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General Sir Ralph Darling, GCH (17722 April 1858) was Governor of New South Wales from 1825 to 1831. He is popularly described as a tyrant, accused of torturing prisoners and banning theatrical entertainment, but he also built new roads and extended the boundaries of the colony. Many local geographical features are named after him. The controversy of his Australian tenure somewhat obscures his remarkable early career, in which he rose rapidly from obscure origins to high command. ==Early career== Darling seems to have been unique in the British Army of this period, as he progressed from an enlisted man to become a general officer with a knighthood. Born in Ireland, he was the son of a sergeant in the 45th Regiment of Foot who subsequently gained the unusual reward of promotion to officer rank as a lieutenant. Like most of the small number of ex-NCOs in this position, however, Lieutenant Darling performed only regimental administrative duties, and he struggled to support his "large family" on a subaltern's pay. Ralph Darling enlisted at the age of fourteen as a private in his father's regiment, and served in the ranks for at least two years, on garrison duty in the West Indies. Eventually, as an "act of charity" to the family, young Ralph was granted an officer's commission as an ensign on 15 May 1793, without having to make the usual payment.〔〔 The new officer soon found opportunities to show his ability, alternating front-line activity and high-level administrative duties, and in August 1796 he was appointed military secretary to Sir Ralph Abercromby, the British commander in chief in the West Indies. By the time he returned to Britain in 1802, still aged only twenty-nine, the sergeant's son and one-time private soldier was a highly respected lieutenant-colonel.〔 During the Napoleonic Wars, Colonel Darling alternated between periods of regimental command and important administrative appointments, leading the 51st Foot at the Battle of Corunna and serving as Assistant Adjutant General during the Walcheren Expedition, before returning to the headquarters at Royal Horse Guards in London, where he served for almost a decade as head of British Army recruiting.〔 In this role, Darling was subsequently promoted to brevet-colonel on 25 July 1810, major-general on 4 June 1813, deputy adjutant general in 1814.〔 General Darling was also able to further the careers of his younger brothers Henry and William, and subsequently his nephew Charles; all three of them also became generals, and both Henry and Charles also earned knighthoods. On 13 October 1817, the forty-six-year-old general married the nineteen-year-old Eliza Dumaresq (born Macau 10 November 1798, died 3 September 1868), a deeply religious young woman whose father had been a colonel in the army and a squire in Shropshire. In spite of the difference in age and background, the marriage appears to have been a happy one, producing seven children.〔 Between February 1819〔 and February 1824, General Darling commanded the British troops on Mauritius, before serving as acting Governor of the colony for the last three years of his stay. In this role, Darling again exhibited his administrative ability, but he also became very unpopular in Mauritius: he was accused of allowing a British frigate to breach quarantine and start an epidemic of cholera, and he then suspended the island's ''Conseil de Commune'' when it protested his actions; in reality, however, there was no evidence that the frigate had been carrying cholera, and the opposition to General Darling appears to have been motivated in large part by his vigorous actions against the slave trade, and the fact that British rule in Mauritius was still little more than military occupation of a proud French colony.〔 Notwithstanding the criticism from some quarters, it was largely on account of his service in Mauritius that Darling was appointed the seventh Governor of New South Wales in 1824.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ralph Darling」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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