John Dunmore Lang - Lang and Politics

Lang and Politics

In The Colonist Lang agitated for the end of transportation, for the separation of the Moreton Bay Colony (which he proposed to be called Cooksland, but was eventually called Queensland) and the Port Phillip District (which he proposed to be called Phillipsland, but was eventually called Victoria) from New South Wales, and for the establishment of representative government and the reduction in the powers of the British-appointed Governors.

In 1843 Lang was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Council as the representative of the Port Phillip District, holding his seat until 1846. From 1850-52 Lang was one of the members for Sydney, and in 1854 he was elected to the Council for Moreton Bay District. Lang was MLA for West Sydney from 1859 to 1869. Lang was not suited to parliamentary life, since he was temperamentally opposed to parliamentary procedure. He frequently used parliamentary privilege to pursue personal vendettas against his many enemies in the Presbyterian Church and the press.

In 1851, in any case, he was unable to take his seat in Parliament, since he was heavily in debt from his various failed migration schemes and was being pressed by creditors. He was sued for debt, and when he attacked his creditors in the press he was prosecuted for libel, and sentenced to a 100 pound fine and four months imprisonment in Parramatta Gaol. He was imprisoned again in 1855, when his son George, manager of the Ballarat branch of the Bank of New South Wales, was convicted of embezzlement. Lang attacked the judge in print and was sentenced to six months imprisonment for criminal libel. Ten thousand people signed a petition for his release, but he served the full sentence.

By 1850 Lang, inspired by the Chartist movement in Britain and by the 1848 revolution in France, had become a radical democrat and a republican. With Henry Parkes and James Wilshire he founded the Australian League, considered by historians to be Australia's first political party, although he soon quarrelled with his fellow-founders. He put forward ideas which were both visionary and radical - the federation of the Australian colonies, the establishment of a fully democratic government (at a time when both in Britain and Australia the franchise was restricted to owners of property) and an Australian republic. These ideas reflected both the Presbyterian ideal of congregational self-government (despite the fact that in church affairs he was an autocrat) and his Scottish nationalist dislike of English and Anglican supremacy.

In 1850 Lang published The Coming Event! Or, the United Provinces of Australia in which he predicted an independent Australian federal republic. He followed this in 1852 with Freedom and Independence for the Golden Lands of Australia, his best-known work. The title of this work has become an established slogan of political radicalism and republicanism in Australia. Despite his bitter anti-Catholicism, his political ideas won him wide support among the Irish Catholic population, who shared his dislike of English and Anglican dominance. In return, he supported Home Rule for Ireland - partly because he thought this would reduce the Irish Catholic influence in British government.

Lang was also an enthusiastic promoter of the development of the Australian colonies. In 1834 he published in Britain the first edition of An Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales, both as a Penal Colony and as a British Colony, which ran through a series of editions until his death, to promote immigration and investment in Australia. The Westminster Review commented that the book should have been called A History of Dr. Lang to which is added a History of New South Wales'. He also published Port-Phillip, or the colony of Victoria in 1853, and Queensland, Australia in 1861 to promote the northern colony. Lang Park in Brisbane is named after him in recognition of his work promoting the colony.

Despite their eccentricity, Lang's works were influential in promoting Australia, but his practical schemes for immigration were usually fiascos owing to his lack of business sense. After 1851, in any case, immigration to Australia boomed due to the Gold Rush and had no need of promotion.

Lang's influence should not be underestimated but was marred by his wilful personality. As well, the wave of radicalism in Britain and Australia of the mid-19th century soon passed and was succeeded by an era of enthusiasm for the British Empire. But he has become an iconic figure in Australian history, as the first public figure to advocate Australian nationalism, federation, full political democracy and republicanism. Lang is the namesake of Dunmore Lang College, at Macquarie University in Sydney.

Lang's writings are voluminous, his activities multifarious. His power of description is remarkable, his assessments of individuals generally perceptive if tinged with his own prejudices. His egotism defies belief but his achievements are quite astonishing and overshadow his religious contribution. Excluding his newspaper articles his published work runs to some 10,000 pages.

Lang died in August 1878 following a stroke. His funeral, on 10 August, was the 'largest ever seen in Australia' - a funeral procession over a mile in length, led by 500 Chinese, with perhaps 70,000 people lining the streets. His wife died in 1888, and the last of his children in 1934. There were no grandchildren.