General Sir Richard Bourke, KCB (4 May 1777 – 12 August 1855), was an Irish-born British Army officer who served as Governor of New South Wales from 1831 to 1837. As a lifelong Whig (Liberal), he encouraged the emancipation of convicts and helped bring forward the ending of penal transportation to Australia. In this, he faced strong opposition from the landlord establishment and its press. He approved a new settlement on the Yarra River, and named it Melbourne, in honour of the incumbent British prime minister, Lord Melbourne. Early life Bourke was born on 4 May 1777 in Dublin, Ireland, the son of Anne () and John Bourke. His mother was from County Tipperary and his father from Dromsally in County Limerick. He was educated in England at Westminster School before reading law at Christ Church, Oxford. He was a distant relation of philosopher Edmund Burke, whose home he frequently visited. Military career After securing the patronage of William Windham, a friend of Edmund Burke, he secured an appointment as ensign in the Grenadier Guards in 1798. He served in the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland in 1799 and was badly wounded in the jaw, which gave him a lifelong speech impediment and contributed to his decision not to seek a political career. Bourke was promoted lieutenant and captain in the same year and major in 1805. The following year he was promoted lieutenant-colonel and made superintendent of the junior department at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. In 1807, Bourke participated in the British invasions of the River Plate as quartermaster general, taking part in the Siege of Montevideo and the Battle of Buenos Aires. He was promoted to major general in 1821. He retired from the army after the Peninsular War to live on his Irish estate, but eventually sought government office to increase his income. He was appointed to the Cape Colony and was promoted to Lieutenant-Governor of the Eastern District of the Cape of Good Hope, acting as governor for both the eastern and western districts. Under Bourke's governorship, much was done to reform the old mercantilist system of government inherited from the Dutch East India Company at the Cape. Public life Bourke was an avowed Whig. In November 1830, the Whigs won government in a climate of reform. Major-General Bourke was appointed to succeed Sir Ralph Darling, who was also Irish-born, as Governor of New South Wales