Charles Sievwright

Charles Wightman Sievwright (31 March 1800 – 10 September 1855) was a British army officer before being appointed Assistant Protector of Aborigines in part of the Port Phillip District of the colony of New South Wales, now Victoria, Australia.

[2] In 1837 he returned to London from a stint in Malta, sold his commission, and was subsequently appointed as one of four assistants in the Port Phillip District of New South Wales to the new Chief Protector of Aborigines, George Augustus Robinson.

British and Irish settlers had begun arriving in the District about three years earlier, but at the time thousands of Aboriginal people still far outnumbered the Europeans.

Port Phillip's Superintendent Charles La Trobe told NSW Governor George Gipps in Sydney that even if the charges against Sievwright were false, they had been "from the outset fatal to him and his recent career".

At the same time, the Gazette referred to a threat by the colonial government to refuse squatting licences in part of the Western District where Sievwright had reported the recent murders of three Aboriginal women and a child.

[10] After it became apparent that Sievwright's suspension was based at least in part on a letter written by his own wife in 1839, both she and their eldest daughter, Frances, wrote to La Trobe defending him.

"Mr Sievwright's situation precluded him from making friends among the white population", a man called Frederic Nesbitt wrote to La Trobe.

[13] In London, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, Edward Smith-Stanley, endorsed Gipps' recommendation that Sievwright be dismissed.

La Trobe and Gipps continued to reject Sievwright's demands for a full inquiry into the allegations that had led to his dismissal.

Sievwright told La Trobe he regretted to state that Chief Protector Robinson was his "openly declared enemy", and was withholding documentary evidence that would show the claims had no basis.

We confess that until these disclosures were made, we always entertained a strong prejudice against Mr Sievwright, and did not scruple to express it, and we are therefore glad of the opportunity to make reparation", the Advertiser commented.

The couple had seven children: Frances 'Fanny' Anna (1823); Marcus (c. 1826); Charles (c. 1828); Frederica Christina (1830); Melita Ysobel (1830); Ada Georgina (1834); and Adolphus Falkland (1835).