Hercules George Robert Robinson, 1st Baron Rosmead

In 1872 Robinson was appointed governor (gazetted February 1872) of the major self-governing colony of New South Wales. Balding and rotund, he was an effective public speaker. His professionalism and political acumen were noted by the Sydney Morning Herald in welcoming the new governor and perhaps comforting nervous colonists. Robinson himself readily grasped that he had to act in a more constrained constitutional environment. But the statist and interventionist never entirely disappeared. Robinson's administration of New South Wales until 1879 was clearly a great success but conflict often erupted in the press and parliament. This happened partly because he recognized the need for a firm steadying hand in guiding the formation of new colonial ministers in the immature environment of New South Wales parties and factions. Partly it occurred because he was still the imperial improver, eager to be involved in the promotion of infrastructure development, education and social reform, economic development and public culture—sometimes over the heads of colonial ministers. And most often it occurred because he used the colonial press to speak his mind without too great a concern for local political sensibilities in ‘Macquarie Street’. As he said in a valedictory address, he had never thought the role of governor in a self-governing colony was to be 'merely a sort of mechanical nightingale singing over the one tune, of indiscriminate praise' (Sydney Morning Herald, 16 Oct 1878). As governor, Robinson was often more popular with the average colonist than with the politicians for his calls to New South Wales development above petty factional politics.
Image Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery

New South Wales | New South Wales Administrators