Guide to the Papers of the Bourke Family (as filmed by AJCP)

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M1863

National Library of Australia View Catalogue Record

Created: 2018

Collection Summary

Creator
Bourke Family
Title
Papers of the Bourke Family (as filmed by the AJCP)
Date Range
1809 - 1855
Collection Number
M1863
Extent
3 items
Language of Materials
English
Repository
Australian Joint Copying Project
Sponsor
The Australian Joint Copying Project (AJCP) online portal was created with the assistance of the Australian Public Service Modernisation Fund, 2017-2020. The National Library of Australia gratefully acknowledges the contribution of the other foundation AJCP partners, the State Library of New South Wales and The National Archives of the UK, and all other organisations which supported the work of the AJCP, the world's most extensive collaborative copying project, operating from 1948 to 1997.

Introduction

Scope and Contents

1. Diary 1831 of Anne Bourke on the voyage from England to New South Wales on the Margaret.

2. Family correspondence 1822-1855, including letters of Sir Richard Bourke, Elizabeth Bourke, Richard Bourke, Anne Bourke and T. Spring-Rice.

Conditions Governing Access

Available for Access.

Conditions Governing Use

Many of the records digitised as part of the AJCP are still in copyright. Readers wishing to publish or reproduce documents should seek permission, in the first instance, from the owner of the original material.

Preferred Citation

Acknowledgement of use of this material should refer to the location of the original material and to the Australian Joint Copying Project.

Items from this collection should include references to the location of the original material and to the AJCP nla.obj number, which serves as the online identifier for the digital copy.

Example: M Series: Journal of Capt. James Cook, 18 February 1770, British Library Add. MS 27885 (AJCP ref: http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1234)

Archival History

Filmed at the private residence of Mrs B. Agate, Pewsey, England, as part of the Australian Joint Copying Project, 1984 (AJCP Reel: M1863). Original microfilm digitised as part of the NLA AJCP Online Delivery Project, 2017-2020.

Existence and Location of Originals

Private Residence of Mrs Bridget Agate. Pewsey, England.

Existence and Location of Copies

The original AJCP microfilm of the records filmed from this collection is available at the National Library of Australia [https://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn761058] as well as other institutions holding AJCP microfilm.

Finding-aid Notes

This finding aid is a revised online version of the original finding aid prepared by the Australian Joint Copying Project (AJCP), published by the National Library of Australia in 2018. The original AJCP finding aids were unpublished typescripts or photocopies available from libraries that held copies of the original microfilm.

Dates used in this finding aid refer to the date range of the records selected for filming rather than to the date range of the Series or Files.

Advisory Statement

Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this Finding Aid contains material and descriptive information which may be considered culturally sensitive and may cause distress, including names and images of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people now deceased. This Finding Aid contains terms that reflect authors' views or those of the historical period, but which may not be considered appropriate today. While the information may not reflect current understanding, it is provided in an historical context.

Subjects

Bourke Family; Bourke, Elizabeth; Bourke, Richard; Bourke, Sir Richard; Emigrant voyages; New South Wales: immigration to; Margaret (ship); Govenors and Governors General: New South Wales; Spring-Rice, Thomas, 1st Baron Monteagle; Thomson, Anne Deas, Lady

Bibliography

Originally cited in Australian Joint Copying Project Handbook. Part 8: Miscellaneous (M) Series. Third Edition, published 1998. Entry 45, p16.

Biographical / Historical

Sir Richard Bourke (1777-1855), Governor of New South Wales 1831-1838. His son Richard Bourke (1812-1904) served as his private secretary in Sydney and his daughter Anne married Edward Deas Thomson, the Colonial Secretary.

Item Descriptions

Series. Bourke Papers, 1809 - 1855

3 items

Biographical / Historical

Sir Richard Bourke (1777-1855). Educated at Westminster School and Oxford University. Entered the Army 1798, serving in Netherlands, South America and Spain. Major 1805, Colonel 1814, Major-General 1825, General 1851. Lieutenant-Governor of Eastern District (Cape Colony) 1825-1826, Acting Governor of Cape Colony 1826-1828, Governor of New South Wales 1831-1838.

Richard Bourke (1812-1904). Secretary to Governor Bourke in New South Wales 1831-1834. Practised as Barrister in Dublin. Assistant Commissioner for Poor Law in Ireland 1847. Deputy-lieutenant for Limerick.

Anne Bourke (1806-1884). Married Sir Edward Deas Thomson (1800-1879), Clerk of N.S.W. Executive and Legislative Councils 1829-1837, Colonial Secretary 1837-1856, Vice-President of Executive Council 1856-1857, Chancellor of Sydney University 1865-1878.

Diary of Anne Bourke, daughter of Sir Richard Bourke, kept on the voyage from England to New South Wales on the Margaret and during her first few weeks in Sydney, 19 August 1831 - 27 December 1831 (File 1)

In addition to a detailed account of the voyage from Tenerife onwards, the diary records her first impressions of Sydney, Government House, and the Botanical Gardens and refers to bushrangers, aborigines and colonial officials such as A. Macleay and F. Forbes.

Original diary (30pp). Typescript copy (65pp). The original diary is incomplete, the last full entry being 28 November 1831.

Copies of letters from Alexander Knox to Lady B (22pp), 1809 - 1815 (File 2)

They mainly deal with religious subjects, including a critique of the Church Missionary Society.

Family correspondence of the Bourke Family (45 letters), 1822 - 1855 (File 3)

Most of the letters were written to Bishop J. Jebb, Bishop of Limerick, his nephew Rev. J. Jebb and Fanny Jebb, the daughter of Sir Richard Bourke. The principal correspondents are Governor Richard Bourke, his wife Elizabeth Bourke, his son Richard Bourke, and his daughter Anne Bourke, who married Edward Deas Thomson in 1833. Other correspondents include T. Spring-Rice (later Lord Monteagle), Rev. C. Forster, J. Kinchela (Sydney), and Sophia Gordon.

13 of the letters were written from Sydney and Parramatta, 1832-1837. They deal with the voyage to Australia, first impressions of Sydney, the work of the Governor, convicts and emigrants, aborigines, the Australian flora, the Blue Mountains and a visit to Bathurst, life at Parramatta, Sydney society, the economic progress of N.S.W., the closure of the Bank of Australia, the death of Bishop Jebb, the illness and death of Elizabeth Bourke in 1832, the marriage of Anne Bourke in 1833, and the return of Richard Bourke Junior to England in 1834. There are references to Rev. S. Marsden, Rev. W.G. Broughton, Sir John Jamison, A. Macleay and E. Deas Thomson.

The other letters discuss conditions in Ireland, Bourke evidence before the House of Lords Committee on Ireland in 1825, the voyage to South Africa and impressions of Cape Town, Lord Charles Somerset, colonial legislation, economic conditions in Cape Colony, the marriage of Fanny Bourke to Rev. John Jebb, the novels of B. Disrael and the death of Sir Richard Bourke in 1855.


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