Life
1755-? [prop. Henry Waldron]; b. June, Maynooth; ed. Dublin; left home
with his parents savings; became strolling player; adopted the name of
the Army Officer who made his mother pregnant while she was engaged to
Waldron, whom she married; became London pickpocket and was several times
tried, serving a first sentence at Woolwich, 1777; finally transported
in 1790 after a fashionable defence conducted by himself; ticket of leave,
1792; appt. High Constable of Parramatta [var. Pamaratta]; author of A
Voyage to Botany Bay (1801), and possibly of A History of New South
Wales (1802) also A History of New Holland (1808), though several
works on Van Deman’s Land [New Holland] are misattributed to him.
DNB DIB ODQ OCIL
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Works
A Voyage to Botany Bay, with a description of the country, manners,
customs, religion, and manners of the natives, by the celebrated [...]
George Barrington. To which is added his life and trial (London:
[1795]; new edns. 1803; 1810); Do., traduit de l’anglais,
sur la 3ième edn. (Paris [1798]); The Genuine Life and Trial
of George Barrington from his birth […] to the time
of his Conviction at the Old Bailey, Sept. 1790 (London: Robert Barker
MDCCXC [1790]); The Memoirs of George Barrington […]
celebrated speeches [… &c.] (London: J Bird [1790]), 40pp.;
The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of George Barrington, now transported
to Botany Bay (London: W. A. Darlington [1795]); The Life of George
Barrington, containing every remarkable circumstance from his birth [...]
with the whole of his celebrated Speeches [...] to which is
added a copy of a letter from him at Cape of Good-Hope to a gent. in the
County of York 1st July 1791 [1791]; Life and Adventures of George
Barrington, celebrated thief & pickpocket embellished with engravings
[2nd edn.] (London: John Wilson [1820]); CRIT, R. S. Lambert, The
Prince of Pickpockets: A Study of George Barrington (1930).
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Notes
Henry Boylan, A Dictionary of Irish Biography [rev. edn.]
(Gill & Macmillan 1988) notes that Rev. Dr. Westropp placed him at
a free grammar-school in Dublin, and that in 1771 he ran away having been
flogged, joining strolling players as George Barrington; three years ballast-heaving
at Woolwich, 1777; released after 12 months; sentence to 7 years transportation
in 1790, he was the first to receive a warrant of emancipation, in 1792;
high constable; earned regard of governor; lived to very old age.
British Library holds Richard S. Lambert, The Prince of Pickpockets, a Study of George Barrington (1930), with port.; The Frauds and Cheats of London detected (1802) [note MS Cat. note ‘wrongly attributed’]; Barrington’s New London Spy for 1805 [also wrongly attrib.]; History of New Holland from its first discovery, 1616, to the present time ... With a particular account of its produce and inhabitants; a description of Botany Bay ... to which is prefixed an introductory Discourse on Banishment, by the Right Hon. William Eden [2nd ed., with maps] (London: John Stockdale 1808), xxxv, 254pp. [rep. from his [?Eden’s] Principles of Penal Laws; wrongly attrib. to Barrington; first ed. and real second ed. publ. 1787, of which this is an anon. reissued; History of New South Wales, including Botany Bay, Port Jackson, Pamaratta [sic on titlepage], Sydney, and all its dependencies [...] enriched with colour prints, 2nd. ed. (1810), 505pp. [wrongly attrib.]; A Voyage to Botany Bay, with a description of the country, manners, customs, religion, and manners of the natives, by the celebrated ... George Barrington. To which is added his life and trial ([1795]; eds. 1803; 1810); Do., traduit de l’anglais, sur la 3ième ed. (Paris [1798]); The Genuine Life and Trial of George Barrington from his birth, Jun. 1755, to the time of his Conviction at the Old Bailey, Sept. 1790 MDCCXC (London: Robert Barker 1790); The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of George Barrington, now transported to Botany Bay (London: W. A. Darlington [1795]); The Life of George Barrington, containing every remarkable circumstance from his birth [...] with the whole of his celebrated Speeches [...] to which is added a copy of a letter from him at Cape of Good-Hope to a gent. in the County of York 1st July 1[971]; Life and Adventures of George Barrington, celebrated thief & pickpocket embellished with engravings [2nd ed.] (London: John Wilson [1820]); The Memoirs of George Barrington […] celebrated speeches (London: J Bird [1790]), 40pp.
Attribution: The lines, "True patriots we; for be it understood,
/ We left our country for our country’s good’, ascribed to Barrington
in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1953 & edns.) are misattributed
according to his biographer, but the details relating to the opening
of the Sydney theatre (with The Recruiting Officer) fit well enough.
See also under George Farquhar: ‘’Twas for the good of my country
that I should be abroad - Anything for the good of one’s country
- I’m a Roman for that’ (from The Beaux’ Stratagem,
Act 3, sc. 2); and note, ‘left their country … &c’,
quoted by D. P. Conyngham [see Rx, infra.]
Chief Justice: Barrington is cited by Sir Terence O’Fay in Maria Edgeworth’s novel The Absentee (1812) as ‘chief justice at Botany Bay’ and hence an instance of the wisdom of the proverb, ‘set a thief to catch a thief.’
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)