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- [S3] FS.
He was educated at Westminster school and at Oriel and Exeter colleges, Oxford, paying, while an undergraduate, frequent visits to Edmund Burke, a distant relative, at his house, Butler's court, at Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. Abandoning, after some months' study at the bar, an original intention to enter the legal profession, he was gazetted an ensign in the Grenadier guards (22.11.1798), owing this advancement to the patronage, after the death of Edmund Burke, of William Windham, the secretary at war.
In 1800 he married Elizabeth Bourke, youngest daughter of John Bourke, receiver-general of the land-tax for Middlesex; two sons and three daughters were born. He was on active service in Holland, where he was severely wounded in the jaw. In 1806 he was appointed to serve under Sir Samuel Auchmuty as quartermaster-general in South American waters, taking part in the siege and storming of Montevideo and in the British expedition against Buenos Aires. In 1808-09 he was in Portugal as assistant to the quartermaster-general, his fluent Spanish aiding him in diplomatic relations with Spanish army headquarters until 1809, when he resigned and returned to England. As a military resident he served again in Galicia (1812-14), being stationed at Corunna. The war over, he was promoted to colonel and, in 1821, major-general.
In 1825, when he was on the staff at Malta, he was offered the appointment of lieutenant-governor of the eastern districts of the Cape Colony, Wilmot Horton having been impressed by his evidence before a parliamentary committee on the state of Ireland. It was understood that he would supersede Lord Charles Somerset* when, as eventually happened in March 1826, Somerset went on leave. Throughout his term of office at the Cape, however, B. was acting governor only.
He reached the colony in February 1826, when none of its pressing problems seemed to be in sight of solution. Much remained to be done for the betterment of the lot of the slaves, the judicial machinery was urgently in need of reform, while freedom of the press had not yet been achieved. Moreover, as B. complained to R.W. Hay at the colonial office, the continued presence of the crown commissioners of inquiry reduced the colonial government virtually to impotence.
His administration none the less went some way towards creating a new framework of government and society. His adaptation of the Trinidad ordinance, while improving the lot of the slaves, took account of local conditions, for example, the illiteracy among some slave-owners which justified the omission of an obligatory punishment record book. The ordinance was part of a decade of amelioration of the slaves' lot before emancipation. B.'s legal training enabled him in 1828 to discuss intelligently with the newly appointed judges the change-over in judicial administration foreshadowed by the charter of the previous year. At the same time, though sympathetic with the ideal of freedom of the press, he was obliged by instructions from Earl Bathurst* to suppress, in May 1827, George Greig's* South African Commercial Advertiser. He gave Greig the contract to supply the government offices with stationery. Within the civil establishments he found it necessary to remodel departments, encountering difficulty in filling subordinate posts in the new judiciary. When Richard Plasket returned to Britain B. found a new government secretary in Lt-Col. John Bell.*
Though humanitarian in his sympathies, B. was no negrophilist. He was popular with the white colonists, partly because he was quick to discern the heavy burdens borne by white administrators, and insisted, despite financial stringency, on appointing additional functionaries to enable civil commissioners and other officers to deal with the mounting arrears of government in a period of reconstruction. The fiftieth ordinance of 1828, with its substantial concessions to the Hottentots, owed little to his initiative, although he discussed the draft with Judge W.W. Burton.* To relieve labour shortages on farms he permitted Bantu to enter the colony with passes issued by field-cornets (Ordinance 49 of 1828). Each of these ordinances was epoch-making: the one in establishing the civil rights of 'all free persons of colour', the other in foreshadowing a relationship with the Bantu which was not merely external to the colony. While making a concession to farmers over the labour shortage, B. attempted to tighten the operation of the spoor law on the eastern frontier by forbidding patrols in Xhosa territory unless the stolen cattle were in sight. In effect, his frontier measures can be said to have amounted to a repeal of the reprisal system.
B. handed over the government of the Cape to Sir Lowry Cole* on 9.9.1828. On leaving the Cape in November 1828, he declined the governorship of the Bahamas, but, however congenial he found the life of an Irish landowner, he soon felt the need to augment his income. He therefore accepted the appointment, in March 1831, to the governorship of New South Wales, succeeding the controversial governor Ralph Darling, and reaching Sydney on 3.12.1831. In Australia he strove to hold the balance fairly between exclusives and emancipists. The exclusives, however, bitterly criticized his proposal to substitute civil for military juries in criminal cases, the more so since the new governor had shown concern for the miseries of convicts in chain-gangs and was inclined to criticize the severity of magistrates. He made no attempt to restrict squatting in authorized areas, but insisted that squatters who had hitherto occupied crown land without title or official sanction should obtain grazing licences. He persuaded the colonial office to embark on a system of assisted immigration. The press he freed from executive control. With the nominee legislative council he was on good terms, regularly submitting estimates of expenditure. In his desire to establish a more democratic body, two-thirds of which would be elective, he was supported by the liberals. In London, however, it was thought desirable to post-pone such a measure until transportation had been terminated.
In 1836 B. initiated legislation which provided that grants should be made to the chief religious denominations in proportion to the number of their adherents. Almost as unpopular in conservative circles was his educational policy, involving government control and finance. Because of the strength of the opposition this policy had to be abandoned. B.'s leading opponent was the colonial treasurer, C.D. Riddell. Angered by his persistent hostility, B. excluded him from meetings of his executive council. A mild reprimand from the secretary of state occasioned B.'s resignation (30.1.1837). He had meanwhile visited Port Phillip, ordering a street plan to be prepared of a town that he proposed to name Melbourne.
He left New South Wales in December 1837. He was offered, but declined, the governorship of Jamaica, preferring to settle down as a member of the local gentry at Thornfield. In 1839 he was appointed high sheriff of the county of Limerick. With the third Earl Fitzwilliam he edited The works and correspondence of Edmund Burke, published in eight volumes in 1852.
He was a more than competent colonial governor. Tactful and possessed of great personal charm, he did much to disarm opposition. His kindly disposition enabled him, in South Africa, to soften the acerbities left by the autocratic government of Lord Charles Somerset's later years. In Australia he struggled to heal the animosities of exclusives and emancipists. That he was less successful in New Zealand can scarcely be attributed to faulty statesmanship. He had been instructed from London to appoint James Busby as a resident, chiefly to protect Maori interests. B., in remote Sydney, did what he could to urge Busby to safeguard the Maori way of life by such measures as the prohibition of the importation and sale of spirits. But the resident's authority was disputed both by whites and natives. B. disapproved of the proposal that Britain should maintain troops in New Zealand, but in 1837, a few months before his departure, he sent Captain Hobson, of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, to protect settlers there.
B. was made a K.C.B. in 1835 and a lieutenant-general in 1837, being appointed colonel-in-chief of the 64th regiment in the same year. During his long retirement at Thornfield he was made'a general (11.11.1851). He became partly blind in his later years, and died suddenly in his seventy-ninth year.
His elder son was an invalid, the other a barrister and public servant. His eldest daughter married Dudley Perceval, son of the British prime minister, Spencer Perceval; he was clerk of the council of advice at the Cape.
There is a statue of B. outside the Mitchell library, Sydney, erected by public subscription soon after his departure from Australia.
- [S2] SESA, (Nationale Boekhandel).
Colonial governor. e was a distant relative of Edmund Burke. In his army career he was promoted to major-general. Acting Governor of the Cape Colony 1826-28, on Somerset's departure, he had virtually to re-model the civil and judicial establishments of the Colony. An excellent and impartial administrator, he was later (1831-37) governor of New South Wales.
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1777 - 1855 (78 years)
