Lieutenant General Sir Richard Bourke - Sydney, Australia
S 33° 51.964 E 151° 12.763
56H E 334679 N 6251256
This bronze statue of Lieutenant General Sir Richard Bourke is located in front of the State Library (eastern side of Macquarie Street) in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Waymark Code: WM5ZRW
Location: New South Wales, Australia
Date Posted: 03/08/2009
Views: 18
The inscription reads as follows:
This Statue of Lieutenant General Sir Richard Bourke, K.C.B. is erected by the people of New South Wales to record his able honest and benevolent administration from 1831 to 1837 selected for the government at a period of sincular difficulty. His judgement, urbanity and firmness justified the choice. Comprehending at once the vast resources peculiar to this colony. He applied them, for the first time, systematically to its benefit. He voluntarily divested himself of the prodicious influence arising from the assignment of penal labour an enacted just and salutary laws for the amelioration of penal discipline. He was the first governor who published satisfactory accounts of the public receipts and expenditure. Without oppression or detriment to any interest he raised the revenue to a vast amount and from its surplus, realized extensive plans of immigration. He established religious equality on a just and firm basis and sought to provide for all without distinction of sect, a sound and adequate system of national education. He constructed various public works of permanent utility. He founded the flourishing settlement of Port Phillip and threw open the unlimited wilds of Australia to pastoral enterprize. He established savings banks and was the patron of the first Mechanic's Institute. He created an equitable tribunal for determining upon claims to grants of lands. He was the warm friend of the liberty of press. He extended trial by jury after its almost total suspension for many years. By these and numerous other measures for the moral, religious, and general improvement of all classes, he raised the colony to unexampled prosperity; and retired amid the reverent and affectionate regret of the people; having won their confidence by his integrity, their gratitude by his services, their admiration by his public talents, and their esteem by his private worth.
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