George Barrington: Australia’s first literary celebrity and a fake author

It certainly seems that Barrington was a reformed character in New South Wales, though it’s unclear whether the transformation was due to rehabilitation or simply because there were few pockets in the penal colony worth picking. In any case, Barrington was among the first to receive a conditional pardon in 1792 - he was given a full pardon in 1796 and subsequently made chief constable of Parramatta, where he owned and farmed over a hundred acres of land. Such privileges were not unknown for convicts who were considered to be of a superior class; such was the shortage of personnel in positions of authority. Perhaps there was also an element of setting a thief to catch one, since food theft was rife.

The George Barrington whom Tench describes with evident fascination accords with the image of a man who was once a successful celebrity criminal but had become resigned to his fate. Like an ageing movie star, the aura of fame still hung about him:

I saw him with curiosity. He is tall, approaching to six feet, slender, and his gait and manner bespeak liveliness and activity. Of that elegance and fashion, with which my imagination had decked him (I know not why), I could distinguish no trace. Great allowance should, however, be made for depression and unavoidable deficiency in dress. His face is thoughtful and intelligent; to a strong cast of countenance he adds a penetrating eye, and a prominent forehead. His whole demeanour is humble, not servile. Both on his passage from England and since his arrival here, his conduct has been irreproachable.

Though the Australian historical record indicates Barrington became a model citizen, his name is associated with one other dubious colonial legend: he was long thought to have written (and spoken) the prologue to the inaugural production of the first Australian theatre in 1796.

From distant climes o’er wide-spread seas we come,/Though not with much éclat or beat of drum,/True patriots all; for be it understood,/We left our country for our country’s own good.

It wasn’t until over a century later that Sydney bibliophile Alfred Lee discovered the lines been plagiarised from a poem written by Englishman Henry Carter, who’d never even visited Australia. Carter, who died in 1806, was described in his obituary as “a gentleman of considerable literary attainments and great benevolence”; it seems the myth of Barrington’s authorship arose when a publisher appended Carter’s poem to an edition of the equally falsely attributed History of New South Wales.

Which just goes to show the truth of the famous saying attributed to Mark Twain: “A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.”