Kennedy, Arthur Edward

by James Quinn

Kennedy, Arthur Edward (1810–83), poor law inspector and colonial governor, was born on 9 April 1810 in Cultra, Co. Down, the fourth son of eleven children (six sons and five daughters) of Hugh Kennedy (1775–1852), a landed gentleman, JP and high sheriff of Co. Down (1802), and his first wife, Grace Dorothea (née Hughes) (d. 1819). After education by private tutor and at the Belfast Academy, Arthur entered TCD in October 1823. Commissioned ensign in the 11th Regiment in 1827, he served in the Ionian Islands until February 1832, when he returned to England and was promoted to lieutenant. There followed several postings in Ireland (1835–8) at Tramore, Waterford, Fermoy, Spike Island and Kinsale, acting as an adjutant and paymaster, and in England (1838–40) at Chatham, Gosport and Devonport. Purchasing a captaincy, he served in the 68th Regiment (1841–4) in Montreal and Québec. Returning to England in June 1844, he was appointed county inspector of public works at Kells, Co. Meath, in 1846, and worked on famine relief committees.

In October 1847 he was appointed inspector for the poor law union of Kilrush, Co. Clare. Before the famine, this densely populated union was home to over 80,000 people, most subsisting on occasional fishing, harvesting seaweed and growing potatoes on small plots. They were particularly vulnerable to the failure of the potato crop, and the suffering experienced in Kilrush was among the most severe and prolonged in the country. On his arrival in early November, Kennedy was appalled by the misery he witnessed, describing the crowds who thronged for admission to the workhouse as 'a tangled mass of poverty, filth and disease' (Murphy, Starving, 61). He found the workhouse to be run very inefficiently, with no effective segregation between fever patients and other inmates, and implemented measures to control the spread of disease. He took over several additional buildings to create auxiliary workhouses and hospitals, and within two years increased capacity from 1,000 to 5,000 inmates. In December 1847 he insisted on the removal of the unqualified workhouse master, and the following March had the Kilrush board of guardians dissolved and replaced by himself and two paid officials who served as vice-guardians; these in turn were replaced on 27 October 1849 with a new board of guardians.

At first, Kennedy attributed much of the distress he saw to the indolence and improvidence of the poor. Reluctant to spend ratepayers' money, he resisted demands for outdoor relief (usually soup kitchens), believing it would demoralise recipients and make them permanently dependent on the union. He was assaulted at a demonstration at the Kilrush workhouse on 1 December 1847, and threatened with death in a Whiteboy notice weeks later. At the urgings of his superiors, he reluctantly agreed to sanction outdoor relief in February 1848 (the last union in Clare to do so), and was soon feeding 10,000 people. As he travelled through the union supervising relief provision, Kennedy gained greater sympathy for the poor, realising that most were honest and hard-working and their misery was caused less by moral weakness than by rackrents and insecure tenure, and that landlords were selfishly dumping evicted families on the workhouse. He personally witnessed numerous evictions (even of tenants who had paid their rent) and was shocked at the readiness of landlords and their agents to demolish the cabins of the sick and starving. Years later, Kennedy recalled being so maddened by such sights that he 'felt disposed to take the gun from behind my door and shoot the first landlord I met' (Butler, 12).

Whatever his private feelings at the time, Kennedy's open criticism of landlords was restrained until his testimony to a parliamentary committee in 1850. Increasingly, however, he began to intercede personally to alleviate hardship, sometimes with his own money. From March 1849 cholera added to the suffering of the poor, and he showed reckless courage in visiting fever-stricken homes and assisting the sick. He and his wife organised industries and relief schemes to sustain the most vulnerable, and a celebrated illustration in the Illustrated London News (22 December 1849) showed his seven-year-old daughter Elizabeth distributing clothing to the poor of Kilrush. The Limerick and Clare Examiner described him as 'the ablest, most effective, and yet most charitable officer connected in any rank with the administration of poor law' (16 June 1849).

As famine continued and deaths mounted, Kennedy pressed for a more extensive relief programme financed by poor rates, but this was strongly resisted by local landowners, especially Colonel Crofton Moore Vandeleur (qv), the largest resident landlord in the district and the usual chairman of the Kilrush board of guardians, who claimed it would bankrupt hard-pressed proprietors. Kennedy also repeatedly sought assistance from the Treasury, but from September 1849 it refused to finance further relief. By late 1849 outdoor relief had been drastically cut, and thousands flocked to the Kilrush workhouse in the hope of getting something to eat. Many were turned away and died on the roadsides. Throughout 1848–9 Kennedy sent detailed reports on the levels of evictions and distress in Kilrush to the poor law commissioners in Dublin, many incorporated in a parliamentary blue book in April 1849. Extracts from these reports appeared in newspapers and parliamentary speeches, and gained national notoriety for Kilrush. Kennedy's actions were much resented by local landowners, who attempted to have him removed.

Reports of the severity of the famine in Kilrush eventually led to an investigation into the administration of the poor law in the Kilrush union by the radical independent MP and economist George Poulett Scrope (1797–1876) and to his chairing a parliamentary committee. In July 1850 several witnesses, including Kennedy, Vandeleur and the land agent Marcus Keane (qv), travelled to London to give evidence. Kennedy (the first and most authoritative witness) reported that since late 1847 between 16,000 and 19,000 people had been evicted in the Kilrush union, and their cabins destroyed to prevent their return. Faced with such numbers, he admitted that his efforts to relieve distress had been inadequate, and that thousands had perished. His figures were contested by Vandeleur and Keane, who maintained that they evicted few tenants and rarely demolished their dwellings. However, the investigations of the committee (particularly the painstaking research of the civil engineer Francis Coffey) largely supported Kennedy's testimony, positively identifying 2,700 cases of eviction in the union, resulting in the clearance of at least 12,000 people and the levelling of 2,000 homes. Landlords refused to accept these findings and the committee produced two separate reports: one, proposed by Scrope, criticised landlords' readiness to evict vulnerable tenants and their unwillingness to fund adequate relief measures; the other, proposed by Sir Lucius O'Brien (1800–72), blamed the misery of the poor on the failures of the Kilrush vice-guardians.

Kennedy's testimony had embarrassed the poor law commissioners and their political masters, and he was soon moved on from Kilrush. In September 1850 he was promoted to assistant commissioner to manage two poor law unions in Kilkenny. The Limerick and Clare Examiner predicted that his departure 'seals the fate of a multitude' (4 September 1850). Recriminations were exchanged and, mistakenly believing that Vandeleur had insulted his character, Kennedy challenged him to a duel. On discovering his error, Kennedy apologised, but Vandeleur brought an action against him. Kennedy was acquitted at Cork assizes on 9 August 1851, his defence conducted by Isaac Butt (qv) and Sir Colman O'Loghlen (qv). The Cork Examiner reported that no Irish jury would 'harass and hunt down a gentleman and a soldier [who] acted as became a man of humanity and a faithful public servant' (11 August 1851).

In May 1852 Kennedy was appointed governor of The Gambia, but before assuming office was sent to govern Sierra Leone (1852–4), where he tried to curb the activities of slave traders and smugglers and establish cordial relations with native chiefs. Afterwards he governed western Australia (1854–62), promoting inland explorations and public works such as road clearance, swamp drainage and the building of Government House. He exercised tight controls on the local administration and his efforts to delay moves towards responsible government led some legislative council members to complain of his autocratic manner. Appointed governor of Vancouver Island (1863–6), he was generally at loggerheads with an assertive colonial assembly and accomplished little. When Vancouver Island merged with British Columbia, Kennedy left office in October 1866 and was knighted (1867) and made governor of the West African Settlements (1867–71). As governor of Hong Kong (1872–7), he reorganised the local police force by admitting Chinese officers, extended public education, developed Kennedy Town in Victoria City, and worked hard to repair damage after the devastating typhoon of 22–3 September 1874. He was also a successful governor of Queensland (1877–83), and in his last official act sanctioned the annexation of eastern New Guinea. By then he was one of the empire's most experienced and respected colonial governors, his insistence on economy and rectitude generally balanced by concern for the welfare of native peoples. His distinguished public service was acknowledged with the awards of CB (1862), KCB (1867), KCMG (1871) and GCMG (1881). He never forgot Ireland, and sent money when famine again threatened in 1858 and 1879. After his retirement he sailed for England and died on 3 June 1883 on ship, off the coast of Aden, where he was buried at sea.

On 18 May 1839 he married Georgina Mildred Macartney (d. 1874) of St Helen's, Co. Dublin. They had one son, Arthur Herbert William, who served in the army, and two daughters, Georgina Mildred (for whom the Georgina river in Queensland was named), and Elizabeth Henrietta (d. 1925), who married the naval officer Richard Meade (1832–1907), 4th Earl Clanwilliam. The philanthropic deeds of Arthur and Elizabeth Kennedy were commemorated by a sculpture by Paddy Murray erected in Frances Street, Kilrush, in 2013.