Street Names - Brisbane Street

Named after Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane who was born 1773 at Brisbane House near Largs, Ayrshire.

In 1812, at Duke Wellington's request he was promoted brigadier-general and commanded a brigade that was heavily engaged in the Peninsular War battles while continuing to practise his astronomy. When he returned to England in 1818, he married Anna Maria, daughter and heiress of Sir Henry Makdougall whose surname was added to his own. In 1815 he had applied for appointment as Governor of New South Wales before the post was vacant. He finally arrived in the colony in 1821 after Wellington advised he replace Lachlan Macquarie. At that time NSW was beset with problems. Promised land grants hadn't been located, lands were occupied and transferred without legal title, and boundary disputes seemed never ending. Brisbane's policies were sensible answers to pressing troubles. Though he was on good terms with Macquarie he condemned his 'system' and told Earl Bathurst that he had changed New South Wales in so many ways that if the latter ever returned 'he would not have recognised the place'.

He appointed additional surveyors to reduce arrears in the surveying and granting of land, but Brisbane promised tickets-of-occupation only when applicants had obtained sufficient stock. He granted lands to sons of established settlers only if their fathers' properties had been considerably improved, and to newly arrived immigrants in proportion to their capital. He was anti granting land to newly appointed officials, which subjected him 'to a most unpleasant feeling'. He also insisted that grantees should maintain one convict labourer for every 100 acres they were given and insisted on this rule in spite of criticism from the Colonial Office that feared it would hamper settlement. He also ordered convict mechanics be hired instead of being assigned, opposed excessive corporal punishment and reprieved many prisoners sentenced to death.

Brisbane was broad minded when it came to religious matters and was prepared to support any sect that did not threaten the state. He encouraged Wesleyan societies, advocated and gave financial aid to Roman Catholics, but opposed the Presbyterians' extravagant demands, considering them wealthy enough to build their own churches. He believed that clergy, like government officials, should not indulge in private trade, but his policy towards Aboriginals was ambivalent. On one occasion he ordered some to be shot; on another he imposed martial law beyond the Blue Mountains because of "the aggressions of the Native Blacks". Nevertheless he favoured compensating them for lost land and in 1825 granted the London Missionary Society 10,000 acres for an Aboriginal reserve.

With all that was going on, a governor could no longer attend to everything. As the colony expanded, Macquarie had ruined his health and peace of mind with every administrative detail and all the petty squabbles so Brisbane did not concern himself with trivia. Unfriendly contemporaries regarded him as amiable, impartial but weak and his enemies accused him of lack of interest in the colony, both claims being untrue, but which prompted Wellington's comment "there are many brave men not fit to be governors of colonies". His interest in astronomy continued in Australia and was probably the reason he sought the appointment. He built an observatory at Parramatta and made the first observations of stars in the Southern Hemisphere since Lacaille's in 1751. When he was recalled from the governorship, he left his astronomical instruments and 349 volumes of his scientific library to the colony.

Once back in Scotland he built another observatory at Makerstoun and later, when president of the Edinburgh Astronomical Institution, did much to make the Royal Observatory highly efficient. In 1832 he succeeded Sir Walter Scott as president of the of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and four years later was created a baronet. Much of his later life was occupied in paternal works at Largs. He improved its drainage, endowed a parish school and the Largs Brisbane Academy. He died aged 87 loved and respected by the local community. (DEIRDRE ROELANTS)