Sir Thomas Brisbane
Governor of New South Wales (Founder of the Second Penal Settlement) · 1773–1860
Who is Sir Thomas Brisbane?
Major-General Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane was a Scottish-born British Army officer, colonial administrator, and astronomer who served as Governor of New South Wales from 1821 to 1825. Educated in astronomy and mathematics at the University of Edinburgh before a distinguished military career in the West Indies and the Peninsular War, he was appointed governor on the recommendation of the Duke of Wellington. Acting on the recommendations of the 1822 Bigge Report and instructions from the Colonial Office, Brisbane re-established Norfolk Island as a convict settlement in 1825, reviving the location that had been abandoned a decade earlier, and intended it as the harshest possible station of secondary punishment, a place from which a transported felon would have no hope of return. He also founded new penal outposts at Moreton Bay and Sarah Island. Alongside this punitive legacy, Brisbane pursued genuine scientific interests, building the colony's second astronomical observatory and encouraging agricultural and scientific training, and widened the powers of the Supreme Court while establishing the colony's first Legislative Council. He returned to Scotland in 1825 and died in 1860; the Australian city of Brisbane was later named in his honour.
Sources: Kingston and Arthur's Vale Historic Area, "British Penal Settlement 1825-1855" · Australian Dictionary of Biography, "Brisbane, Sir Thomas Makdougall (1773-1860)" · Wikipedia, "Thomas Brisbane"