Macquarie’s influence

Public works and food security

Upon his arrival in Sydney, Macquarie found conditions very dire.

• The colony was on the verge of famine.
• Drinking water from the Tank Stream was contaminated.
• Buildings were run down and dilapidated.

He immediately commenced a program of public works and conducted a review of available land to improve food supplies.

During his time as Governor, Macquarie oversaw the building of government infrastructure, such as the Macquarie Street government precinct, including Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney Hospital (now Sydney Mint and NSW Parliament House) and St James Church; and the Macquarie Lighthouse at the entrance of Sydney Harbour.

He also made significant improvements to Sydney’s transport infrastructure by straightening existing roads and adding hundreds of kilometres of new roads. This helped to establish new townships outside Sydney, such as the five ‘Macquarie Towns’ of Windsor, Richmond, Castlereagh, Pitt Town and Wilberforce.

Macquarie also:

• formally adopted the name Australia for the continent, which had previously been proposed by explorer Matthew Flinders
• established the colony’s first bank, the Bank of New South Wales
• successfully stabilised the local currency, and outlawed the use of rum as currency
• encouraged manufacturing, thus starting industries in pottery, linen cloth and a variety of clothing items, and expanding the fledgling wool industry.

By the end of his term, Macquarie had endowed the colony with several public spaces, including Hyde Park, the Domain, the Botanical Gardens, and the grounds of what would later become the University of Sydney.

Between 1810 and 1821, the population of the colony had increased more than threefold to just under 40,000 people.

However, after ongoing conflict with the British Government over the cost of the public works program, and complaints from free settlers about the equal treatment given to emancipists, Macquarie eventually resigned. He returned to Britain in 1822 and died in London in 1824.

One of the more controversial elements of Macquarie’s time as Governor was his insistence that emancipists be treated as social equals with free settlers. Emancipists were those who had been transported as convicts, but their terms had expired or they had been given pardons.

Macquarie appointed:

• convicted forger Francis Greenway as the Colonial Architect
• naval mutineer Dr William Redfern as the Colonial Surgeon
• Andrew Thompson, transported for the theft of cloth, as a Justice of the Peace and Local Magistrate.

This met with opposition from free settlers, who felt they should be socially superior to those who had been convicted of crime. Macquarie’s liberal attitude towards emancipists also met with disapproval from the British government, who had a more traditional view of the importance of maintaining social hierarchies.