COLONIAL PORTRAIT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 888, 10 August 1956, Page 13

COLONIAL PORTRAIT

THE GOVERNOR'S LADY, by Marnie Bassett; Geoftrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press, English price 18/-. [| IEUTENANT PHILIP GIDLEY KING, R.N., had already been entrusted with the task of founding a penal colony on Norfolk Island when he returned to England and married Anna (continued on next page)

BOOKS (continued from previous page) Josepha Coombe, of MHatherleigh, in Devonshire, before sailing again for the South Seas to embark on his appointed enterprise in 1791. His bride, the subject of this short biography, accompanied her husband. After five years spent as first lady of a small and rather quarrelsome society she returned to England with King, whose failing health obliged him to seek more expert medical advice than was to be had in the new settlements. Two years later, however, he was appointed Governor of New South Wales, a position he occupied until 1807. He did not long survive retirement, but Mrs. King outlived her delicate, ailing husband by thirty-six years, and went back to Australia at the age of sixty-eight to spend the rest of her days among children and grandchildren who had made their homes in the colony. Frequent quotation from a copious collection of private letters and diaries

gives this biography an authentic note, and allows the heroine to speak for herself; unfortunately, the author has not been content to leave it at that. Speculations as to what people may have said, thought, or even worn may be justified in moderation. When indulged in to excess they become mildly irritating. Nevertheless, The Governor's Lady presents a striking and wholly credible picture of early colonial life which makes it a welcome addition to social history.

R. M.

Burdon