Sir George Gipps – "a Whig, liberal and just"

Governor, 24/2/1838-11/7/1846 "Gipps, Sir George (1791-1847), ... Gipps' able memoranda in the House of Commons reveal him as a Whig, liberal and just ... He was knighted, promoted major, and appointed governor of New South Wales in 1838 ... His eight years as governor were ... difficult, challenging and sometimes unpleasant. He had to serve two masters, Crown and colony. With slow and uncertain communications between Sydney and Whitehall he often had to act more independently than his instructions permitted, and at times he had to defy both Whitehall and the colonists. The secretaries of state to whom he was responsible changed frequently: Lord Glenelg, Lord Normanby, Lord John Russell, Lord Stanley, and WE Gladstone ... Gipps' ... dispatches are models of their kind ... At first he had fairly good relations with the Executive and Legislative Council ... An Imperial Act of 1842 added to the Legislative Council a two-thirds proportion of members elected on a franchise high enough to exclude two thirds of adult male voters ... in 1843, most of the twenty-four new seats had been won by graziers and their friends ... the council persistently opposed Gipps ... Wentworth's enmity... went back to 1840 when his scheme to purchase most of New Zealand's South Island for a song was blocked by Gipps ... 'the job ... of making him a grant of twenty million. acres for a farthing' ... the Imperial Act of 1842 gave only six seats to Port Phillip and granted no separate colonial status ..." [11]  

[11] Shaw AGL and Clark CMH (eds.) Australian Dictionary of Biography 1788-1850 (Vol 1, MUP 1966) Page 446