The Rise and Fall of James Busby

One of the British Empire’s most troubling colonial exports in the 19th-century, James Busby is known as the father of the Australian wine industry, the author of New Zealand’s Declaration of Independence and a central figure in the early history of independent New Zealand as its British Resident from 1833 to 1840.Officially the man on the ground for the British government in the volatile society of New Zealand in the 1830s, Busby endeavoured to create his own parliament and act independently of his superiors in London. This put him on a collision course with the British Government, and ultimately destroyed his career. With a reputation as an inept, conceited and increasingly embittered person, this caricature of Busby’s character has slipped into the historical bloodstream where it remains to the present day.This book draws on an extensive range of previously-unused archival records to reconstruct Busby’s life in much more intimate form, and exposes the back-room plotting that ultimately destroyed his plans for New Zealand. It will alter the way that Britain’s colonisation of New Zealand is understood, and will leave readers with an appreciation of how individuals, more than policies, shaped the Empire and its rule.

“Paul Moon's biography succeeds in rescuing James Busby from the condescension of posterity. It does so by situating Busby in the larger contexts--Scottish Enlightenment, religious, British imperial, Maori, settler colonial--necessary to understand his controversial career.”

Paul Moon’s biography succeeds in rescuing James Busby from the condescension of posterity. It does so by situating Busby in the larger contexts—Scottish Enlightenment, religious, British imperial, Maori, settler colonial—necessary to understand his controversial career. John Stenhouse, Associate Professor of History, University of Otago, New Zealand
In The Rise and Fall of James Busby, we encounter the British Resident who for seven years maintained relationships between the chaotic Colonial Office, the mercurial New South Wales government, a lawless pre-treaty New Zealand and the nascent state which emerged after Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Through Paul Moon’s incisive research we meet the obsessive, prickly, land-hungry Busby of historic renown, but we also encounter the lesser-known stories of the friend to Hone Heke, the administrator who could be generous, thorough and principled, and the loyal husband and father. Busby’s central place in the early colonial history of Aotearoa New Zealand is at last detailed in these pages. Lloyd Carpenter, Senior Lecturer in Maori Studies, Lincoln University, New Zealand
[Paul Moon] has done both Busby and us a service by rescuing him from historical marginalisation and providing a fuller portrait of the man whose efforts laid the groundwork for the Treaty. Australian Historical Studies

Paul Moon is Professor of History and Head of the School of History at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. Among his twenty-five published books are This Horrid Practice: The Myth and Reality of Traditional Maori Cannibalism, A History of New Zealand in the Twentieth Century, a trilogy of volumes on the Tuhoe tohunga (expert) Hohepa Kereopa, as well as biographies of Governors Hobson, FitzRoy, and the Ngapuhi chief Hone Heke, and Encounters: The Creation of New Zealand, which was shortlisted for the 2014 Ernest Scott Australasian Prize in History.

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