Thomas Brisbane

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Thomas Brisbane bigraphy, stories - British Army general

Thomas Brisbane : biography

23 July 1773 – 27 January 1860

Major-General Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, 1st Baronet, GCH, GCB, FRS, FRSE (23 July 1773 – 27 January 1860) was Governor of New South Wales (1821–25), as recommended by the Duke of Wellington, with whom he had seen military service.

A keen astronomer, he built Australia’s first observatory and encouraged scientific and agricultural training. But jealous rivals smeared his reputation, in league with the Colonial Secretary, Goulburn, and he had to defend his conduct, though an inquest cleared him. A new convict settlement was named after him, and became today’s city of Brisbane.

Named after Thomas Brisbane

The following features are named after Thomas Brisbane:

  • Brisbane, a crater on the Moon.
  • Brisbane River and the city of Brisbane, the state capital of Queensland, Australia. (The city of Brisbane, California may in turn have been named after Brisbane, Queensland, but the derivation is disputed.)
  • Brisbane Street, Greenock
  • Brisbane Water, an estuary on the Central Coast of New South Wales.
  • Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium, located in Brisbane, Queensland.
  • Noddsdale, the valley near Largs where his birthplace Brisbane House was situated, was renamed Brisbane Glen in his honour.
  • Isabella Plains, a suburb in Canberra, named in honour of Isabella Brisbane, a daughter of Sir Thomas.
  • Brisbane House Hotel in Largs, a town located by the sea in North Ayrshire, Scotland.
  • Thomas Makdougall Brisbane bridge in Largs
  • Makdougall Brisbane prize of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Many other uses of Brisbane derive from the Australian city and hence are indirectly named after Thomas Brisbane.

Governor

In 1821, on the recommendation of Wellington, Brisbane was appointed Governor of New South Wales, a post he held until 1825. Brisbane took over the government on 1 December 1821, and at once proceeded to carry out some of the reforms recommended in the report of John Thomas Bigge. While Governor he tackled the many problems of a rapidly growing and expanding colony. He worked to improve the land grants system and to reform the currency. Brisbane’s keen interest in science led him to accept the invitation to become the first President of the Philosophical Society of Australasia which later became the Royal Society of New South Wales, the oldest learned institution in the Southern Hemisphere. He also set up the first agricultural training college in New South Wales and was the first patron of the New South Wales Agricultural Society. He conducted experiments in growing tobacco, cotton, coffee and New Zealand flax in the colony.

However, Brisbane did not always receive loyal support from his administrative officers, and in particular from Frederick Goulburn, the colonial secretary. A reference to Brisbane’s dispatch to Earl Bathurst dated 14 May 1825 shows that Bigge’s recommendations had been carefully considered, and that many improvements had been made.(Historical Records of Australia, vol. XI, pp. 571–88) Brisbane did not limit his attention to Bigge’s report. Early in April 1822 he discovered with some surprise the ease with which grants of land had hitherto been obtained. He immediately introduced a new system under which every grant had the stipulation that for every granted the grantee would maintain free of expense to the crown one convict labourer. He also encouraged agriculture on government land, streamlined granting of tickets of leave and pardons and introduced, in 1823, a system of calling for supplies by tender. When Dr. Robert Wardell and William Wentworth brought out their paper the Australian in 1824, Brisbane tried the experiment of allowing full latitude of the freedom of the press.

In 1823 Brisbane sent Lieutenant John Oxley to find a new site for convicts who were repeat offenders. Oxley discovered a large river flowing into Moreton Bay. A year later, the first convicts arrived at Moreton Bay. Brisbane visited the settlement in December 1824. Oxley suggested that both the river and the settlement be named after Brisbane. The convict settlement was declared a town in 1834 and opened to free settlement in 1839.