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Governor Lachlan Macquarie was the governor of New South Wales from 1810 until 1821. Known as the ‘Old Viceroy’, Macquarie became revered by the general public and sometimes loathed by historians. ‘Lachlan Macquarie was a spendthrift and a moral prig.’ That statement, a harsh indictment of Governor Lachlan Macquarie’s administration and personality, is ambiguous and isn’t a consistent with the nature of Macquarie’s tenure as governor of New South Wales. Macquarie inherited a colony on the verge of economic depression and social upheaval. In this tumultuous period, Governor Lachlan Macquarie managed to maintain a growing population while at the same time dealing with social and economic expansion. Indeed, Lachlan Macquarie was a flawed individual but he had a good grasp of what it took to run New South Wales. This does not mean, however, that the claims of Macquarie the ‘spendthrift’ and ‘moral prig’ are untrue. They are part of a bigger picture that shaped Governor Macquarie’s policies and his decisions on how New South Wales were to operate. Beset by environmental disasters and social conflicts it is easy to criticise Macquarie but we must remember the context of the situation. To view Lachlan Macquarie’s administration we must look at all the factors rather than focus upon distinctly unflattering character traits. The most common view held by historians was that Governor Lachlan Macquarie ran, without a doubt, a very expensive government. On the surface, this would certainly be the case. With only one notable decrease, between 1812 and 1813, colonial and commissariat expenditure during Macquarie’s reign was expensive. In the years 1812 up until 1816, a grand total of £526, 734 had been spent. Indeed, the expenses Macquarie incurred on the British government should be viewed in context of the social, political and economical situation at the time. First and foremost, Britain had been engaged in war. New South Wales, in previous years was not as expensive as it was during Macquarie’s time. For example, in 1808 the total bill was £25,000, while in four months in 1812, expenditure was at £30, 869. Due to these circumstances, the impact of Macquarie’s expensive spending was much more than it would have been during a less financially unsettled period or without previous governors who followed the British government’s wishes for a cheap government. However, one cannot deny that, up to a certain degree, Macquarie was not shy in spending British money, though he may not have been a ‘spendthrift’. Evidently there is certainly enough statistical proof to show that Macquarie was a financial burden but, as will be explained later, his spending was not based upon personal satisfaction. Macquarie, in his early years as governor, planned to embark on a ‘colossal reorganisation of the colony’. New South Wales, before Macquarie’s government, was in a poor state of affairs socially and economically. B.H. Travers, in his study of Lachlan Macquarie, writes ‘socially the colony was barely surviving.’ He elaborates further, ‘there were no roads and no police to patrol them… the salaries were too low.
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