Arthur Kennedy

Fifth governor of the colony 1855-1862.

In 1854, Kennedy was promoted to the position of Governor of Western Australia. He took up the position the following year, serving until 1862. He reputedly had an autocratic manner and was considered a despot by many Western Australians. Popular opinion quickly turned against him, and in August 1856 a public meeting was held in Perth to protest against his methods. During his tenure as governor, Western Australia flourished, essentially because of the large amount of British money that was spent in the colony under the system of penal transportation of convicts. However, when Kennedy resigned in 1862, he claimed that much of the colony's success was due to his legislative efforts. On his return to England, he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the Bath (CB).

References and Links

Wikipedia page for Kennedy, whence the photo, and the text above.

Freotopia

This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 12 June, 2020 and hosted at freotopia.org/people/kennedyarthur.html (it was last updated on 12 March, 2024), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.