Political History of Australia

In 1813 New South Wales was a fast-growing, optimistic society. The colony’s teenage growth spurt could no longer be contained by the rugged sandstone wall of the Blue Mountains just 50 kilometres west of Sydney.

There were multiple valiant efforts to cross the Blue Mountains but it took the determination of Gregory Blaxland, backed by William Lawson and William Wentworth, to finally crack the code by staying on the high ridges instead of following the valleys. Macquarie quickly capitalised on their breakthrough, commissioning a proper road and founding the inland settlement of Bathurst in 1815.

The 1813 expedition changed New South Wales from a confined coastal settlement into the gateway to a continent. In just a few years the colony’s horizons expanded dramatically, setting Australia on the path to rapid 19th-century growth.

Join us as we trace the drama and the personalities that finally punched through the Blue Mountains.

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The Hon. John Ruddick MLC is a member of the NSW Legislative Council.

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Produced by Sean Masters
(All voices in this series are AI generated bar the narrator.)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After the upheaval of the Rum Rebellion, London finally responds. In late December 1809, Lieutenant-Colonel Lachlan Macquarie arrives in Sydney Harbour. He moves quickly to be sworn in as governor on New Year’s Day 1810. Unlike his predecessors, Macquarie does not ease into power. He seizes it.

From his first days in office Governor Macquarie moves with startling speed and authority. He orders the discredited New South Wales Corps home (though hundreds of soldiers choose to stay and become settlers), replaces them with his own professional regiment, and issues a sweeping Nullification Proclamation that wipes away almost every appointment, pardon, and land grant made by the rebel administration. Most dramatically, he begins appointing emancipists (former convicts) to positions of real authority, including as magistrates. This single act sends shockwaves through colonial society and marks the beginning of Macquarie’s long battle with the “Exclusives.”

Over the next decade Macquarie will reshape the colony more profoundly than any governor before or after him. He imposes order on Sydney’s chaotic streets, commissions grand public buildings, introduces Australia’s first official currency (the famous Holey Dollar), and champions the idea that once a convict has served their time they should be treated as a full citizen. Governor Macquarie resets the colony of New South Wales — resolving the great political conflicts of the Early Colonial Period while laying the foundations for the new divisions of the era to come.

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The Hon. John Ruddick MLC is a member of the NSW Legislative Council.

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Produced by Sean Masters
(All voices in this series are AI generated bar the narrator.)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The men who led the march on Government House to depose Governor William Bligh in 1808 knew there would be consequences. Yet the Rebel Administration played a weak hand with skill and restraint. Beyond removing Bligh at gunpoint, they worked hard to appear measured and proper at every step.

In this episode we examine London’s firm response to the Rum Rebellion: dispatching 800 battle-hardened troops from the 73rd Regiment, ordering a court martial, and recalling the New South Wales Corps. Lachlan Macquarie arrives in Sydney at the end of 1809 and is sworn in as governor on New Year’s Day 1810, marking the start of the Middle Colonial Period.

The dramatic 1811 court martial of Major George Johnston in London hears explosive testimony from both sides. Johnston is found guilty of mutiny yet receives only the lightest possible sentence - sacked from the army - because the court acknowledged the “novel and extraordinary circumstances” created by Bligh’s tyrannical rule. Johnston returns quietly to farming life, Bligh never commands men again, and John Macarthur remains in England until 1817.

The episode closes the Early Colonial era and sets the stage for the new political divide that would dominate the Macquarie years and beyond: Exclusives and Emancipists.

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The Hon. John Ruddick MLC is a member of the NSW Legislative Council.

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Produced by Sean Masters
(All voices in this series are AI generated bar the narrator.)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the evening of 26 January 1808 the New South Wales Corps marched on Government House and did something extraordinary: they deposed Governor William Bligh at gunpoint. It remains the only successful armed overthrow of government in Australian history. What followed was one of the strangest and most revealing chapters in our early colonial story — the Rebel Administration.

For nearly two years the colony was run by the very men who had arrested Bligh. John Macarthur effectively became the de facto ruler for a time, land grants flowed freely, regulations were slashed, and the rebels insisted this wasn’t a revolution at all — they were simply protecting the King’s loyal subjects from a dangerous tyrant. Then senior officers Joseph Foveaux and William Paterson arrived to steady the ship, while the entire colony held its breath waiting for London’s reaction.

All the while the deposed and defiant William Bligh refused to go quietly. From house arrest in Sydney to his own audacious mutiny aboard the Porpoise and a long, bitter standoff in Hobart, he kept plotting and scheming to reclaim power. In this episode we go deep inside the Rebel Administration - its personalities, its successes, its score-settling, and the long waiting game that everyone in the colony was forced to play until London had played its hand.

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The Hon. John Ruddick MLC is a member of the NSW Legislative Council.

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Produced by Sean Masters
(All voices in this series are AI generated bar the narrator.)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The label Rum Rebellion was a smear dreamed up decades after the seismic events of 26 January 1808. Those dramatic events were not about rum. It was fight over what the future of NSW should be.

For some including Governor Bligh, NSW was to remain a large-scale open prison with a simply economy of small scale ex-convict farmers and an iron grip control by the state. But 20 years into the colony and too many residents could see that this land had too much potential to be limited by the other vision. The day of the Rum Rebellion was fast-moving and dramatic. At the end of it either Governor Bligh or John Macarthur was going to be under arrest.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please leave a comment, share and rate the show ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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The Hon. John Ruddick MLC is a member of the NSW Legislative Council.

johnruddick.com.au
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https://x.com/JohnRuddick2
https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnruddickmlc/
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https://www.instagram.com/john.ruddick/

Produced by Sean Masters
(All voices in this series are AI generated bar the narrator.)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.