Thomas Brisbane

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Major-General Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, 1st Baronet, GCH, GCB (July 23, 1773 – January 27, 1860), soldier, colonial Governor and astronomer, was born at Largs in Ayrshire, Scotland, the son of Sir Thomas Brisbane. He was educated in astronomy and mathematics at the University of Edinburgh. He joined the British Army in 1789 or 1793 and had a distinguished career in Flanders, the West Indies, Spain and North America. He served under the Duke of Wellington. In 1813 he was promoted to Major-General, and went in command of a brigade to the United States in 1814. In November 1819 he married Anna Maria Makdougall.

In 1821, on the recommendation of Wellington, he was appointed Governor of New South Wales, a post he held until 1825. 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. He 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.

He 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. It was unfortunate that 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 will, however, show that Bigge's recommendations had been carefully considered, and that many improvements had been made (H.R. of A., vol. XI, pp. 571–88). Brisbane did not confine 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 hundred acres 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 Charles Wentworth brought out their paper the Australian in 1824, Brisbane decided to try 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 1826. 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.

It is clear that Brisbane was doing useful work, but he could no more escape the effects of the faction fights that were constantly going on than could his predecessors. Henry G. Douglass, the assistant-surgeon, was the centre of one of the conflicts that was fought with great bitterness. Arising out of this, charges of various kinds against Brisbane were sent to England. The worst of these, that he had connived at sending female convicts to Emu Plains for immoral purposes, was investigated by William Stewart, the lieutenant-governor, John Stephen, assistant judge, and the Rev. William Cowper, senior assistant-chaplain, and found to be without the slightest foundation. Brisbane discovered that Goulburn, the colonial secretary, had been withholding documents from him and acting far too much on his own responsibility, and in 1824 reported his conduct to Earl Bathurst. In reply Bathurst recalled both the governor and the colonial secretary in dispatches dated 29 December 1824. Brisbane left Sydney in December 1825 and returned to Scotland. In 1826 he added the name of Makdougall before Brisbane, and settled down to the life of a country gentleman interested in science, his estate, and his regiment. In 1832 he was elected president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in succession to Sir Walter Scott, and in 1836 he was created a baronet. In the same year he was offered the command of the troops stationed in Canada and two years later the chief command in India, but declined both. He continued his astronomical researches, and did valuable work.

He was the first patron of science in Australia, and as such was eulogized by Sir John Herschel when he presented Brisbane with the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1828. Oxford and Cambridge gave him the honorary degree of D.C.L., and he was elected a fellow of the Royal Societies of both London and Edinburgh. He was created KCB in 1814 and GCB in 1837.

Brisbane was a keen astronomer throughout his career. He had an observatory built at his ancestral home in 1808. From this observatory he was able to contribute to the advances in navigation which took place over the next hundred years. He took all his instruments and two astronomical assistants, Carl Ludwig Christian Rümker and James Dunlop to New South Wales with him, first properly equipped Australian observatory at Parramatta. While waiting for Macquarie to complete his final arrangements, interested himself in making astronomical observations. In 1822 he established an observatory at Parramatta west of Sydney. In 1828 he won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. He published The Brisbane Catalogue of 7,385 stars of the Southern Hemisphere in 1835. The Observatory was used until 1855.

When Brisbane returned to Scotland he continued his studies and built a further observatory on his wife's estate, Makerstoun, near Kelso in the Borders. He was a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and received their Keith Prize in 1848. He was elected president in 1833 after the death of Sir Walter Scott, and in the following year acted as president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. He founded a gold medal for the encouragement of scientific research to be awarded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

He died much respected and honoured on 27 January 1860 in Largs. His four children predeceased him. He is buried in the Brisbane Vault, which is in the small kirkyard next to Skelmorlie Aisle, Largs Old Kirk.

[edit] Named after Thomas Brisbane

The following features are named for Thomas Brisbane:

• The Brisbane River and the city of Brisbane in Queensland, the Queensland state capital.
• The Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium (in Brisbane, Australia).
• The Brisbane crater on the Moon.

(The city of Brisbane, California is not named after him.)

[edit] References

• Serle, Percival (1949). “Brisbane, Sir Thomas Makdougall”, Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.

Government Offices
Preceded by Lachlan Macquarie	Governor of New South Wales 1821–1825	Succeeded by Ralph Darling
Baronetage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by New Creation	Baronet (of Brisbane, Ayrshire) 1836–1860	Succeeded by Extinct

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1949 edition of Dictionary of Australian Biography from
Project Gutenberg of Australia, which is in the public domain in Australia and the United States of America.