Governors and Settlers Images of Authority in the British Colonies, 1820-60

In nineteenth-century settler colonies such as Upper Canada, New South Wales and New Zealand, governors not only administered, they stood at the head of colonial society and ordered the festivities and ceremonies around which colonial life centred. Governors were expected to be repositories of political wisdom and constitutional lore. Governors and Settlers explores the public and private beliefs of governors such as Sir Thomas Brisbane, Sir John Colborne, Sir George Grey and Lord Elgin as they struggled to survive in colonial cultures which both deified and vilified their personal qualities.

List of Plates - Acknowledgements - Introduction: Governors and Colonial Political Culture - The Theoretical Structure of Authority: British and Colonial Constitutional Writers - Ceremonies: The Visual Structure of Authority - Brisbane and the Ideal of Personal Government - Darling and Bourke - Contemporary Reflections upon Personal Government - The Hero in Upper Canada: Sir John Colborne - The Dispute between Colborne and Mackenzie on The Nature of Politics - Public Ideas and Private Virtues in the Governorship of Sir George Gipps - Metcalfe and Images of Authority in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Canada - A Triptych of New Zealand Governors: Fitzroy, Grey and Browne - Elgin: The Governor as the Body Politic - Appendix: Biographical Notes on Governors - Notes and References - Bibliography - Index

MARK FRANCIS