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Governor Richard Bourke c1835

Governor Richard Bourke c1835

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a928182 / ML 125]

(Mitchell Library)

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Irish in Sydney from First Fleet to Federation

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Irish State government

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Bourke, Richard

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State Library of New South Wales

Irish in Sydney from First Fleet to Federation

A large part of Sydney's European community from its earliest days, the Irish helped shape the colony and its cultural and religious institutions. While many Irish immigrants, both convict and free, prospered and flourished in Sydney throughout the nineteenth century, they rarely forgot their homeland and its struggles, and remained a community which never thought of England as 'home'.

Irish

State government

Bourke, Richard

full record »

Former soldier who was a popular early Governor of New South Wales between 1831 and 1837, he is generally considered enlightened or progressive in his reforms, especially in relation to the judicial process, the treatment of emancipists and convicts, and religion. His proclamation on 10 October 1835 was responsible for implementing the concept of terra nullius, upon which British settlement was based, and the dispossession of Aboriginal people across Australia until this was overturned in 1992.