John Bigge

John Thomas Bigge (8 March 1780 – 22 December 1843) was an English judge and royal commissioner. He is mostly known for his inquiry into the British colony of New South Wales published in the early 1820s. His reports favoured a return to the harsh treatment of convicts and the utilisation of them as cheap agricultural labour for wealthy sheep-farming colonists. Bigge's reports also resulted in the resignation of Governor Lachlan Macquarie whose policies promoted the advancement of ex-convicts back into society.

Bigge was born at Benton House, Northumberland, England, the son of Thomas Charles Bigge, High Sheriff of Northumberland in 1780. He was educated at Newcastle Grammar School and Westminster School (1795), and in 1797 entered Christ Church, Oxford (B.A., 1801; M.A., 1804).

Bigge was called to the Bar in 1806 and was appointed Chief Judge of Trinidad in 1814, a post he held for the next four years.

In 1819, Bigge was appointed a special commissioner to examine the government of the Colony of New South Wales by Lord Bathurst, the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. His brief was to determine how far the expanding colony of New South Wales could be "made adequate to the Objects of its original Institution", which were understood to be purely to be a penal colony. He was to come to Australia to investigate all aspects of the colonial government, then under the governorship of Lachlan Macquarie, including finances, the church and the judiciary, and the convict system. Bigge was also appointed in response to complaints to London from leading colonists including John Macarthur about Macquarie's policies of remediating ex-convicts back into society.

Together with his secretary Thomas Hobbes Scott, Bigge arrived in Sydney on 26 September 1819, by the ship John Barry. Bigge finished gathering evidence February 1821 and on 10 February, sailed back to England aboard the ship Dromedary.

While Bigge was in Australia, there was apparent friction between himself and Governor Macquarie and he openly conducted most of his investigations in consultation with the 'exclusive' colonists such as John Macarthur. Bigge extensively praised Macarthur and advocated for his policies of providing large assignments of convicts to 'men of real capital' in order to labour upon their sheep stations.

Bigge's first report was published in June 1822 and his second and third reports in 1823. Much of the first report was dedicated to criticism of Governor Macquarie's administration, especially his emancipist policy, expenditure on public works and management of convicts. Bigge outlined that the concentration of convicts in the employ of the government in Sydney was indulgent, expensive and enabled convicts to readily access alcohol and entertainment. He noted that convicts viewed transportation to the colony more as emigration than as a punishment. Bigge recommended that the convicts have their usual seven year sentences increased and be mostly assigned as cheap labour to wealthy land-holders in more regional areas. He wrote that convicts in the employ of the government was unnecessary and too costly, while assigning them to poor settlers was 'very pernicious'.

Bigge also strongly reproached Macquarie for his appointment of ex-convicts (known as emancipists) to official posts such as magistrates, solicitors and assistant surgeons. Bigge argued that these appointments diminished the respect for these roles and that the emancipists had a 'low moral character' and did not have the necessary skills and 'pretensions' for the positions. Bigge argued that the appointments were in fact an 'act of violence' to colonial society.