Bunyip Aristocracy - Colonial Peerage

Colonial Peerage

A Committee, consisting of Messrs. Charles Cowper, T.A. Murray, George Macleay, E. Deas Thomson, J.H. Plunkett, Dr. Douglas, W. Thurlow, James Macarthur, James Martin, and W.C. Wentworth, appointed on the motion of W.C.Wentworth, held its first meeting, Sydney, May 27, 1853. Fifteen meetings were called. Half the members did not attend the meetings. The Bill was reported 28 July 1853. It was almost universally condemned by the people and a large public meeting was called to oppose it. In the advertisement convening the meeting were the following paragraphs :

• A committee of the Legislative Council has framed a new Constitution for the colony, by which it is proposed
  • (1.) To create a colonial nobility with hereditary privileges.
  • (2.) To construct an Upper House of Legislature in which the people will have no voice.
  • (3.) To add eighteen new seats to the Lower House, only one of which is to be allotted to Sydney while the other seventeen are to be allotted among the country and squatting districts.
  • (4.) To squander the public revenue by pensioning off the officers of the Government on their full salaries ! thus implanting in our institutions a principle of jobbery and corruption.
  • (5.) To fix irrevocably on the people this oligarchy in the name of free institutions so that no future Legislature can reform it even by absolute majority. The Legislative Council has the hardihood to propose passing this unconstitutional and anti-British measure with only a few days notice, and before it can possibly be considered by the colonists at large." The meeting was addressed by Sir Henry Parkes and other Liberals, and the result of the agitation was that the most objectionable clause, to create an hereditary colonial peerage, was struck out.