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Authored by: Max Waugh
Publication year: 2005
Publisher: Australian Scholarly Publishing
Abstract:
Few of the thousands of people who walk past the entrance to the Mitchell Library in Sydney's Macquarie Street would recognise the imposing bronze statue of General Sir Richard Bourke, an Irish-born Governor of the Colony of New South Wales, that stands by the entrance to the Mitchell Library. Even fewer would know why an adoring public, many of them 'shirtless and shoeless', donated so generously to a fund for the erection of his statue. The monument was unveiled before thousands of people in 1842, five years after Bourke had left the Colony. Bourke was often opposed in his reforms by an entrenched Establishment and a hostile press. In his book, which features a foreword by former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, the author describes Bourke's achievements and the sinister circumstances that led to his unexpected departure.
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