1865: New Zealand Governor Commits Suicide
April 30, 2020
By AHNZ
Today in history, 9am, 30 April, 1865, Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy committed suicide by cutting his own throat open with a razor.
FitzRoy was New Zealand’s second Governor and also captain of the famous HMS Beagle during Charles Darwin’s famous voyage that also visited New Zealand.
About 20 years after being Boss of New Zealand, the Admiral was living in London working for the State weather department. Broke and in failing health, a great melancholy (depression) had set upon the once great man. After his body was found, authorities decided that he had been “insane.” New Zealanders found this out with the mail 2 months later. I wonder what we thought of it?
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Ref. Fitzroy insulted Jerningham Wakefield and sent him back to his daddy; 1840s: Bad Boy Adventures in New Zealand
Ref. National 5.0, in 2017, apologised to ‘Moriori’ with $18,000,000 for Fitzroy’s Ministry not detecting and preventing Chatham Island slavery;1842: Crown admits failing to stop Maori from ‘enslaving’ Moriori
Image ref. Evening Post; Papers Past
Note: If Fitzroy had stayed in New Zealand just a bit longer then his brother, Charles Augustus FitzRoy, would have been governor of NSW at the same time as himself. That must have been the plan. But it didn’t work out for the FitzRoy dynasty. C.A. Fitzroy became NSW Governor on 2 August 1846
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