John Bigge

John Bigge was a British commissioner whose inquiry into New South Wales became a contest over who could hold land, earn wages, and participate in government. Sent in 1819 to examine the colony, he regarded its convicts’ rights and relatively inclusive institutions as a problem; his proposed overhaul would instead place power in the hands of the Squatters, a landed elite.

Commission and diagnosis

The British government dispatched Bigge to New South Wales in 1819 to head a commission of inquiry into developments in the colony. He was shocked by the rights convicts enjoyed and surprised by the fundamentally inclusive nature of the colony’s economic institutions. The contrast between his reaction and the conditions he encountered shaped his recommendations: rather than preserve those arrangements, he sought to remake them.

Proposed overhaul

Bigge recommended that convicts be barred from owning land and that people be forbidden to pay them wages. He also proposed restricting pardons, withholding land from ex-convicts, and making punishment more severe. Taken together, these measures would narrow the economic opportunities available to convicts and people who had completed their sentences, while strengthening the authority of the colonial elite.

Bigge regarded the Squatters as Australia’s natural aristocracy and envisioned an autocratic society dominated by them. His plan therefore went beyond administrative reform: it proposed a different distribution of rights and political influence, favoring established landholders over convicts and their families. The account describes this project as an attempt to turn back the clock, not as a change that was ultimately achieved.

Resistance and political stakes

The groups Bigge’s recommendations would have disadvantaged were already demanding greater rights. Ex-convicts and their sons and daughters sought equal participation in elections, representative institutions, and assemblies in which they could hold office. They understood political inclusion as necessary to secure their economic and political rights, not merely as a matter of formal representation.

The broader conflict resembled earlier struggles in North America: colonial elites sought secure title to land, while less powerful groups pressed for access and a voice in decision-making. The British government supported the elite, though it also feared that the Squatters might eventually be tempted to declare independence. Against that background, Bigge’s recommendations aligned with an effort to strengthen elite control, but the account states that his vision was not realized.