Colonel Lachlan Macquarie

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Colonel Lachlan Macquarie
1762– 1824

Colonel Lachlan Macquarie (31 January 1762–1 July 1824), British military officer and colonial administrator, served as Governor of New South Wales from 1810 to 1821 and had a leading role in the social, economic and architectural development of the colony.
Historians assess his influence on the transition of New South Wales from a penal colony to a free settlement as being crucial to the shaping of Australian society.
Lachlan Macquarie was born in the Isle of Mull in the Hebrides islands of Scotland.
He joined the Army in 1776 and served in North America, India and Egypt. After serving for 12 years as a Captain he considered leaving the Army, but his fortunes changed in 1808 when he was appointed Governor of New South Wales.
He was given a mandate to restore government and discipline in the colony following the Rum Rebellion against Governor William Bligh.
The British government decided to reverse its practice of appointing naval officers as Governor and appoint an army commander on the hope that he could secure the co-operation of the unruly New South Wales Corps
.Macquarie was a conservative disciplinarian who believed, in the words of the historian Manning Clark, "that the Protestant religion and British institutions were indispensable both for liberty and for a high material civilisation."

When he arrived in Sydney in December 1809, he found a struggling, chaotic colony which was still basically a prison camp, with barely 5,000 European inhabitants.
Macquarie ruled the colony as an enlightened despot, breaking the power of the Army officers such as John Macarthur, who had been the colony's de facto ruler since Bligh's overthrow.
Macquarie made it clear that he had a vision for Australia's future. He ordered the construction of roads, bridges, wharves, churches and public buildings.
The oldest surviving buildings in Sydney, such as the Hyde Park Barracks, have his name inscribed on their porticoes.
He appointed magistrates to outlying posts such as Van Diemen's Land and the Bay of Islands (now New Zealand).
He founded new towns such as Richmond, Windsor, Pitt Town, Liverpool and Castlereagh.
He appointed a Colonial Secretary, a government printer and a government architect.

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