George Augustus Robinson, Free Settler "Triton" 1824

George Augustus Robinson is a controversial character of the early days of Tasmania after he emmigrated from England on the 'Triton' arriving in Hobart on the 20th January 1824 via Scotland leaving his wife and five children behind. He set himself up as a builder to establish a place for his family to come out to which they did on the 'Greenock' arriving in Hobart on the 24th April 1826.

GAR wrote extensive journals which are kept at the Mitchell Library in Sydney and which have been extensively used in the writing of two volumes on the History of Tasmania both Edited by N. J. B. Plomley

The First published in 1966

Friendly Mission - The Tasmanian Journals and Papers of George Augustus Robinson 1829-1834

The Second published in 1987

Weep in Silence - A History of the Flinders Island Aboriginal Settlement with the Flinders Island Journal of George Augustus Robinson 1835-1839

He wrote in his Journal 25th December 1835

"Look back, my friends, you who have known them for a short time. Look back, you have known them for a longer period and I will look back to the time when I knew them in their own Native wilderness when we were first known to each other. Let us give full scope to our recollections and call to mind all the incidents and associations connected therewith and then turn to those memories of our departed friends and weep in silence"

These two volumes only cover his life in Tasmania and in February 1839 he travelled to Port Phillip with Maria and the children following in April 1839. He became a wealthy man and lived in Melbourne. Maria died on 11th August 1848.During her illness they had turned back to the Church of England and in 1852 GAR returned to England where he met and married Rose Pyne aged 24 at St George's Church in Hanover Square London on the 4th June 1853 they had five children.For the last seven years of his life GAR lived with Rose in Bath in a home he called 'Prahran' on Widcombe Hill where he died on the 18th October 1866 and the inscription on his tombstone in The Abbey Cemetery, Lyncomb Vale, Bath reads "To the memory of the Chief Protector of the Aborigines of Australia, Pacificator of the Tasmanian Aborigines who died Oct 18 1866 aged Seventy-eight years"

https://archive.org/stream/anarrativeavisi02backgoog#page/n6/mode/2up

A Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies (1843)

https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/R/Ro...

https://www.utas.edu.au/telling-places-in-country/historical-contex...

George Augustus Robinson Born 22 Mar 1791 in London, Middlesex, England Husband of Maria Amelia Evans — married 28 Feb 1814 (to 1848) in Christ Church, London, England Husband of Rose (Pyne) Robinson — married 4 Jun 1853 in St George Church, Hanover Square, London, England DESCENDANTS Father of Maria Amelia (Robinson) Allen and Georgianna (Robinson) Creighton Died 18 Oct 1866 in Bath, Somerset, England

Biography George Augustus Robinson was born on 22 March 1791 and baptised at St Bride, Fleet Street, London on 12 June 1791 for William and Susannah Robinson (nee Perry). In the 1861 England Census George gave his birth place as St Bride, Middlesex. His father had been a builder in Lincolnshire but died when George was only about 8 to 10 years old.

On 28 February 1814, George married Maria Amelia Evans at Christ Church, Newgate, London. They had 5 children born from 1814 to 1822[1]. However, George sailed from Leith, Scotland on 7 September 1823 on the ship "Triton" for Hobart, Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen's Land), via Teneriffe and the Cape of Good Hope, arriving on 20 January 1824, with 55 other passengers, but leaving his family behind[2].

He set up as a builder in Hobart and was successful. His family joined him in April 1826 (see the Biography). Two more children were born in 1827 and 1828 (see Ancestry FT), a third in 1835. "In Hobart Robinson became secretary of the Seamen's Friend and Bethel Union Society, joined the committee of the Auxiliary Bible Society, visited prisoners and the condemned in the gaol, and helped to found the Mechanics' Institute." (See the Biography.)

As relations between the First Peoples of the Land and the white settlers were fast deteriorating, and the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir George Arthur-755 seemed to have lost control, George Augustus applied for a job to attempt a final conciliation through a rationing scheme introduced for the Aborigines on Bruny Island. He began by spending time with them on 30 March 1829 on Bruny, and came to the realisation that he must become well acquainted with the customs and language of the Aboriginals, which he did. Under the heading 'Protection laws: State by State', AIATSIS described this as "The first attempt to control the ‘dying’ population came with the creation of the Aboriginal Protectorate under George Augustus Robinson on Bruny Island in Tasmania in 1829[3].

Between 1829 and 1838 Robinson was instrumental in having the Tasmanian Aborigines removed from their traditional land to a settlement [Wybaleena] on Flinders Island, where he subsequently presided over their demise[4]. During that period the last of the massacres of Palawans took place in August 1830 that had begun in May 1804.[5] In 1836 Robinson took up his position as commandant at the Wybalenna Aboriginal Establishment[6].

Robinson had befriended Truganini-1 and her husband Wooraddy, and travelled around Tasmania with them to encourage the Aborigines to leave their 'country' and settle in Flinders Island for their own protection, with promises that he did not keep. In fact, 12 Tasmanian Aboriginals, Palawans, accompanied Robinson[7] for all or some of his trip. They included Bullrer (daughter of Poolrerrener-1), Calamarowenye (Bullrer's husband), Kickerterpoller, Mannalargenna-1, Marlapowaynererner, Tanlebonyer-1, Tunnerminnerwait, Wapperty-1, and Woretemoeteyenner-1, as well as Truganini-1 and Wooraddy.

It was Lord Glenelg, Baron Charles Grant-4256, who had become Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, in 1835, who on ill-informed advice of the British Government's Aborigines Committee - of the need for 'settling' indigenous people (Standfield, 2011, p.167), who authorised the Aboriginal Protectors and Port Phillip Protectorate.

From 1839 to 1849 Robinson was Chief Protector of Aborigines in the Port Phillip District (PPD)[8] of Victoria (included present day Tasmania), with 4 full-time Assistants[9], and again travelled extensively, but not trusting his rural-based Assistants to carry out his plans as in Tasmania. He even reached the east coast at Twofold Bay (Eden) and north to Bega, in 1844. However, his only real achievement was his Victorian journal (see ref. la trobe journal). Otherwise it was another period of dramatic decrease in or demise of the Aboriginal population, particularly in the Kurnai tribal area of East Gippsland[10], with the Warrigal Creek and other massacres in the 1840's, and the Campaspe Plains massacre in central Victoria in 1839[11], and the Blood Hole massacre at the end of 1839 or beginning of 1840[12]. During his time as Chief Protector of the PPD, there were 38 massacres ('massacre' has 6 or more Aboriginals killed) with 855 Aboriginals and 3 colonials killed, in that part of what became Victoria (see ref.5), although it was still part of the Colony of New South Wales at that time.

"In January 1840 near Arthurs Seat William Thomas (the Assistant Protector of Aborigines) promised the gathered Kulin clans government rations until they could set up a self-sufficient community, but Chief Protector George Augustus Robinson had refused to release government supplies."[13].

Robinson's first wife, Maria Amelia Evans died in September 1948, and on 31 December 1849 the Port Phillip Protectorate was abolished.

In May 1852 he returned to London, on the ship "Medway", and on 4 June 1853 married Rose Pyne, daughter of Thomas Pyne an accountant, at St George Church, Hanover Square, London. Rose had been born in Bristol, Gloucestershire. The Robinsons lived on the Continent, mostly in Rome and Paris, until about June 1858, when they returned to England and the next year settled in Bath. They enjoyed a comfortable life with social acceptance. Rose gave him 6 more children, the first three, Emily, Arthur and Georgina born whilst on the Continent, Emily and Georgina in Paris but as British Subjects (see 1861 England Census).

By 1861 they were living at Prospect Villa in Widicombe, Bath, Somerset, with George aged 65, a Land & Fund Holder. Rose's age was interpreted by the Ancestry transcriber as 63 (only the 3 is clear, the tens number does not look like a 6), but also present were Cecilia (27), the youngest child from his first marriage, Emily (6), Georgina (4) and Alfred (1), with 2 servants. Further investigation shows Rose Pyne-310 was about 33 in 1861!

George Augustus Robinson Esquire died on 18 October 1866, late of Prahran, in the Parish of Lyncombe and Widcombe in the City of Bath, with Probate on 13 November 1866. Effects were under £9,000.

[The 1881 England Census shows that Rose Robinson was aged 52 in that year for a birth year about 1829, not 1798 as the 1861 Census information has been interpreted.]

Sources ↑ https://www.ancestry.co.uk/family-tree/person/tree/34811324/person/...
↑ https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/1090050 ↑ https://aiatsis.gov.au/exhibitions/remembering-mission-days ↑ http://latrobejournal.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-4... ↑ https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/timeline.php ↑ http://www.utas.edu.au/telling-places-in-country/historical-context... ↑ http://www.narit.or.th/en/files/2016JAHHvol19/2016JAHH...19..327G.pdf ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Phillip_District ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protector_of_Aborigines ↑ http://www.kooriweb.org/sljr/kurnai.htm ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaspe_Plains_massacre ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Hole_massacre ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billibellary Birth & Baptism: London, England, Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812. search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=lmaearlyparish&h=6221191&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt. Marriage 1: London, England, Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921. search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=lmamarriages&h=185509&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt. Marriage 2: England & Wales, FreeBMD Marriage Index: 1837-1915, Volume 1a, Page 358 Rachel Standfield, 2011, ‘The vacillating manners and sentiments of these people': Mobility, Civilisation and Dispossession in the Work of William Thomas with the Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate. Law Text Culture, 15, 2011, 162-184. Available at:http://ro.uow.edu.au/ltc/vol15/iss1/9. Residence: 1861 England Census. Class: RG9; Piece: 1689; Folio: 12; Page: 17; GSU roll: 542851. search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=uki1861&h=19203753&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt. Probate: England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1861-1941, search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=ukprobatecal&h=5268929&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt. Wikipedia article Biography: 'Robinson, George Augustus (1791–1866)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/robinson-george-augustus-2596/text3565, published first in hardcopy 1967 Truganni and George Augustus Robinson, themonthly.com.au Wybalenna: The Friendly Mission, http://www.think-tasmania.com Reconstructing the star knowledge of Aboriginal Tasmanians: M. Gaantevoort, D.W. Hanacher, S. Lischick, Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 19(3),