In terms of the relationship between biography and history, my work on Eyre sets out to examine how the idiosyncratic characteristics of one individual interacted with the more general economic, social and political interests that he was employed to pursue.

Although Eyre came from a respectable background—his father was vicar at Hornsea and Long Riston in East Yorkshire—the family’s straitened economic circumstances limited his prospects for advancement in England. Rather than pursue a career in the army, Eyre opted for a life of adventure in the colonies and, in 1833, at the age of seventeen, he found himself in New South Wales learning all he could about farming in the outback. By 1839, Governor Gawler of South Australia asked him to explore the regions around Adelaide and, within two years, Eyre felt honoured to be leading the expedition to the northern reaches of the Flinders Ranges and eventually across the Nullarbor Plain towards the west of the continent. He was proud, too, of his subsequent appointment as Resident Magistrate and Protector of Aborigines at Moorunde, outside Adelaide, which formally recognised his contributions to colonial development and seemingly vindicated his decision to fulfil his ambitions abroad.

On his return to England, Eyre’s experiences in the Australian colonies led him to feel optimistic about a career in colonial administration. Conscious of his economic vulnerability within Britain’s class structure, his modest social status still worried him but seemed set to improve with his appointment as Lieutenant Governor in New Zealand in 1847. He was delighted when Miss Adelaide (Ada) Fanny Ormond, whom he had met through his fellow explorer Charles Sturt, set sail from Plymouth to become his wife. Dark clouds were, however, on the horizon. Ever alert to the significance of petty distinctions in the colonies, the local elite scorned Eyre’s entry into polite society. Judge Chapman commented, for example: ‘In person he is tall, very thin, and not well made—with a tip-toeing awkward gait. He is narrow chested and has a bad tailor which makes things worse. His countenance is not agreeable and he has what phrenologists call a bad head.’^[19] Charlotte Godley also derided Ada’s apparent pretensions when hosting a ball: ‘At the top of the room was a sofa on which Mrs Eyre sat, without rising to receive anyone, bowing to some, and shaking hands with the more illustrious (such as ourselves).’^[20]

Gordon H. Woodhouse, c. 1910 – c. 1950. Colour glass lantern slide. State Library of Victoria. Image no. b13773.

While such local snobberies were relatively trifling, more serious rifts soon appeared in Eyre’s relationship with his superior, Governor George Grey. In time, professional and personal disagreements overwhelmed their relationship until Grey virtually withdrew Eyre’s authority and his prospects for promotion looked bleak.^[21] It is not difficult to see why Eyre’s experiences in New Zealand did little to lessen his sensitivity to criticism, especially when he felt misrepresented and misjudged. As Charlotte Godley again observed, ‘He seems a very good sort of person only rather wanting in tact and very anxious to do the right thing by everyone.’^[22] Indeed, throughout his career, Eyre wrote copiously and often to the Colonial Office, defending his actions against a range of detractors. He was by no means alone in this practice, but the persistent indignation of his correspondence sets him apart.

After waiting two years for his requested transfer, Eyre was offered a post as Lieutenant Governor in the Caribbean colonies. He arrived on the island of St Vincent with Ada and their two children in 1854. Ada did not, however, adjust well to the tropical climate, so when they returned to England on leave in 1857 she decided to stay there with the children. Eyre continued on in the Caribbean alone, writing his memoirs in his tiny, spidery script^[23] and trying to overcome his disappointment on hearing that Sir George Bowen had been made Governor of Moreton Bay in 1859, a position for which he felt uniquely qualified and that he had dearly wanted for himself and his family. After a brief period as Lieutenant Governor in Antigua, and many requests to the Colonial Office for promotion and extended periods of leave in England, he was finally rewarded with the acting governorship of Jamaica in 1862.

Ada joined him this time and, with five children now in tow, they embarked on the most turbulent period of their lives. In the next few years, Eyre would be embroiled in a number of public controversies and would turn increasingly to repressive measures to secure his authority. After the so-called Morant Bay ‘rebellion’ in October 1865, Eyre declared martial law, but the prolonged display of violence that followed prompted a Royal Commission into his actions. Eyre was dismayed by this turn of events, given the strong support he had formerly received from the British Government and his conviction that he had acted to prevent a massacre of the white population. As Henry Taylor from the Colonial Office later observed, Eyre would have been quite ‘unconscious of the view…taken by the public and the press in this country. By this time [early December] it will have dawned on him.’^[24]

Copy print, carte de visite. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW: CY3190Ae99.

Silver gelatin print. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW: CY3190Ae911

Though Eyre was never formally indicted, he faced years of action in the courts.^[25] His career had come to an ignominious end and he retired to Devon until his death in 1901, the year of Australia’s nationhood. Ada and their five children survived him.

How can we best analyse historically these seemingly straightforward biographical details of Eyre’s life as an explorer and administrator in the British Empire? Just as Eyre’s personal notoriety after the Morant Bay rebellion drew attention away from the issues that fuelled it, the subsequent historiography can inhibit analysis of the implicit violence of colonialism and its continuing ramifications in the present.^[26] Nation-bound studies, for example, often sensationalise Eyre’s career, describing him either as a heroic explorer and advocate for the Aborigines in Australia or as a brutal and racist governor in Jamaica. Where the full range of his experiences is remarked on, scholars tend to regard Eyre as an individual whose sense of personal duty explained his actions, or as the personification of certain race, class, gender and religious interests that played out reciprocally in England and the colonies.^[27]

While acknowledging these important insights, my intention has been, rather, to de-centre the powerful figure of Eyre the individual in order to bring the more commonplace violence of colonialism more fully to the fore. Accordingly, my comparative analysis suggests that Eyre’s individual preoccupations—as a person and as an administrator—at once increased his personal vulnerability to criticism and undermined British interests by exposing rather than concealing the coercive techniques of governance that were deployed throughout the empire.