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An account of a voyage to New South Wales, by George Barrington, Superintendant of the convicts, to which is prefixed a detail of his life, trials, speeches &c. &c.
George Barrington (1755-1804)
London: Printed for M. Jones, 1803
Rare Books & Manuscripts
Rare Books Collection RB 910.4 B276
We thank our donor...
Conservation treatment of An account of a voyage to New South Wales... was funded through the generosity of an anonymous donor in December 2019.
Synopsis
George Barrington was born in c1755 in the county of Kildare, near Dublin, and was reportedly educated at the grammar school there. Trouble seemed to follow him everywhere though, and at the age of 16 he stabbed another schoolboy, stole some money and a watch and ran away.[1] He joined a group of strolling players, led by the swindler John Price, who taught him how to pick pockets.[2] When the travelling theatre group dispersed, he and Price became partners in a very lucrative business of theft in Dublin and London, and in about 1773 the latter was arrested and transported to the American colonies.[3]
Barrington quickly gained notoriety. Although he posed as a gentleman and enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, he picked the pockets of his influential friends as quickly as his stole their hearts. He stole the diamonds from the clothing of a Knight of the Garter and even stole a diamond-encrusted snuff box from the Russian Count Orlov.[4] He was arrested on numerous occasions and yet somehow always managed to obtain an acquittal or a significantly reduced sentence. In 1790, on trial at the Old Bailey in London for the theft of a gold watch, he put on such a performance that the judge and jury were reportedly brought to tears.[5] He was given a relatively lenient sentence of transportation to New South Wales for seven years.
Arriving in September 1791 on board the ship Active, Barrington took up work on a farm at Toongabbie and received a conditional pardon after just one year. He was given a place in the police watch that protected Government stores, and just four years later his pardon was made absolute. It appeared, by all accounts, that he had reformed, leaving behind his criminal past in favour of an honest living. Governor John Hunter even appointed Barrington chief constable at Parramatta, where he acquired a house and farmed several plots of land. By 1800, however, Barrington’s physical and mental health had deteriorated to such an extent that he had to resign his post. Some of his critics have suggested that excessive drinking contributed to his infirmity.
Barrington’s reputation as an author has also come into question. It is now widely held that he did not write many of the works which have been attributed to him. This is also true of An account of a voyage to New South Wales… which has long been considered a mixture of material sourced from other published accounts of the First Fleet. It is most likely that irresponsible English publishers and journalists capitalised on Barrington’s notoriety to offer a public, eager for information, books about transportation and the new colony.
Despite this, An account of a voyage… (1803) was, and still is, an important book. A sequel of sorts to Barrington’s 1802 The history of New South Wales, it includes some of the earliest engravings, all hand-coloured, of settlement in New South Wales. Together, the set would have been one of just a few from which the British gained their knowledge of the colony. Beginning with an description of Barrington’s life, and embellished with his striking portrait to the frontispiece, An account of a voyage is the volume that focuses less on the discoveries made around Australia and more on the landscapes and the customs and manners of the people he encountered elsewhere, particularly in Africa.
Original Condition
Quarter binding with marbled paper sidings. Board edges and corners severely bumped with most beginning to separate. Partial loss of both headbands and leather from head and tail of spine. Marbled paper to cover lifting along the edges with some loss at corners. Front board detached, along with front endpaper. Rear board starting, and textblock beginning to split, with some pages extending beyond the rest. Small tears to pages throughout. Item requires rebacking and resewing.
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Restoration by Anthony Zammit
Existing spine leather gently removed, together with that along the front and rear joints. Spine lining removed and item resewn, bringing pages back into alignment. Minor tears throughout textblock repaired with Japanese repair paper. New spine lining applied and new leather, sympathetic in colour to the original, inserted underneath the joint leather and around the spine to reback the book. Separating board corners and edges consolidated with glue and lifting marbled paper re-adhered with starch paste. Front endpaper tipped back in and both front and rear joints strengthened with Japanese repair paper.
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Footnotes:
[1] ‘George Barrington 1755-1804’, Australian National Maritime Museum, 2018, accessed online 17 December 2019, http://collections.anmm.gov.au/people/2412
[2] 'Barrington, George (1755–1804)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/barrington-george-1746/text1935, published first in hardcopy 1966, accessed online 17 December 2019.
[3] As above.
[4] ‘George Barrington 1755-1804’, Australian National Maritime Museum, 2018, accessed online 17 December 2019, http://collections.anmm.gov.au/people/2412
[5] 'Barrington, George (1755–1804)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/barrington-george-1746/text1935, published first in hardcopy 1966, accessed online 17 December 2019.
Lee Hayes
December 2019
