Political History of Australia

This episode we pause the story of Governor Lachlan Macquarie to take a panoramic tour of Australia’s near-abroad and Australia’s infant settlements in the early 1820s. 

With the Napoleonic Wars finally over and Britannia ruling the waves, London was able to focus more attention to its continental claim in the south. We survey the remarkably benign geopolitical setting in this corner of the globe and see how that fr...

In 1813 New South Wales was a fast-growing, optimistic society. The colony’s teenage growth spurt could no longer be contained by the rugged sandstone wall of the Blue Mountains just 50 kilometres west of Sydney.

There were multiple valiant efforts to cross the Blue Mountains but it took the determination of Gregory Blaxland, backed by William Lawson and William Wentworth, to finally crack the code by staying on the high ...

After the upheaval of the Rum Rebellion, London finally responds. In late December 1809, Lieutenant-Colonel Lachlan Macquarie arrives in Sydney Harbour. He moves quickly to be sworn in as governor on New Year’s Day 1810. Unlike his predecessors, Macquarie does not ease into power. He seizes it.

From his first days in office Governor Macquarie moves with startling speed and authority. He orders the discredited New South Wales C...

The men who led the march on Government House to depose Governor William Bligh in 1808 knew there would be consequences. Yet the Rebel Administration played a weak hand with skill and restraint. Beyond removing Bligh at gunpoint, they worked hard to appear measured and proper at every step.

In this episode we examine London’s firm response to the Rum Rebellion: dispatching 800 battle-hardened troops from the 73rd Regiment, ord...

On the evening of 26 January 1808 the New South Wales Corps marched on Government House and did something extraordinary: they deposed Governor William Bligh at gunpoint. It remains the only successful armed overthrow of government in Australian history. What followed was one of the strangest and most revealing chapters in our early colonial story — the Rebel Administration.

For nearly two years the colony was run by the very m...

The label Rum Rebellion was a smear dreamed up decades after the seismic events of 26 January 1808. Those dramatic events were not about rum. It was fight over what the future of NSW should be.

For some including Governor Bligh, NSW was to remain a large-scale open prison with a simply economy of small scale ex-convict farmers and an iron grip control by the state. But 20 years into the colony and too many residents c...

As 1807 unfolded, the little British colony of New South Wales was politically charged. Previous governors had attempted to reassert official authority by writing to letters to London and saying mean words about John Macarthur and his ‘trading faction.’ Governor Bligh arrived knowing the job of bringing down Macarthur was his job and his alone.

There were a series of scandals that erupted across 1807. Almo...

Captain William Bligh assumed office as the Governor of New South Wales in August 1806. Bligh had had a brilliant career at sea but it had been sullied by reports of him being a horrible boss. The governorship of New South Wales was seen by Bligh as a way to redeem his reputation … but rather than change his ways, he doubled down on all his worst traits. Bligh arrived with the mindset of a war-time governor. N...

More than anyone, Sir Joseph Banks (the botanist who sailed with Captain Cook) deserves credit for creating modern Australia. For years, before and after the First Fleet, Banks served as the unofficial Minister for New South Wales.

As Banks aged however his judgement slipped and by 1804, his sway over the colony was slipping. So Banks decided to bet big by sending in as governor a famously tough guy (and loyal ally) to reassert...

Governor Philip Gidley King had had two big wins – he had secured Bass Strait and Van Diemen’s Land for Britain and he had ruthlessly and quickly crushed the Castle Hill Rebellion. But Governor King was a micro-manager and he heavily regulated not only economic activity but also the social lives of the colonists. All his central-planning resulted in the return of food rationing and general disquiet.

An exaspera...

The 1804 Castle Hill Rebellion was the most dramatic convict uprising in Australian history. The rebels were Irish political prisoners who had arrived en masse between 1800 and 1802. They were a powder keg. Almost immediately on arrival they plotted a grand mutiny. The purpose was not just freedom … but freedom to return to fight for Irish independence.

The Castle Hill Rebellion was over and out in less th...

In 1788 Governor Arthur Phillip had proclaimed that the British Empire was now in charge of two-thirds of a continent. It was an audacious claim for a little speck of 1,500 souls. They did quickly build a second settlement on Norfolk Island because London had said it was a priority … but for the next 14 years there would be no more settlements. The process of continental expansion began with a burst in 1802 an...

In 1802 the political focus of New South Wales was not domestic but geopolitical. The British and the French had been at war for nine years already and had well over a decade ahead of conflict ahead … but in 1802 Britian and France were officially at peace. It was during this interval that two French ships sailed into Sydney Harbour and stayed five months. It was the Baudin Expedition personally commissioned b...

In September 1801, Captain John Macarthur of the NSW Corps was challenged to a duel by his commanding officer. Macarthur declined the challenge but his opponent was insistent and so the duel proceeded. Macarthur shot and badly wounded his commanding officer. Governor King soon arrived on the scene and Macarthur was arrested. Governor King had already been in a vicious spat with Macarthur and so King relished thi...

In the late 1790s, John Macarthur took a step back from politics as he was pre-occupied with establishing the Australian wool industry. In mid-1800, the new governor Philip Gidley King was sworn in and it was clear he was a man on a mission to restore the prestige of the state … so Macarthur offered to sell everything and return to England. That sale didn’t eventuate but before long Macarthur would be challen...

In the first year of the 19th century Captain Philip Gidley King was sworn in as the third Governor of New South Wales. The second governor (John Hunter) had come to the job expecting to be a ‘gentlemen governor’ and New South Wales a comfy reward for his decades of distinguished service to the British Empire. But Hunter was driven half-mad by the colony and ended up sacked by London.

Governor King was you...

Governor John Hunter served as the second governor of New South Wales during the second half of the 1790s. As Hunter’s governorship progressed, his misery and paranoia grew as he was increasingly ignored by London and his colonial peers.  Hunter was given a warning in 1798, when London advised him a replacement governor had been selected for whenever Hunter may leave the role … but Hunter continued to fr...

After the John Baughan Affair political tension returned to the small but now flourishing colony of New South Wales. It was 1796. In this increasingly tense atmosphere some regular troops at 3am stole a couple of turnips from the Governor’s garden. It was hardly a hanging offence but escalation begat escalation and soon it was a proxy war between Governor John Hunter and Captain John Macarthur as to w...

Governor John Hunter arrived in Sydney in 1795 with instructions directly from King George III to clean up the perceived mess in New South Wales. Hunter had first come to Sydney with the First Fleet in 1788 but he hadn’t been in Sydney for four years and so was surprised and delighted to find that, rather than being a mess, New South Wales was thriving. Hunter wrote back to London in praise of the colony and the lea...