Man of Honour: John MacArthur By Michael Duffy, Sydney: Macmillan, 2003, 372 pages, paperback, $35.00. Reviewed by Gillian Dooley in the October 2003 issue. Help more readers find out about this article
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Michael Duffy's John Macarthur: Man of Honour is more than a biography of John Macarthur, second-fleeter and pioneer pastoralist in New South Wales. It is a history of the beginnings of a society, so precarious at times that one is almost surprised that it could survive.
Duffy has immersed himself in the cultural and intellectual atmosphere of late eighteenth century England and come up with a compelling theory to explain the behaviour, bewildering to the modern mind, of Macarthur and men of his class. The climax of his book is the rebellion in 1808 which deposed Governor Bligh -- commonly known as the Rum Rebellion. But Duffy sets out to argue that rum had very little to do with it. The code of honour, which ruled the lives of gentlemen of the time, provides a more convincing explanation. Duffy says, Although there is no contemporary statement that the events of January 1808 were caused specifically by the code [of honour], they were preceded and followed by an enormous amount of talk of honour and what it meant to be a gentleman. In this book I take these words seriously, and see where they lead. (p 7) John Macarthur was not of what was regarded as 'gentle' birth. His father was a linen draper in Plymouth, successful enough to be able to afford to educate his son. Duffy argues that Macarthur's tenuous claim to the status of gentleman made him more enthusiastic about the code of honour than others more secure of their position. Certainly something about Macarthur made him unusually belligerent and ready to take offence. At the same time, he was unusually manipulative, clever and probably unscrupulous.
Duffy provides fascinating details of the way affairs of honour were settled. 'While many readers will regard the institution of the duel with a combination of derision and abhorrence', Duffy says, 'it actually -- in the absence of alternative methods -- served a valuable social purpose by restricting the effects of masculine aggression and violence'. (p 5) Macarthur fought three duels during his life, and Duffy suggests that the rebellion against Bligh was in a way also a displaced duel, since it was not practical to challenge the colony's governor to a duel. Mutiny, it seems, was often condoned in Georgian Britain under the code of honour, as long as it was conducted by gentlemen. Major George Johnston, the commanding officer of the New South Wales Corps who led his troops against Bligh, was cashiered from the army but he otherwise went unpunished, and was allowed to return to Australia after his court martial.
This book is an example of the best kind of historical writing. Duffy has gone to great lengths to understand----and convey to his readers----not just the events but the spirit of the time, without which history becomes meaningless chronology. As he says, 'Anyone whose view of Macarthur's world is impeded by the mammoth edifice of Victorian England, and the efficient and effective power structures it established, needs to try to see around it and back to the wilder world of the Georges'. (p 293) This is certainly not a historical novel, but it is as readable as good fiction. The characters are vivid, and the research, admirably thorough, has not been overused. Duffy has been a political journalist and editor for some years. However, this is his first book, and his skill in maintaining the momentum of the narrative is exemplary. The book keeps the reader continually engaged and interested throughout, despite its length -- well over 300 pages -- and wealth of detail.
One of the advantages of writing a non-fiction book on a historical subject is that awkward decisions do not need to be made about suiting the style to the subject matter, a problem many recent historical novels have failed to resolve. Duffy's style is colloquial and expressive, addressing the reader as one twenty-first century person to another. Without the need to pretend he is writing in a different age, he allows himself plenty to scope to explain in the most straightforward way how his subjects were different from us.
Macarthur was to some extent a product of his age and his code of honour, but he was an also extraordinary individual by any standards. Duffy obviously finds him a fascinating study -- 'What a strange man', (p 202) he exclaims at one point. Without exactly committing himself to admiration of this complicated and, to his contemporaries, troublesome man, he concludes, 'if one believes that commercial activity is a civilising force and the property ownership is the basis of democracy, John Macarthur can be seen as both trader and hero'. (p 334) For better or worse, Macarthur contributed to the development of colonial Australia, and Duffy's book gives as good an explanation of his life and times as any I have encountered. Citation - Gillian Dooley. 'Review: Man of Honour: John MacArthur by Michael Duffy' [online]. Network Review of Books (Perth, Australian Public Intellectual Network), October 2003. Availability: <please cite the web address here> ISSN 1833-0932. [accessed 24 May 2013].
Back Cover Blurb - This exciting new biography argues that John Macarthur was a founding father not just of New South Wales but of Australia. After choosing to come to Sydney as a soldier in 1790, Macarthur set about making his fortune -- an often ruthless exercise that throws into sharp relief the morality, dynamics and politics of early colonial society. Yet Michael Duffy argues that Macarthur's manipulation of the system and of individuals, his delight in feuds and his ferocity (he fought three duels) should not mask the fact that he lived by the code of honour, an unspoken set of rules that, at the end of the eighteenth century, determined how powerful men dealt with each other.
In his first book, political columnist Michael Duffy offers a new explanation for the so-called Rum Rebellion of 1808, the most dramatic event in colonial history. He suggests that Macarthur overthrew Governor William 'Bounty' Bligh not because of rum but because of a deep conflict over honour and status. Bursting with historical detail and ideas, this lively book will change the way you think about early Australia.
Have You Also Read? Days Gone By: Growing Up in Penang
 Christine Wu Ramsay, South Yarra: Macmillan, 2004, 96 Pages, Paperback, $39.95Reviewed by Christine Choo in the September 2004 issue.Set in Penang island, on the north-west coast of the Malay peninsular former British colony and part of the Straits Settlements, Days Gone By recalls the lifestyles and fortunes of four generations of a Hakka Chinese family whose presence in Malaya began with the migration of the author's great grandfather, Leong Fee alias Leong Pi Joo (Kong Tai to the author) from Kwungtung Province in China to Malaya in 1876. Leong Fee was among the thousands of impoverished labourers who streamed out of China at that time seeking a better life for themselves or a way to support the impoverished families they left behind. Leong Fee's rags-to-riches story is typical of that of many Chinese who pioneered tin ... read more.
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Issue 44
Popular Music: Practices, Formations and Change - Australian Perspectives
