Bee hive and hobby garden politics in convict Tasmania, 1832 to 1835

George Arthur, Lieutenant Governor of Tasmania between 1823 and 1837, was several times the target of criticism from the Editor of Hobart’s Colonial Times newspaper - the subject being the excessive expenses incurred by the Governor’s hobby garden in the grounds of Government House coupled with the excessive use of convict resources in its upkeep. From its issue for 3 February 1835: “What a thing it is to be a favorite, [sic.] Mr. Anstey of Oatlands, lately made application to the Government for a swarm of Bees - his application was of course, immediately attended to - Why? Is he not a J.P. and M.L.C.?

Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen’s Land, Sir George Arthur

Most people are glad to send for such ‘gifts,’ but this was not necessary on the part of Mr. Anstey. A boat with five prisoners of the Crown was obtained from the Marine, to carry two men and the hive to the Ferry at Green Point - whence these two men, (prisoners belonging to the Government garden, and rationed by the Commissariat) proceeded with the hive to Anstey Barton - the journey took them four days - this is one way of employing prisoners of the Crown in Government employ. How fortunate was Mr. Anstey to have such a present as a hive sent him ! About fifty applications were made previously to his - even Mr. Burnett the public favorite, was high in the list to have his turn - but the Colonial Secretary does not stand A.1. with His Excellency - he has had no bees from Colonel Arthur's garden !” (p.6)

Anstey was a grazier, banker, magistrate and member of the Upper House. 1 He was both professionally and personally known to the Governor and on the latter’s tour of the interior which commenced in late February 1830, Anstey hosted the Governor and his entourage. “The party arrived at Anstey Barton, the hospitable mansion of 1 http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010020b.htmAnstey, Thomas (1777 - 1851)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 1, Melbourne University Press, 1966, pp 19-21.

Mr. Anstey near Oatlands in time for dinner on Monday, where they remained all night, and proceeded on the road to Launceston next morning.” 2

Thomas Anstey’s home Anstey Barton, at Oatlands, c1850

John Burnett (1781-1860) was appointed the first Colonial Secretary of Van Diemen's Land in March 1826. He was the Colonial Office's third choice. “He was not a brilliant administrator, but at least in the early years he seems to have been conscientious. … Several times Arthur showed great forbearance with Burnett's deficiencies, but he could not overlook a deception with which Burnett attempted to cover a serious breach of the land regulations. …” 3

Some hint of the Press’ ongoing antagonism towards Arthur may be drawn from the following comments in the Australian Dictionary of Biography: 4 “Confronted with a large convict-emancipist population, determined on the policy he wanted to carry out, and always liable to criticism for abuse of patronage even where no such abuse existed, this efficient and conscientious soldier-administrator had no time for civil liberties or freedom of the press. In 1826-27 he prosecuted the editor Andrew Bent for libel, and in 1827 persuaded the council to pass an act imposing a revocable newspaper licence. When this was annulled in England he again had recourse to the courts and prosecuted Gilbert Robertson of the True Colonist and Henry Melville of the Colonial Times.”

Andrew Bent’s vendetta against Arthur is better understood once the following entry on him in the Australian Dictionary of Biography is digested: “Although Lieutenant-Governor William Sorell appeared to have doubts of the character of Bent's

2 Colonial Times, 3 April 1830, p.2a3 Biographical details extracted from: P.R. Eldershaw, 'Burnett, John (1781-1860)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 1, Melbourne University Press, 1966, pp.182-183.4 http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010034b.htmA. G. L. Shaw, 'Arthur, Sir George (1784 - 1854)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 1, Melbourne University Press, 1966, pp 32-38.

newspaper, it was not until Lieutenant-Governor (Sir) George Arthur arrived that he came under official censure. Leading articles in the Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen's Land Advertiser on 8 October 1824 and 11 February 1825 and the publication of letters by Robert Murray over the nom-de-plume, 'A Colonist', became the bases for an action for libel, and on 1 August 1825 Bent was sentenced to imprisonment and fined £500. Printing work for the government was withdrawn from him and the title of his paper was pirated. From June until 19 August 1825, when he adopted the title Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser for his newspaper, Bent's paper and the official government gazettes used identical volume and serial numbers. In the Colonial Times he continued to express opposition to Arthur's attempts to control the press. He refused to apply for a licence under the Licensing Act of 1827, put his paper 'in Mourning' and printed advertisements only.

To avoid further legal action he commenced the Colonial Advocate and Tasmanian Monthly Review, which ran from March to October 1828, but again he fell a victim to the law and suffered imprisonment. Worn out with conflict and trouble he was preparing to sell his type and presses when news arrived that the British government had disapproved the Licensing Act. Bent revived his Colonial Times and a little later sold it to Henry Melville as a going concern. In 1830 he was defendant in a further libel action and during the trial was referred to as 'this Nimrod of printers, this Franklin of the Southern Hemisphere', later becoming known as the Tasmanian Franklin. In 1836 he published Bent's News and Tasmanian Threepenny Register but was once more prosecuted for libel and the paper ceased.”

It’s true the Governor did favour certain applicants with the gift of a bee hive. A story titled An Anecdote from Australia, appeared in the penny journal The Leisure Hour, a Family Journal of Instruction and Recreation, dated 25 November 1852. In part: “A gentleman named Dr. Wilson, who had made several voyages to Van Diemen’s Land, had observed that there were not any bees producing honey; he therefore, on one of his voyages, took with him a hive of bees. … and were conveyed 16,000 miles to Hobart Town. Dr. Wilson generously placed the hive at the disposal of Governor Arthur. It was placed in Government Garden; and so abundant was the food, and so adapted the climate to the bees, that I was told that a single hive of bees would produce twenty stocks in a year, the first swarms each yielding new swarms. The governor politely presented his friends with hives of bees, so that, in a very few seasons, most gardens in the colony were furnished with them.”

Arthur also gifted one hive to Governor Bourke in New South Wales. The Hobart Town Courier for 24 August 1832 reported: “We are pleased to learn that His Excellency Colonel Arthur, mindful of the interests of the sister colony, has sent a hive of bees, one of the progeny of that brought out by Dr. Wilson last year in the John, to Governor Bourke, for the benefit of the now very thriving colony under his Government; and what is a singular coincidence, the hive has gone up in the ship England, under the immediate care of Dr. Wilson, who originally and so successfully imported the original from which it was produced. …” (p.2)

Two weeks after the Colonial Times article of 3 February 1835 a barbed update appeared “A week or two since, when mentioning the affair about the bees being forwarded from Government-garden to Oatlands, and the employing in so doing no less than seven men belonging to the public works, we mentioned in error that the two men who took the hive from the ferry to Anstey Barton were only four days on their journey - we now beg to correct the error. The men were double that time. We

wonder whether Mr. Burnett has obtained his hive yet - it is only three years since he applied for it.” (p.7a)

Such criticism of Governor Arthur’s alleged abuse of Government resources at his garden was not the first nor the last. The “hobby” theme sarcastically recurred in the Colonial Times for 23 September 1834: “Is it true that the Governor's Cows are to have their rations altered ? - that in future they are to eat grass, and not cucumbers and pine apples ? Is it true also that Mr. Charles Arthur is to purchase grass for his horses, he receiving forage money for that purpose? Is it true also that fifty Crown prisoners are to be taken from the ‘hobby’ and otherwise employed? - Great changes we know are spoken of !”

The Editor of the Colonial Times found cause again to criticise the Governor and his garden on 28 April 1835. “A new experiment is being tried at Government-garden - the stone from the quarry is being wheeled on the fine manured flower-beds, but for what purpose no one can tell. Cabbages have hitherto only cost the people a guinea each, but the present manner of culture will raise their cost at least to thirty shillings - but what right have the people to complain? Is this garden not Colonel Arthur's hobby, and if he chooses, why should not ten, instead of five thousand pounds, be annually expended on it - all the people are required to do is, to pay and look pleasant, they nave no right to talk of lavish expenditure and such like; the Governor ought to do as he likes on every occasion - no matter what expensive whims he may take into his head.” (pp.7-8)

The earliest criticism of the Governor’s expensive hobby appears to have been that contained in a long diatribe which appeared in the Colonial Times for 18 April 1832. It aimed to bring to public attention “the shameful abuses to which such establishments as the Government garden, the Government farms, and other similar 'farces' …” are prone. The article demanded the “entire discontinuance of all similar encroachments upon the public purse. Let any one tell us, if he can ... what is done with the annual produce of the large Government garden in Macquarie street? What again becomes of the immense crops that are, or ought to be, grown at New Town? Whose tables are benefited by the productions of the garden at New Norfolk? of that at George Town ? at Launceston? Why, the smallest of these establishments would alone produce ten times more fruit and vegetables than it is possible to consume at the table of His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor; …”

The article went on to question “whether or not even His Excellency himself is supposed by the Home Government to incur by gardens, hot-houses, conservatories, alone, an annual invisible expense fully equal to ... one of five and twenty hundred per annum he receives as salary. Who is there that will pretend to tell us, that the satellites of the greater powers - the friends, hangers-on, dependants, relations of the Head of the Government have a right to share in the good things that result from these establishments? Under what pretence are they made partakers of the 'guinea cabbages' which these places produce, to an extent unequalled we verily believe, in any other Colony under the British Crown? ... let us repeat our enquiry, what becomes of the immense surplus produce of even one garden alone, after His Excellency's own table shall have been abundantly supplied?

If it be sold, how are the proceeds disposed of? If it he given away, upon whom has the right of thus bestowing it, been conferred? Why is there a power with respect to the productions of Government gardens, that are sufficiently extensive to supply half the town with vegetables all the year round, different from that which we know is the

case, with regard to any other public property? Can a ship, or even a boat, that has been built at Macquarie Harbour by Crown prisoners, who have been fed and clothed at the expense of the Crown, be given away even by the Crown itself? Can a single article (no matter of what nature) that has become the property of the public, either by purchase or the labour of individuals, be disposed of other than for the legitimate purposes of the public? The answer admits of no medium, but to each of these questions must be either yes, or no. If the former, 'show us the authority;' if the latter, 'account to us then for the surplus productions of the Government gardens.' ... It is the invisible expenditure therefore of the Colony, such as is incurred by hobbies of the nature of Government farms and gardens ... that requires the pruning knife of the Reformer. ...” (p.2)

Yet one of the Governor’s hobby activities miraculously escaped negative comment. The Colonial Times for 18 June 1833 reported the gift of a Tasmanian devil to an anonymous authority on the island of Mauritius. 5 “When Captain Petrie lately sailed from this in the Drummore to the Mauritius, he took with him as a present to one of the authorities at Port Louis, one of those savage creatures peculiar to this Island, commonly called a devil, which had been caught and as far as was practicable tamed, by Mr. Davidson at the Government garden. Considerable difficulty arose however in landing it at Port Louis, for the officer of the customs there strongly remonstrated against landing in their beautiful, island, any thing in the shape or even with the name of the devil. They recollected no doubt, the time when, their predecessors the Dutch were forced to abandon the island when it became overrun with rats.

However on ascertaining that it was only a simple quadruped, though a curious one, and on the gentleman to whom it was given, undertaking to keep it secure, it was at last allowed to be landed. But the devil was not long in his new berth when he contrived to make his escape, and for some weeks dreadful havock [sic.] was played among the poultry around, until with difficulty he was shot.

It is curious, that though this singular animal has now been known mid described by naturalists for some years, a living specimen has never been sent to England, until Capt. [Adam] Riddell of the Duckenfield, which sailed the other day undertook to do so. There is now a dam (of in other words a she-devil) in a crib at the Government gardens, which has brought forth three young ones, but they seem quite untameable. - The Lennaean [sic.] name is dasyurus ursinus.” 6 (p.2)

5 From Wikipedia: Mauritius is an island nation off the coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about 900 kilometres (560 mi) east of Madagascar.6 Wikipedia names the current classification as Sarcophilus harrisii

The Duckenfield, incorrectly identified in the drawing above as the Duckingfield

Governor Arthur’s reputation seems not to have suffered at the time from claims by the Press concentrated on his alleged misuse of convict labour, the production of “guinea cabbages” and assumed favouritism in the gift of a hive of bees to selected friends.

Peter Barrett

Caloundra, Queensland, Jan. 2010