sketcher, caricaturist, litterateur, diarist and army officer, was the third son of Sir Henry Bunbury of Stanley Hall, Cheshire, a soldier and politician, and his first wife, Louisa Emilia, née Fox. Richard Bunbury was a brother. Their grandfather Henry William Bunbury (1750 1811), a friend of Goldsmith, Garrick and Reynolds, was well known in London as an amateur painter and caricaturist. After joining the army in 1830 young Henry was promoted lieutenant in 1833 and transferred to the 21st Fusiliers, then stationed in Van Diemen’s Land. He travelled to Sydney in the Susan in order to join his regiment but instead became extra aide-de-camp to Governor Bourke in October 1834 and remained in Sydney. A caricature of The Governor on Tour in Bunbury’s illustrated journal lost him the position. Mahood states that it is, in fact, a rather inoffensive drawing, hardly an explicit caricature, showing Bourke, wearing a broad-brimmed hat and holding up an umbrella, flanked by two other figures (probably the senior aide-de-camp and Bunbury himself); all are mounted on weary horses. But the journal also included, Bunbury wrote, 'some foolish caricatures of a new chain gang, a special hobby of the Governor’s. I took the idea from their instructions which I had the task of writing out six different times.’ The governor’s valet purloined the journal and showed it to his master, who was not amused.
Bunbury rejoined his regiment in Van Diemen’s Land and was posted to Eaglehawk Neck on the Tasman Peninsula. There he despondently gardened, read and sketched until volunteering to go to Western Australia. He arrived in the Maria on 6 March 1836 as officer in charge of a detachment of 150 troops sent to protect the settlers from attacks by Aborigines. This gave him the opportunity to travel around the country observing the native people and the land to be settled; Lieutenant-Governor Stirling named the town of Bunbury at Port Leschenault after him.
He departed on board The Hero on 8 November 1837. Back in England he was promoted captain and subsequently became aide-de-camp to Sir Charles Napier, commander-in-chief in India, whose daughter Cecilia he married in 1852. He became a colonel during the Crimean War, retired in 1862, was awarded a CB, and died on 18 September 1875.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
