Governor la trobe his work as a governor
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eGold - A Nation's Heritage
- Born
- 20 March 1801
London, United Kingdom - Died
- 4 December 1875
United Kingdom - Occupation
- Lieutenant-Governor, Superintendent and Port Phillip District
Charles Joseph La Trobe was appointed to the position of Superintendent of the Port Phillip District in 1839, superseding Police Magistrate William Lonsdale as the officer in charge of law and order and community welfare. Although being charming, scholarly and well travelled, La Trobe had no administrative skills and so was briefed for two months by Sir George Gipps before his arrival in Port Phillip. He became Lieutenant-Governor in 1851 when Victoria became a separate colony.
His role was arduous as all major decisions had to be referred to Sydney, 600 miles and several days journey away. Following separation from New South Wales, Victorian society was dramatically transformed by the discovery of gold. La Trobe resigned in 1854 amid the furore of political unrest on the central Victorian diggings where he was deeply unpopular: the cry of his name, ‘Joe’, was one of derision amongst the miners.
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Charles Joseph La Trobe (1801-1875)
Charles Joseph La Trobe was so controversial in so many ways. Relatively little is popularly known about him, and yet he achieved so much during his tenure as Superintendent of the Port Phillip District and as Lieutenant-Governor of the colony of Victoria.
He is best remembered as a pioneering administrator who came as Superintendent in 1839 to Port Phillip, a primitive, underdeveloped and underpopulated colony, and left it in 1854 with Melbourne then the most affluent city in the world.
La Trobe was, and remains, a profoundly misunderstood figure in Victoria’s history. From the day he set foot on the soil of Port Phillip, there was a distance between him and the colonists due to the fact that they did not understand each other. Fundamental to all the Superintendent’s thoughts, words and actions were his spirituality and his evangelicalism, and he duly shocked the colonists with his arrival speech:
It will not be by individual aggrandisement, by the possession of numerous flocks and herds, or of costly acres, that we shall secure for the
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Charles Joseph La Trobe
Charles Joseph La Trobe (1801-1875), colonial administrator, travelled widely in Europe and America before beginning his colonial career in the West Indies in 1837. Two years later he was appointed superintendent of the Port Phillip District, answerable to the governor of New South Wales, George Gipps. La Trobe had some difficulty handling a disparate collection of separatist free settlers who resented control from Sydney, and was attacked in the Town Council and the Argus as the 1840s wore on. However, he gained popularity in 1849 for forwarding a cargo of convicts to Sydney in defiance of the Colonial Office. In 1850, when Victoria became a colony, La Trobe was appointed its lieutenant-governor. Gold was discovered the following year, and his new government had immediately to rise to the nightmarish administrative challenge of the gold rush. La Trobe left Victoria in 1854, having established the Melbourne Botanic Gardens and having provided key support for the foundation of several important public health and cultural institutions, including the hospital
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