Apéndice III: Producción científica y trabajos realizados
2.4.1 Organización funcional del músculo esquelético
During the three decades of Pedder’s official career as chief justice, settler society in Van Diemen’s Land was governed by a small elite, comprising members of the civil and military establishments. At the same time, an increasing number of free colonists with social or political ambition sought to distinguish themselves from the larger convict and emancipist populations. Many trans-colonial visitors were initially struck by the familiar English appearance of Hobart Town. Arriving from India in 1827, for example, surveyor
16 K. McKenzie, Scandal in the Colonies: Sydney and Cape Town, 1820-1850 (Melbourne,
George Frankland wrote that he had ‘never been in any foreign country where so few foreign objects meet one’s eye as in this Colony. It is purely English in every
respect excepting the Wood fires’.17 Travelling from India two years later, his
friend, Elizabeth Fenton, perceived ‘an indefinable “English air”’ as she sailed
into ‘Hobarton’ in 1829.18 The ‘Englishness’ of Hobart Town and its environs
masked an unfamiliar social landscape, however; for, while the traditional hierarchies of preindustrial England were partially replicated in colonial
society,19 distance from original circles of acquaintance helped to generate a
sense of anonymity which both facilitated reinvention and confused
conventional boundaries of social status.20 Among the free and emancipist
settler population, this ambiguity intensified anxieties about maintaining personal status and interpreting that of others.
As chief justice, Pedder’s office shielded him from the ‘status anxiety’ experienced by many of his contemporaries: it simultaneously defined his social identity and granted him membership of the colonial elite. Under the Charter of Justice of 1823, the Chief Justice of Van Diemen’s Land was accorded ‘rank and precedence above and before all our Subjects whomsoever within the Island of Van Diemen’s Land’, with the exception of the governor and ‘all such persons as, by law or usage, take place in England before our Chief Justice of the Court of
17 Frankland to Hay, 15 August 1827, in G. Frankland, Five Letters from George Frankland in Van
Diemen’s Land, Privately Addressed to R.W. Hay of the Colonial Office (Adelaide, Sullivan’s Cove, 1997), p. 9. Formerly Surveyor-General at Poona, Frankland was an accomplished amateur artist and architect. P.R. Eldershaw, ‘Frankland, George (1800-1838)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre for Biography, Australian National University,
<http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010378b.htm> accessed 23 August 2010.
18 E.K. Fenton, The Journal of Mrs Fenton: A Narrative of Her Life in India, the Isle of France
(Mauritius) and Tasmania during the Years 1826-1830 (London, E. Arnold, 1901), p. 341.
19 James Boyce argues that the large middling ranks of the ‘English social pyramid’ were not
replicated in the colony. J. Boyce, Van Diemen’s Land (Melbourne, Black Inc., 2008), p. 177.
20 McKenzie, Scandal in the Colonies, pp. 4-7, 12-14; P. Russell, ‘A Wish of Distinction’: Colonial
Gentility and Femininity (Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1994), pp. 6, 10-11; K.M. Reid, Gender, Crime and Empire: Convicts, Settlers and the State in Early Colonial Australia (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2007), p. 74.
King’s Bench’.21 At most times, then, during his official career, Chief Justice
Pedder was second only to the Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen’s Land in matters of precedence. As Governor Sir William Denison observed in the 1840s, precedence remained ‘a matter of considerable importance’ in the colony; his memoir records that a ‘story was in vogue … of a dispute on the subject … so inveterate that it could only be settled with reference to England, and a direct
and authoritative decision on the matter by the Secretary of State!’22 With his
elevation to the imperial honour of knighthood in 1838, Sir John Pedder’s eminence within the colony’s social and professional hierarchy was further
emphasised and secured.23
When Pedder returned to England in 1856, the Courier recalled that, as chief
justice, he had ‘zealously guarded his own station, and denied himself much of social intercourse, from the danger incidental to bringing the judicial office into
frequent contact with the turmoil of a newly planted colony’.24 Reassessing the
career of Pedder’s ‘eccentric’ colleague, Puisne Judge Algernon Sidney
Montagu,25 Stefan Petrow also identifies the link between social detachment and
judicial independence.26 During a libel case in 1841, for example, Mr Justice
21 Warrant of the Charter of Justice, HRA III, IV, p. 479.
22 R. Davis and S. Petrow (eds.), Varieties of Vice-Regal Life (Van Diemen’s Land Section) by
Sir William and Lady Denison (Hobart, Tasmanian Historical Research Association, 2004), p. 47, n. 37 (Denison’s footnote). Denison served as Governor Van Diemen’s Land, 1847-1854.
23 Pedder’s knighthood, conferred by Letters Patent, was gazetted on 27 November 1838 and
reported in the colonial press the following year. London Gazette, 27 November 1838, p. 2715; Sydney Gazette, 12 March 1839, p. 3; Colonial Times, 26 March 1839, p. 7. Some of its political implications are explored in Chapter 5.
24 Courier, 5 February 1856, p. 2.
25 P.A. Howell, ‘Montagu, Algernon Sidney (1802–1880)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography,
National Centre of Biography, Australian National University,
<http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/montagu-algernon-sidney-2470/text3311> accessed 31 October 2011.
26 S. Petrow, ‘Moving in an “eccentric orbit”: The independence of Judge Algernon Sidney
Montagu in Van Diemen’s Land, 1833-47’ in H. Foster, B.L. Berger, and A.R. Buck (eds.), The Grand Experiment: Law and Legal Culture in British Settler Societies (Vancouver, UBC Press, 2008), p. 157.
Montagu was outraged when the Courier ‘dragged’ his name ‘before the public’.27
‘No man’, he railed from the bench, ‘can have endeavoured more than I have done to avoid mixing in party or individual quarrels: I have lived like a hermit in
Van Diemen’s Land’.28 This seclusion, however, could be taken too far. ‘If
Mr Montagu had thought proper to mingle with more sociality amongst the
society of our capital’, the Colonial Times advised in 1843,
he would have discovered that, while some of those who dwell in high places are indeed deserving of his contempt, there are others whose friendship would be valuable, and whose esteem would be
both desirable and complimentary; but now his Honor [sic] regards
everyone with a feeling of impatient irritability, indicative of his own
personal scorn towards the colonial race.29
No such criticism was levelled at Pedder. Punctiliousness and professional prudence nevertheless informed his desire to maintain a degree of detachment, as illustrated by an officially documented dispute between the chief justice and the Sheriff of Van Diemen’s Land, in 1830-1831.
After five years as sheriff, Dudley Fereday complained to the Colonial Office of ‘social neglect’ and ‘personal slights’ from Chief Justice Pedder and Governor
Arthur, and sought a transfer to another colony.30 Writing to Arthur in May
1830, Fereday further complained of Pedder’s conduct; eight months later, Pedder responded officially, albeit reluctantly, to Fereday’s three charges:
1st That my conduct towards him has been marked by evident dislike
& entire neglect.
2nd That on a particular occasion which he mentions, I betrayed so
much vehemence of manner that he felt it right to leave the room in
27 Courier, 11 June 1841, p. 2.
28 Hobart Town Courier, 11 June 1841, p. 2; Petrow, ‘Moving in an “eccentric orbit”’, p. 159. 29 Colonial Times, 2 May 1843, p. 2; Petrow, ‘Moving in an “eccentric orbit”’, p. 157. The
professional relationship between Pedder and Montagu was also discordant.
30 P. Chapman (ed.), The Diaries and Letters of G.T.W.B. Boyes: Volume I, 1820-1832 (Melbourne,
Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 320, n. 22; [no author], ‘Fereday, Dudley (1789?-1849)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, <http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010353b.htm> accessed 23 August 2010.
which we were, under a strong feeling of having been very ill treated.
3rd That I have lately resumed my unpleasant manner of speaking to
him.31
Pedder’s correspondence indicates that he was at a loss to understand Fereday’s grievances, ‘as he did not complain of any act of rudeness or incivility on my
part’.32 Instead, the ‘whole matter of his complaints appeared to be that I did not
visit or associate with him’.33 Pedder maintained that he had ‘never treated
[Fereday] in his office with the slightest disrespect or withheld from him any
support to which as an officer of the Court he was entitled’.34 He was
nonetheless clear that he had ‘been generally careful not to enter, or be led into conversation with him upon subjects unconnected with our relative official duties’.35
Pedder’s impatience with Fereday’s unwillingness to respect the boundaries of their professional relationship is revealed in his recollection that
once or twice at a former period, when much public dissension prevailed, upon Mr Fereday’s taking occasion to speak to me of the conduct and character of some persons who were then distinguished by the part they took in those dissensions, I was obliged to decline the conversation in so decided a manner as might leave no doubt in
Mr Fereday’s mind that it was my determined purpose to do so.36
Increasingly vexed, Pedder was drawn into a ‘Fracas’ with Fereday in May
1830.37 Colonial diarist, George Boyes, recorded that a quarrel erupted between
the two men ‘in consequence of F.’s writing home to his friend Lyttleton M.P. in
complaint of his treatment by the Lieut. Governor and the Judge’.38 It was one of
31 Pedder to Arthur, 1 January 1831, AOT GO39/1/1, f. 198. Fereday’s letter is not extant. 32 Pedder to Arthur, 1 January 1831, GO39/1/1, f. 201.
33 Pedder to Arthur, 1 January 1831, GO39/1/1, f. 201. 34 Pedder to Arthur, 1 January 1831, GO39/1/1, f. 200. 35 Pedder to Arthur, 1 January 1831, GO39/1/1, f. 199. 36 Pedder to Arthur, 1 January 1831, GO39/1/1, f. 199.
37 Diary of George Boyes, 3 May 1830, in Chapman, Diaries and Letters of G.T.W.B. Boyes, p. 320. 38 Diary of George Boyes, 3 May 1830, in Chapman, Diaries and Letters of G.T.W.B. Boyes, p. 320,
several conversations during which Pedder expressed his frustration with ‘some
warmth of manner’.39 Pedder conceded that Fereday had
continued so long and so pertinaciously [sic] to enquire what were
my reasons for the conduct which I observed towards him, that after having in vain endeavoured to make him perceive the very awkward situation in which a perseverance in his enquiries placed us I did at
last lose my patience.40
In his defence, Pedder assured Arthur that the ‘vehemence into which
Mr Fereday says I was betrayed was not greater than that which any gentleman
in similar circumstances would feel obliged to make use of, in order to repel an
attempt to force him to an explanation which he is not bound to give’.41
Pedder was evidently perplexed by Arthur’s request for his ‘observations upon Mr Fereday’s letter’ of 3 May 1830, remarking that ‘I can hardly persuade myself that Mr Fereday can mean to complain of me because I have not confided to him my opinion … or because I have avoided his society’; neither could he conceive that Arthur or the Secretary of State could ‘desire any explanation from me upon
such matters of mere private life’.42 Indeed, he was ‘sorry and almost ashamed
to mention in an official communication much of what it contains’, but complied in the belief that he ‘could not omit any part’ of his explanation ‘without either disregarding your Ex[cellency’s] command or appearing to be desirous of
concealing what has really been my conduct towards Mr. F.’.43 Pedder
nonetheless retained his conviction that neither Fereday ‘nor any man with whom I have never been on any other terms than such as we were then on, had
any right to ask me my reasons for declining his society’.44
39 Pedder to Arthur, 1 January 1831, GO39/1/1, f. 201. 40 Pedder to Arthur, 1 January 1831, GO39/1/1, f. 201.
41 Pedder to Arthur, 1 January 1831, GO39/1/1, f. 200. Editorial emphasis. 42 Pedder to Arthur, 1 January 1831, GO39/1/1, ff. 199-200.
43 Pedder to Arthur, 1 January 1831, GO39/1/1, f. 203. 44 Pedder to Arthur, 1 January 1831, GO39/1/1, f. 201.
Pedder’s firm defence of his own gentlemanly conduct against ‘vague’ accusations of neglect points to the ‘lines of demarcation’ which characterised
the stratified societies of the British world.45 As Pedder confirmed to Arthur, it
was ‘partly from dissimilarity in our habits of life and thinking, and partly from motives of prudence, [that] I have avoided all intimacy and association with
Mr Fereday ever since I first knew him’.46 While Fereday was known to be the
son of ‘a common collier’, the ‘habits of life and thinking’ most offensive to Pedder probably concerned the sheriff’s side-line as a moneylender, which
earned him a reputation as ‘the Prince of Usurers’.47 In contrast to his
willingness to rebuke Fereday, Pedder was reticent to reprimand a social equal. During an inquiry into the disrespectful conduct of the attorney-general, Alfred Stephen, in 1836, Pedder told Stephen that ‘I have often been on the point of speaking to you on the subject, but it is unpleasant to one’s feelings to be telling a Gentleman in private that he does not treat you with the proper respect’.48
Professional prudence did not isolate Pedder entirely from colonial society. His interactions were, however, clearly influenced by practical constraints. Having undertaken ‘a Tour of Inspection through several of the Agricultural Settlements’ with Governor Arthur in 1825, for example, Pedder wrote of his surprise that ‘in the country, the number of respectable Settlers is so much smaller than I
expected to find it’.49 Six years later, having ‘scarcely ever quitted [Hobart
Town] but to make hasty journeys on duty to the other side of the Island’, Pedder conceded that he still had ‘but little personal acquaintance with the
45 Pedder to Arthur, 1 January 1831, GO39/1/1, f. 198; McKenzie, Scandal in the Colonies, p. 52. 46 Pedder to Arthur, 1 January 1831, GO39/1/1, f. 198.
47 [no author], ‘Fereday, Dudley (1789?-1849)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography; Colonial
Times, 15 April 1834, p. 6.
48 Transcript of Executive Council minutes of meeting, 23 September 1836, CO 280/74, f. 478a,
AJCP reel PRO 274; J.M. Bennett, Lives of the Australian Chief Justices. Sir Alfred Stephen: Third Chief Justice of New South Wales, 1844-1873 (Sydney, The Federation Press, 2009), p. 86. Editorial emphasis.
49 Hobart Town Gazette, 3 June 1825, p. 2; Pedder to Wilmot Horton, private, 13 September 1825,
Settlers’.50 In Hobart Town itself, ‘society’ was also comparatively limited. As
the patrician George Frankland reported to his patron at the Colonial Office in 1827, he had ‘been agreeably surprised in the description of Society’ in Hobart Town: ‘What there is’, he wrote, ‘is really very good, but then I should say it is
limited to eight or ten families’.51 Mrs Fenton was similarly surprised that the
‘society here is very superior to what I had expected to find’, for she had been
‘fully prepared to be without any that [she] could mingle in’.52 Other visitors
were perhaps less particular. Visiting artist Augustus Prinsep observed that ‘The society of Hobarton is very pleasant, and … has been very kind; but the chief amusement to strangers is the constitution of this society’: most of his ‘new
friends’ had ‘sprung from the lowest democracy’.53 Beyond the small number of
prominent families enumerated by Frankland, Pedder probably found few social equals in the colony.
As McKenzie illustrates, identifying and cementing acquaintance through formal
visiting was central to the ‘politics of bourgeois respectability’.54 At the ‘apex of
the visiting pyramid’, Government House became the site for forging political
and social alliances, amid dinner parties and balls.55 In determining whether to
admit newcomers to their circle, many respectable inhabitants took their cue from the vice-regal couple. As colonial auditor, George Boyes, wrote to his wife in 1826, the ‘Public Officers always wait till the first dinner at Government
50 Report of the Committee on Immigration, 4 July 1831, Enclosure 1 in Governor Arthur’s
Dispatch No. 42, 9 July 1831, CO 280/29, f. 255, AJCP reel PRO 248.
51 Frankland to Hay, 15 August 1827, in Frankland, Five Letters, p. 12. Frankland was the
grandson of an English baronet and a Scottish baron. Mrs Fenton observed that Frankland was ‘above the common style of men, and a few minutes’ conversation convinced me he was equally high-bred and kindly obliging’. Fenton, Journal of Mrs Fenton, p. 343.
52 Fenton, Journal of Mrs Fenton, p. 357. Original emphasis.
53 A. Prinsep, The Journal of a Voyage from Calcutta to Van Diemen’s Land: Comprising a
Description of that Colony during a Six Months’ Residence, from Original Letters Selected by Mrs. A. Prinsep; and, Illustrations to Prinsep’s Journal of a Voyage from Calcutta to Van Diemen’s Land from Original Sketches taken during the Years 1829 and 1830 (Hobart, Melanie Publications, 1981; originally published London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1833), p. 117.
54 McKenzie, Scandal in the Colonies, p. 52. 55 McKenzie, Scandal in the Colonies, p. 52.
House to see how the new arrival is received before they shew [sic] him any
neglect or attention’.56 At his first appearance, Boyes was ‘favoured’ with ‘a long
conversation with His Excellency … which had a due effect upon the Company’, including Chief Justice Pedder: soon after, the ‘Judge apologised for not having
called’.57 A further glimpse of the visiting culture emerges from the
correspondence of Anna Maria Nixon, wife of the first Anglican Bishop of Tasmania. As Mrs Nixon related to her family in 1843, ‘I have just completed a round of sixty visits with Lady Pedder, everybody high and low having left cards
on us’.58 Unlike the bishop, however, who ‘must not alienate any true friend of
the Church’, the chief justice could afford to be more particular about who was
admitted to his circle.59
Among those with whom Pedder did choose to mix were wealthy settlers Charles and Ellen Viveash, who arrived in Hobart Town 1834 and took up temporary residence at the Macquarie Hotel, near the Pedder’s home in
Macquarie Street.60 Maria Pedder called on Mrs Viveash several times after their
arrival, only to find that Ellen was too ill to receive her. Having recovered her
health, Ellen and Charles joined the Pedders for dinner ‘the next week’.61 In a
striking contrast to Bennett’s construction of Pedder as cold and dull, Mrs Viveash reported enthusiastically of this first evening with the Pedders:
‘What delightful people they are, pleasant, gentile [sic], well-informed, clever and
good’.62
56 Boyes to Mary Boyes, 9 November 1826, in Chapman, Diaries and Letters of G.T.W.B. Boyes,
p. 266.
57 Boyes to Mary Boyes, 9 November 1826, in Chapman, Diaries and Letters of G.T.W.B. Boyes,
p. 266.
58 Anna Maria Nixon to Echo, 23 August 1843, in Nixon, The Pioneer Bishop, p. 11. 59 Anna Maria Nixon to Echo, 23 August 1843, in Nixon, The Pioneer Bishop, pp. 11-12.
60 Ellen Viveash to Mrs Tanner, 26 January 1834, in Statham, The Tanner Letters, p. 73. In the
1820s, the Macquarie Hotel advertised ‘Genteel and commodious accommodation’ for ‘Gentlemen and Private Families’. G. Corney, Macquarie House Conservation Management Plan, 23 June 2008, p. 6, <http://www.stors.tas.gov.au/au-7-0095-00610> accessed 21 July 2009.
61 Ellen Viveash to Mrs Tanner, 26 January 1834, in Statham, The Tanner Letters, p. 73.