichthe first care of government must be the security and coercion of
prisoners", he added, could not "enjoy the full liberty of
6
Englishmen." The Queen and Lord Melbourne would have agreed.
Although the Queen may have been inclined to act like the
4. Ibid. p p . 397-8.
5. H.R.N.3.VI., i» 2, P. 53.
6. Australian, 3 July, 1838. Quoted A. C. V. Melbourne,
l a d i e s o f S y d n e y , an d d r a w t h e b l i n d s when t h e c h a i n g a n g s p a s s e d , s h e m u st h a v e b e e n a w a re fro m h e r c o n v e r s a t i o n s w i t h L o rd M e lb o u r n e and Lord P a l m e r s t o n t h a t New S o u th W ales and Van D i e m e n ' s Land e x i s t e d and t h a t h e r d o m i n io n e x t e n d e d o v e r th em a s w e l l a s o v e r I n d i a , t h e W est I n d i e s , U p p er an d Lower C a n a d a , Cape C o lo n y , and t h e s e r i e s o f s t r a t e g i c p o i n t s i n A f r i c a , t h e I n d i a n O cean and t h e E a s t I n d i e s , w h e r e m i l i t a r y b a n d s n i g h t l y p l a y e d God Save t h e Q u een . N e v e r t h e l e s s , s h e m i g h t h a v e b e e n h a r d p r e s s e d t o name them a l l o r p o i n t u n e r r i n g l y t o t h e i r p o s i t i o n s on a C o l o n i a l O f f i c e map. C e r t a i n l y , t h e r e was no r e a s o n f o r h e r i n 1838 t o p a y p a r t i c u l a r a t t e n t i o n t o w h a t Mr. U n d e r - S e c r e t a r y J a m e s S t e p h e n a t t h e C o l o n i a l O f f i c e d i s m i s s e d , som ew hat i r r i t a b l y , a s " t h e p e c u l i a r c o l o n y " •
By an d l a r g e , New S o u th W ales i n 1838 was p r o g r e s s i n g r e a s o n a b l y w e l l d e s p i t e t h e f o r e b o d i n g s o f c o n s e r v a t i v e c o l o n i a l a u t h o r s s u c h a s t h e s h a r p l y i n t e l l i g e n t J a m e s M a c a r t h u r and t h e d u b i o u s " M a jo r " J a m e s M u d ie , E s q . , ^ o r t h e d i s s e n t i n g r a d i c a l l y - m i n d e d J o h n Dunmore L a n g . "The C o lo n y i s l i k e a h e a l t h y c h i l d o u t - g r o w i n g i t s C l o t h e s " , W h i g g is h G o v e r n o r R i c h a r d B o u r k e h a d w r i t t e n i n 1 8 3 6. "We h a v e t o l e t o u t a t u c k e v e r y m o n th"?5 T r u e , i f V i c t o r i a R e g i n a r e a d The T im es w i t h t h e a s s i d u i t y e x p e c t e d o f a Queen s h e c o u l d n o t h a v e m i s s e d t h e r e p o r t e d e v i d e n c e o f w i t n e s s e s b e f o r e t h e P a r l i a m e n t a r y S e l e c t C o m m ittee u n d e r S i r W i l l i a m M o l e s - w o r t h , t h e C o l o n i a l R e f o r m e r , i n q u i r i n g i n t o t h e t r a n s p o r t a t i o n s y s t e m , " i t s e f f i c a c y a s a p u n i s h m e n t , i t s i n f l u e n c e on t h e mor a l s t a t e o f s o c i e t y i n t h e p e n a l c o l o n i e s , and how f a r i t i s s u s c e p t i b l e o f i m p r o v e m e n t" .1 A f t e r n e a r l y t e n y e a r s o f f r a n t i c p a s t o r a l d e v e l o p m e n t J u b i l e e Y e a r f o u n d t h e c o l o n y i n a e u p h o r i c mood d e s p i t e a s l i g h t 7« J . M a c a r t h u r , New S o u th W a le s : I t s p r e s e n r t s t a t e and f u t u r e p r o s p e c t s . ( L o n d o n , 1Ö37) •
8. J . M udie, The F e l o n r y o f New S o u th W ales ( L o n d o n , I8 3 7) . 9* J . D. L a n g , An H i s t o r i c a l an d S t a t i s t i c a l A c c o u n t o f m6W S o u th W ales (2 v o l s . , L o n d o n , 1Ö37) 1 0 . B o u rk e P a p e r s , M.L. v o l . 9. Q u o te d H a z e l K in g , R i c h a r d B o u rk e ( M e l b o u r n e , 1 9 7 1 ) , p . 1 7 8. 11# S. C. on T r a n s p o r t a t i o n . 1 8 3 7 , p . i i i . K o l e s w o r t h (1 8I O - 5 5 ; wa& r e p u t e d l e a d e r o f t h e C o l o n i a l R e f o r m e r s i n P a r l i a m ent a f t e r t h e d e a t h o f L o r d Durham.
Decade 37
depression in trade and an exceptionally dry summer. Within fif ty years, as a dozen or more editorialists, versifyers and ess ayists proclaimed, a penal outpost on the furthest perimeter of civilization had grown into a thriving colony with a valuable ex port staple in wool and an adventurous expanding population spread ing over the hinterland of thriving coastal towns and thrusting out across largely uncharted seas among exotic islands and strange peoples.
The Establishment and Exclusives now had no doubt that Cap tain Arthur Phillip, R.N., first Governor of the colony, had been right when he forecast against all official thinking that he was laying the foundations for an extension of empire. Most of them also shared his conviction that convicts and Emancipists made poor mortar for the construction of free institutions. Educated Eman cipists and their supporters in the Australian Patriotic Associ ation, on the other hand, shared something of the Romantic ex travagance of James Tuckey, Lieutenant aboard the ship which took the first convicts to Port Phillip and Hobart Town (l803-4)> although they might have cast their hopes in different words:
I beheld a second Rome, rising from a coalition of banditti. I beheld it giving laws to the world, and superlative in arms and in arts,look ing down with proud superiority upon the barbar ous nations of the northern hemisphere.^
Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles), musing over a sam ple of clay brought back from Sydney in 1788, was moved to write:
Where Sydney Cove her lucid bosom swells,
Courts her young navies, and the storm repels, High on a rock amid the troubled air
Hope stood supreme, and waved her golden hair ... There, ray’d from cities o'er the cultur'd land,
12. J* Tuckey, Account of a Voyage to Establish a Colony at Port Phillip in Bass's Strait (London^ I8 0 5), p-19C.
Shall bright canals and solid roads expand—
There the proud arch, Collossus-like, bestride Yon glittering streams, and bound the chafing tide; Embellished villas crown the landscape-scene,
Farms wave with gold, and orchards blush between •.•/3 By 1838, Sydney’s elite lived along the ridge above Hooloo- mooloo, high on a rock amid troubled air, where they had pre tty glimpses of sea and ships through shrubs and trees in their
Ilf*
"umbrageous gardens" to the "young navies" gathered on the luc id bosom of Port Jackson. Their material interests, however, lay mbstly inland where the colony's rapidly increasing two mil lion sheep and 400,000horned cattle provided economic foundation for a booming speculative decade which led many men "of gentle blood", as Assistant-Surgeon Thomas Bartlett of the 51st Regi ment of Foot put it, to suppose
that the new world was enjoying all the advantages of the golden age; that people of all descriptions .... were able to elevate themselves to a footing in world ly wealth with, theil* möre fortunate (because earlier born) brethren at home, and, at the same time, to enjoy a purely arcadian existence...not as in the old country, by the possession of a certain quantity of mineral dug from the bowels of the earth, but by own ing a certain number of innocent animals; that wealth was acquired not by means of noisy machinery, nor by precarious commerce, but simply by allowing the ful filment of nature's first law, the propagation of the species • •. •
The less elite, who could not boast of "gentle blood", lived and worked along lower Pitt, George, York and Kent Streets, around the waterfront, or in the Rocks. They did not despise noisy machinery (ex-convict Simeon Lord was already making hats, blankets and stockings from local wool) or pre carious commerce (which had already enriched ex-convicts Kable, Underwood, Lord and a number of other Emancipists) and as 13. Quoted Brian Elliott, The Landscape of Australian Poetry
(Melbourne, 1967), p* 30*
14« J. Maclehouse, Picture of Sydney and Strangers*Guide to