HISTORY OF TASMANIA
FROM 1843 TO 1847
FROM 1843 TO 1847
SECTION I
Sir John Eardley Eardley-Wilmot, Bart., succeeded Sir John Franklin, August 21st, 1843. His short and troubled administration, although crowded with incident, presents few events of permanent interest. Charged with the development of a gigantic scheme of penal discipline, founded on erroneous data, and imperfectly sustained by material resources, he was involved in the discredit of its failure. The opposition of the colony to his measures he too readily resented as disrespectful to himself, and thus a long and useful public life was closed in sadness.
Sir Eardley Wilmot received his appointment from Lord Stanley, whose political leadership he followed in his secession from the whigs, occasioned by the reduction of the Irish church. During successive parliaments he represented Warwickshire, and for twenty years was chairman of the quarter sessions of that county,—in England a post of some consequence. He inclined rather to the liberal than the tory section of the house, and supported most measures favorable to civil and religious freedom. On the question of negro slavery he was a coadjutor of the decided abolitionists, and on his motion apprenticeship, a milder form of slavery, was finally terminated. He contributed papers on prison discipline, and initiated a bill for the summary trial of juvenile offenders. Thus he appeared not unqualified to preside in a colony where penal institutions constituted the main business of government, and where many religious opinions divide the population.
The gazette which announced his appointment contained the nomination of Sir Charles Metcalf to the governorship of Canada, vacated by Sir George Arthur. An article in the London Times attacked Sir E. Wilmot with uncommon acrimony, attributed by himself to the influence of private spleen. He was described as a mere joking justice, accustomed in his judicial office to "poke fun" at prisoners, destitute alike of talents and dignity, and his character a contrast with that of the new Canadian governor. This bitter diatribe was published in the colonies, and was not forgotten in the strife of factions. Metcalf was indeed a governor with whom the widest comparison would scarcely find an equal. Every Capital he ruled is adorned with his statue, and when he descended to the dust his tomb was wet with the tears of nations. He consulted the ministers with the independence of a patriot, and governed the people as one of themselves.