George Cooper (public servant)

George Cooper (23 June 1793 – 7 April 1867) was a customs official and government administrator in Ireland, England, Australia and New Zealand. He was the first Colonial Treasurer and head of Customs of New Zealand.[1][2][3]

Honourable

George Cooper
1st Colonial Treasurer
In office
5 January 1840 – 9 May 1842
Succeeded byAlexander Shepherd
Executive Council of New Zealand
In office
3 May 1841 – 9 May 1842
New Zealand Legislative Council
In office
24 May 1841 – 9 May 1842
Personal details
Born23 June 1793
Kildare, County Kildare, Ireland
Died7 April 1867(1867-04-07) (aged 73)
Geelong, Victoria
Spouse(s)Emily Buck
ChildrenGeorge Sisson Cooper, Shaftesbury Cooper

Biography

Cooper was born in County Kildare, Ireland, in 1793.[4] He started work in 1816 as a customs agent for Ireland and England.[5] He emigrated to New South Wales, arriving Sydney on 12 October 1836 aboard the Hoogley with his wife and children. Later that month he was officially appointed Comptroller and Landing Surveyor in the Department of Customs for the colony.[6][1][2] In NSW, he also became Superintendent of Distilleries.[7] He built, or leased, Waterview House, the first house in Balmain, and bought 50 acres of surrounding land on the Balmain Peninsula. He got into financial difficulties in the 1840 depression and became insolvent.[8]

He was appointed Colonial Treasurer and Collector of Customs for New Zealand on 5 January 1840.[9][10] Later that month he moved to the Bay of Islands in the north of New Zealand, arriving aboard HMS Herald with William Hobson and other officials (including Willoughby Shortland and Felton Mathew).[11] His annual salary was £600, the same as it was in Sydney.[12] He was a witness and signatory to the Treaty of Waitangi.[13] When the General Legislative Council was formed in May 1841, Cooper became a member due to his role as treasurer.[14] In May 1842, he resigned from his position as Colonial Treasurer and returned to Sydney.[1]

Cooper was later secretary and treasurer to the Shire of Ballan west of Melbourne from 1863 till 1867.[15] His health deteriorated for the last two years of his life.[16] He died in Geelong, Victoria, on 7 April 1867, at the home of his son-in-law.[4][17][18] His son, George Sisson Cooper, had a long career in the New Zealand civil service; from 1870 to 1892, he was Under-Secretary for the colony.[19]

Legacy

Cooper was a beekeeper and was one of the first who tried to establish honeybees in New Zealand. Fellow beekeeper, William Cotton, noted that Cooper arrived in Auckland in October 1842 with a hive of bees "seemingly dead" after a stormy ten-day passage from Sydney.[20]

There is a Cooper Street in Balmain on part of the land he once owned.

Notes
  1. Cyclopedia Company Limited (1897). "Mr. George Cooper". The Cyclopedia of New Zealand : Wellington Provincial District. Wellington. Retrieved 5 June 2017.
  2. "Our History". New Zealand Customs Service. Archived from the original on 23 April 2017. Retrieved 5 June 2017.
  3. "What would George Cooper say? Celebrating our 175-year anniversary". New Zealand Customs Service. Archived from the original on 15 October 2016. Retrieved 5 June 2017.
  4. "Cooper, George, −1867". National Library of New Zealand. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
  5. H.J. Gibney & Ann G. Smith (eds.) A biographical register 1788–1939; Notes from the name index of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol I, A-K, Canberra, 1987, Australian Dictionary of Biography, p.142-3.
  6. "New South Wales Government Gazette" (245). 26 October 1836: 826. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  7. McKinnon, Malcolm (2013). Treasury: A History of the New Zealand Treasury 1840–2000. Auckland University Press. ISBN 9781869405373. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
  8. Reynolds, Peter (1981). "John Fraser Gray (1815–1881) and Waterview House, Balmain". Leichardt Historical Journal. 10: 6.
  9. "Government Notice". New Zealand Advertiser and Bay of Islands Gazette. I (IX). 6 August 1840. p. 1. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
  10. "New Zealand". The Australasian Chronicle. 19 September 1840. p. 3. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
  11. Reed, A. W. (1955). Auckland, the city of the seas. Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed. p. 39.
  12. "New Zealand". The South Australian Colonist and Settlers' Weekly Record of British, Foreign and Colonial Intelligence. 18 August 1840. p. 378. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
  13. "G.S. Cooper and Cooper Street". Karori Historical Society. Retrieved 5 June 2017.
  14. Wilson, James Oakley (1985) [First published in 1913]. New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1984 (4th ed.). Wellington: V.R. Ward, Govt. Printer. p. 27. OCLC 154283103.
  15. "Deaths". The Argus. 11 April 1867. p. 4. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
  16. "Ballan". Bacchus Marsh Express. 13 April 1867. p. 3. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
  17. "Deaths". The Sydney Morning Herald. 23 April 1867. p. 7. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
  18. "Death". The Timaru Herald. VI (200). 1 May 1867. p. 2. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
  19. "Local and General News". Feilding Star. XX (39). 16 August 1898. p. 2. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
  20. Barrett, Peter. "George Cooper, New Zealand's first Treasurer and Collector of Customs, was also an early Auckland beekeeper". Scribd. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
Political offices
New office Colonial Treasurer
1840–1842		 Succeeded by
Alexander Shepherd
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