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Charles Joseph Latrobe

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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CHARLES JOSEPH LATROBE (1801-1875), Australian governor, was born in London on the 20th of March 1801. The Latrobes were of Huguenot extraction, and belonged to the Moravian community, of which the father and grandfather of C. J. Latrobe were ministers. His father, Christian Ignatius Latrobe (1758-1836), a musician of some note, did good service in the direction of popularizing classical music in England by his Selection of Sacred Music from the Works of the most Eminent Composers of Germany and Italy (6 vols., 1806-1825). C. J. Latrobe was an excellent mountaineer, and made some important ascents in Switzerland in 1824-1826. In 1832 he went to America with Count Albert Pourtales, and in 1834 crossed the prairies from New Orleans to Mexico with Washington Irving. In 1837 he was invested with a government commission in the West Indies, and two years later was made superintendent of the Port Philip district of New South Wales. When Port Philip was erected into a separate colony as Victoria in 1851, Latrobe became lieutenant-governor. The discovery of gold in that year attracted enormous numbers of immigrants annually. Latrobe discharged the difficult duties of government at this critical period with tact and success. He retired in 1854, became C. B. in 1858 and died in London on the 2nd of December 1875. Beside some volumes of travel he published a volume of poems, The Solace of Song (1837).

See Brief Notices of the Latrobe Family (1864), a privately printed translation of an article revised by members of the family in the Moravian Briederbote (November 1864).