James Shairp

Commissioned as a Marines officer in 1778, Shairp volunteered for Australian service in 1787 and spent two years as second in command at Rose Hill, New South Wales, the colony's only inland settlement.

In 1789 he was a principal protagonist in the "Criminal Court Affair," a dispute between civilian and military authorities which was a catalyst for the 1792 replacement of the colony's Marine detachment with the New South Wales Corps.

[1] He was placed on half-pay from 1783 following a reduction in British military forces after the American Revolutionary War, but returned to full pay a year later as First Lieutenant in the Chatham Division of Marines under the command of Major-General Carruthers.

[2][5] In November 1788 he was named second-in-command to Captain James Campbell for the expedition to found the colony's first inland settlement, at Rose Hill, leading a party of twenty-five marines and seventy convicts.

[6] Campbell, Shairp and fellow Marine lieutenant John Johnson remained at Rose Hill for the following eighteen months, overseeing the garrison and ensuring construction of a redoubt with barracks for officers and a hundred soldiers.

As a consequence of this service, Shairp became an unwilling participant in the "Criminal Court Affair" of April 1789, a constitutional dispute which placed him in direct conflict with his superior officer Captain Campbell, and with Marine commander Major Robert Ross.

[7] Ross then called a meeting with three junior officers: Shairp and Johnson from Rose Hill, and lieutenant John Poulden from Port Jackson, at which he urged them to join Campbell in refusing to serve on the Court.

"[11] The Affair itself, and Ross' attempt to influence Shairp and others against playing a role in civilian law enforcement, was sufficiently disturbing to Governor Phillip that in 1790 he successfully petitioned the British Government to replace the colony's entire Marine detachment with a regular army unit.