Henry Prinsep's Empire

Malcolm Allbrook

Henry Prinsep is known as Western Australia?s first Chief Protector of Aborigines in the colonial government of Sir John Forrest, a period which saw the introduction of oppressive laws that dominated the lives of Aboriginal people for most of the twentieth century. But he was also an artist, horse-trader, member of a prominent East India Company family, and everyday citizen, whose identity was formed during his colonial upbringing in India and England. As a creator of Imperial culture, he supported the great men and women of history while he painted, wrote about and photographed the scenes around him. In terms of naked power he was a middle man, perhaps even a small man. His empire is an intensely personal place, a vast network of family and friends from every quarter of the British imperial world, engaged in the common tasks of making a home and a career, while framing new...