"During his long career as an officer in the British army, 80th Regiment, Major Thomas Bunbury was posted to New South Wales, embarking on a convict ship for Hobart Town and Sydney in August 1837. Although he had been promised the command of the penal settlement at Norfolk Island, he was delayed at Windsor until February 1839, due to difficulties with Governor Gipps over his appointment. Finally relieving Major Anderson on Norfolk Island, Bunbury set about remedying what he saw as deficiencies in the administration of the settlement and introduced a number of agricultural improvements, building a grain silo and beginning the manufacture of hemp from flax. Taking a firm attitude to discipline, he cut the rations of convicts on the sick list, compelling many of them back to work. He uncovered an illicit trade between soldiers and convicts, carried out in storage huts erected in the soldiers' gardens, called Irish Town, and ordered that the huts be destroyed. This prompted a small mutiny by the soldiers, which was easily put down, but as a consequence Bunbury was recalled to Sydney with his garrison, after less than a year as Commandant. He apparently survived the court martial inquiry into the mutiny without censure, and was shortly afterward posed to New Zealand and later to India. He retired in 1858 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
Bunbury's Reminiscences deal largely with the politics of his appointments and commands, and the personalities and social lives of himself and his fellow officers. A dogmatic professional officer, he appears to have been unmoved by the situation of the convicts on Norfolk Island and during his voyage to New South Wales in 1837, and glosses over details of punishments he issued as magistrate on the Island. His account complements that of Joseph Anderson and provides a contrasting perspective to contemporary convict accounts" (Walsh and Hooton 30).
Source
Walsh, Kay and Joy Hooton. Australian Autobiographical Narratives : An Annotated Bibliography. Canberra : Australian Scholarly Editions Centre, University College, ADFA and National Library of Australia, 1993.
19th-Century Australian Travel Writing
Thomas Bunbury (1791-1861)—painter, soldier, and major in the 80th regiment—presented his autobiography in Reminiscences of a Veteran, a narrative published in three volumes. He began working on his account in 1845 "to beguile a tedious hour," completing the manuscript in 1858. The work chronicles his travels through Europe, the Pacific, and Asia, and it is the second volume that contains reference to Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales. Bunbury was in charge of the convicts on a voyage: he describes the monotonous journey and arrival in Hobart (after a 93-day voyage from Portsmouth), and the delivery of convicts to gaol. Arriving in Sydney, he detailed the beauty of the Illawarra region, scenery, convict relations, court proceedings, and daily life with his regiment. Bunbury left the mainland colonies in 1839 when he became commandant of Norfolk Island, and subsequently served in New Zealand, where he took possession of the South Island, and India.
