Who was Lachlan Macquarie?

Lachlan Macquarie (1762 to 1824) was the fifth Governor of New South Wales, serving from 1 January 1810 to 1 December 1821. He is widely considered the most consequential of the early Governors, transforming the colony from a rough penal settlement into a functioning society with civic institutions, public works, agriculture, and a developing urban culture.

Macquarie was a career British army officer from the Hebrides in Scotland, having served in the West Indies, North America, India, and Egypt before his appointment to New South Wales. He arrived in Sydney with his wife Elizabeth Macquarie (1778 to 1835) and his regiment, the 73rd, in January 1810. His first major task was restoring civilian government after the 1808 Rum Rebellion that had deposed Governor Bligh. Macquarie sent the rebellious New South Wales Corps back to England, removed Major George Johnston from command, and barred John Macarthur from the colony for eight years.

Macquarie's broader reforms transformed the colony. He championed the rights of emancipated convicts (emancipists), insisting that they should have full civil rights once their sentences ended, and appointed several to senior positions including the judge Henry Thomas Kable's son. He commissioned the architect Francis Greenway (himself a convict) to design more than 75 public buildings including Hyde Park Barracks, the Conservatorium of Music, and St James' Church in Sydney. He laid out the towns of Bathurst, Hobart (re-planned), Liverpool, Campbelltown, Windsor, Richmond, Pitt Town, Castlereagh, Wilberforce, and Penrith as planned settlements with set street grids and town squares.

Macquarie also engaged diplomatically with Aboriginal Australians. He held annual feasts at Parramatta from 1814 onwards where he gave out blankets, food, and engraved breastplates (metal plaques that designated Aboriginal leaders as 'kings'). He established a Native Institution to educate Aboriginal children, though this was largely a failure and a precursor of later removal practices. His administration also saw the Bathurst War of 1824 against the Wiradjuri people and the Appin Massacre of April 1816, in which at least 14 Aboriginal people were killed by British soldiers on Macquarie's orders, complicating his legacy. Macquarie recalled to England in 1821 and returned in 1822, dying in London in 1824. He is commemorated through the Macquarie River, Macquarie Island, the federal electorate of Macquarie, Macquarie University, Macquarie Street in Sydney, and many other Australian places.