Proclamation of Governor Bourke

Last updated May 03, 2019

The Proclamation of Governor Bourke was a document written by Sir Richard Bourke, KCB, the Governor of New South Wales, and issued by the British Colonial Office on 26 August 1835.

General Sir Richard Bourke, KCB, was an Irish-born British Army officer who served as Governor of New South Wales from 1831 to 1837. As a lifelong Whig (Liberal), he encouraged the emancipation of convicts and helped bring forward the ending of penal transportation to Australia. In this, he faced strong opposition from the military/conservative establishment and its press. He approved a new settlement on the Yarra River, and named it Melbourne, in honour of the incumbent British prime minister, Lord Melbourne.

The Governor of New South Wales is the viceregal representative of the Australian monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, in the state of New South Wales. In an analogous way to the Governor-General of Australia at the national level, the Governors of the Australian states perform constitutional and ceremonial functions at the state level. The governor is appointed by the queen on the advice of the premier of New South Wales, for an unfixed period of time—known as serving At Her Majesty's pleasure—though five years is the norm. The current governor is retired judge Margaret Beazley, who succeeded David Hurley on 2 May 2019.

The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created to deal with the colonial affairs of British North America but needed also to oversee the increasing number of colonies of the British Empire. Despite its name, the Colonial Office was never responsible for all Britain's Imperial territories; for example protectorates fell under the purview of the Foreign Office, British India was ruled by the East India Company until 1858, whilst the Dominions were later carved out as the Empire matured.

The proclamation was prompted by the actions of John Batman, who when establishing a settlement at what is now Melbourne and would become the colony of Victoria, agreed to a treaty with the local Aboriginal inhabitants. Bourke's proclamation effectively declared Batman's treaty null and void, and implemented the concept of terra nullius —that the colonies belonged to no-one prior to settlement by the British Crown.^[1]

John Batman Australian settler and explorer

John Batman was an Australian grazier, entrepreneur and explorer. He settled in the north-east of the Van Diemen's Land Colony in the 1820s, and later as a leading member of the Port Phillip Association he led an expedition which explored the Port Phillip Bay area on the Australian mainland with a view to establishing a new settlement there. He is best known for his role in the founding of the settlement on the Yarra River which became the city of Melbourne, eventual capital of the new Colony of Victoria, and one of Australia's largest and most important cities.

The city of Melbourne was founded in 1835. The exact circumstances of the foundation of Melbourne, and the question of who should take credit, have long been matters of dispute.

Victoria is a state in south-eastern Australia. Victoria is Australia's smallest mainland state and its second-most populous state overall, making it the most densely populated state overall. Most of its population lives concentrated in the area surrounding Port Phillip Bay, which includes the metropolitan area of its state capital and largest city, Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city. Victoria is bordered by Bass Strait and Tasmania to the south, New South Wales to the north, the Tasman Sea to the east, and South Australia to the west.

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Mannalargenna, a [Tasmanian / Australian Native and Parlevar man], was an elder of the Plangermaireener clan in what is now the Ben Lomond tribal area of north-eastern Tasmania. He is described as being 5' 8" and wearing grease and red ochre all over his body and as the chief / leader of Negrito Parlevar people prior to Governor Arthur's proclamation treaty with Mannalargenna. Following the arrival of British in the area, he led a series of guerrilla styled resistance attacks against British military soldiers / police in Tasmania during the period known as the Black War. In 1829 he freed four Native women and a boy from John Batman's house where they had been held for a year.

Batman's Treaty was an agreement between John Batman, an Australian grazier, businessman and colonizer, and a group of Wurundjeri elders, for the purchase of land around Port Phillip, near the present site of Melbourne. The document came to be known as Batman's Treaty and is also considered significant as it was the first and only documented time when Europeans negotiated their presence and occupation of Aboriginal lands directly with the traditional owners. The so-called treaty was implicitly declared void on 26 August 1835 by the Governor of New South Wales, Richard Bourke.

The Port Phillip Association was formally formed in June 1835 to settle land in what would become Melbourne, which the association believed had been acquired by John Batman for the association from Wurundjeri elders after he had obtained their marks to a document, which came to be known as Batman's Treaty.

The following lists events that happened during 1835 in Australia.

William Lonsdale supervised the founding of the official settlement at Port Phillip from 1836 and went on to serve under the Superintendent La Trobe from 1839 to 1854.

The United Tribes of New Zealand was a confederation of Māori tribes based in the north of the North Island.

Melbourne City Centre is an area of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is the area in which Melbourne was established in 1835, by John Batman and John Pascoe Fawkner, and its boundaries are defined by the Government of Victoria's Melbourne Planning Scheme. Today it comprises the two oldest areas of Melbourne; the Hoddle Grid and Queen Victoria Market, as well as sections of the redeveloped areas of Docklands and Southbank/South Wharf. It is not to be confused with the larger local government area of the City of Melbourne.

The following lists events that happened during 1834 in New Zealand.

The Constitutional history of Australia began with the first white settlement in Sydney in 1788 and has undergone numerous constitutional changes since.

Billibellary was a song maker and influential ngurungaeta of the Wurundjeri-willam clan during the early years of European settlement of Melbourne. He was known by various names including Billi-billeri, Billibellary, Jika Jika, Jacky Jacky and Jaga Jaga. He was an astute and diplomatic leader, described as powerfully built with an influence and reputation that extended well beyond his clan.

Melbourne Day is an annual celebration to mark the founding of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia, on 30 August 1835.

References

↑ Governor Bourke's Proclamation 1835 (UK), Founding Documents—Documenting Democracy, National Archives of Australia.

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[1] Governor Bourke's Proclamation 1835 (UK), Founding Documents—Documenting Democracy, National Archives of Australia.