Where did Bourke get its name?
Bourke is a long way from Tipperary, but that’s precisely where its name originated!
It’s not unusual for visitors to assume the Outback river port was named for the unfortunate explorer Edmund Burke, of Burke & Wills fame, who perished far to the west on Cooper’s Creek in 1861.
In fact, three decades earlier, explorer Major Thomas Mitchell having stirred hostile reactions from the Ngemba and Barkandji people on the Darling River, built a tiny stockade for protection. He christened it Fort Bourke in honour of Governor Richard Bourke – a native of Tipperary – who had commissioned his expedition.
Before making the journey halfway round the world to the colony of NSW, Irish-born Richard Bourke had already had a long military career in the early 19th century, serving in the British Army in Holland, Spain and South America. A bullet had pierced both his cheeks and left him with an awkward speech defect. In later life the effects of this wound prevented him from speaking forcefully in public and he declined all invitations to stand for parliament.
Despite this, he proved himself a good leader and rose through the ranks to become a Major General before retiring to take up the role of Lieutenant-Governor of the Eastern District of the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. The frontier districts had been disturbed by Kaffir raids across the border and reprisals by armed commando bands of colonists and British military forces. Soon after he took office, Bourke forbad indiscriminate retaliation.
Although these measures met with adverse criticism in the colony and in England, Bourke regarded them as a first step in a long-range plan to solve the frontier problem by conciliating the Kaffirs (black peoples). While promoting trade and friendly intercourse he also encouraged missionaries to spread the teachings of Jesus as a means of building healthier cross-cultural relations.
These challenges prepared Richard Bourke for the task of governing the rough and tumble convict colony of NSW. Bourke received an enthusiastic welcome into Sydney in 1831, partly because his good reputation in Ireland and the Cape had preceded him but the infectious optimism was soon darkened by personal tragedy.
His wife Elizabeth, an independently minded woman of warm evangelical faith with a heart for poor relief programs and school projects, died at Parramatta in May 1832. Wherever they went, Richard and Elizabeth had dedicated themselves to educating underprivileged children and their charity had no time for religious bigotry. The loss of the deeply loved mother of his eight children left the Governor heart-broken. […]
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