George Barrington

For other people named George Barrington, see George Barrington (disambiguation).

George Barrington
Born	(1755-05-14)14 May 1755 Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland
Died	27 December 1804(1804-12-27) (aged 49) Parramatta, New South Wales
Occupation	Pickpocket
Criminal charge	Theft
Criminal penalty	Seven years' transportation
Partner	Yeariana

George Barrington (14 May 1755 – 27 December 1804) (real name Walden) was an Irish pickpocket, popular London socialite, Australian pioneer (following his transportation to Botany Bay), and author. His escapades, arrests, and trials were widely chronicled in the London press of his day. For over a century following his death, and still perhaps today, he was most celebrated for the couplet “True patriots all; for be it understood, We left our country for our country’s good”. The attribution of the line to Barrington is considered apocryphal since the 1911 discovery by Sydney book collector Alfred Lee of the 1802 book in which the line first appeared.

Personal life

Barrington in The Chronicles of Newgate, ed. Arthur Griffiths.

George Barrington caught picking the pocket of Count Orlov, Covent Garden Theatre

Barrington was born at Maynooth in County Kildare, son either of a working silversmith named Waldron, or of Captain Barrington, an English troop commander.

At some point in the 1785–1787 period he married and the couple had a child, but the names of the wife and child, and their eventual fates, are not known.

During the beginnings of his prosperity in Australia, Barrington cohabited with a native woman, Yeariana, who soon left him to return to her family. Barrington said that Yeariana possessed "a form that might serve as a perfect model for the most scrupulous statuary."

Career

Pickpocketing

George Barrington being tried at The Old Bailey, 17 September 1790

In 1771 he robbed his schoolmaster at Dublin and ran away from school, becoming a member of a touring theatrical company at Drogheda under the assumed name of Barrington. At the Limerick races he joined the manager of the company in picking pockets. The manager was detected and sentenced to transportation, and Barrington fled to London, where he assumed clerical dress and continued his pickpocketing. At Covent Garden theatre he robbed the Russian Count Orlov of a snuffbox, said to be worth £30,000. He was detected and arrested but, as Count Orlov declined to prosecute, was discharged, though subsequently he was sentenced to three years' hard labour for pocket-picking at Drury Lane theatre.

On his release, he was again caught at his old practices and sentenced to five years' hard labour, but influence secured his release on the condition that he leave England. He accordingly went for a short time to Dublin, and then returned to London, where he was once more detected pocket-picking, and, in 1790, sentenced to seven years' transportation.

At Botany Bay

One account states that on the voyage out to Botany Bay a conspiracy was hatched by the convicts on board to seize the ship. Barrington disclosed the plot to the captain, and the latter, on reaching New South Wales, reported him favourably to the authorities, with the result that in 1792 Barrington obtained a warrant of emancipation (the first issued), becoming subsequently superintendent of convicts and later high constable of Parramatta.

Barrington died at Parramatta in 1804.

Latter-day renown

Whatever doubts may exist about the authorship of the "Prologue", its most famous line has become an iconic part of Australian culture (for example, it is quoted in the film Breaker Morant and provides the title of the play Our Country's Good). It begins:

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 good.

Works

Barrington employed the artist and engraver Vincent Woodthorpe to illustrate these works,

• A Voyage to New South Wales. In two volumes, the first of which is "A Voyage to Botany Bay", London, 1795 and 1801.
• The History of New South Wales. London, 1802 and 1810.

Film

In 2022, the two German artists Matthias Meyer and Alexander Rischer released their experimental documentary film "The Ballad of George Barrington", which traces the life of George Barrington. The film had its premiere on 25 November 2022 at the Metropolis Kino in Hamburg.

See also

• List of convicts transported to Australia

References

• Box, Sheila. The real George Barrington?: The Adventures of a notorious London Pickpocket, later Head Constable of the Infant Colony of New South Wales. Melbourne, Victoria: Arcadia, 2001.
• Garvey, Nathan. The Celebrated George Barrington: A Spurious Author, the Book Trade, and Botany Bay, Potts Point, NSW: Hordern House, 2008.
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Barrington, George" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• Australian Dictionary of Biography which in turn cites:
  • Historical Records of Australia, Series I, vols 1–4
  • Lambert, Richard S. Prince of Pickpockets, London: Faber & Faber Limited, 1930.
  • Petherick, E.A. (ed). The Torch and Colonial Book Circular, vol. 1, no. 3, 1888
  • Ferguson, J.A. 'Studies in Australian Bibliography', Journal and Proceedings (Royal Australian Historical Society), vol. 16, part 1, 1930, pp. 51–80
  • Bonwick transcripts, biography (State Library of New South Wales).
• Lambert, Richard S. Prince of Pickpockets, London: Faber & Faber Limited, 1930.
• The book Prince of Pickpockets prominently featured in Robert Bresson’s 1959 film “Pickpocket”.

External links

• Works by George Barrington at Project Gutenberg Australia.
• Barrington's Australian Dictionary of Biography entry and library holdings at the National Library of Australia.
• Books.google entries on Alfred Lee's discovery regarding what the Australian Encyclopaedia entry refers to as the "Barrington Prologue".
• Australian Dictionary of Biography entry on Alfred Lee, discoverer of the original source of the "Barrington Prologue".
• Link to the homepage of the film The Ballad of George Barrington