Robert Hunter (colonial administrator)

Robert Hunter (1666–1734) was a British military officer, colonial governor of New York and New Jersey from 1710 to 1720, and governor of Jamaica from 1727 to 1734.

Robert Hunter
Portrait of Robert Hunter (portrait attributed to Sir Godfrey Kneller
Lieutenant Governor of Virginia
In office 1707 – Captured at sea by the French; never served
Monarch	Anne
Preceded by	Edmund Jenings, President of Council
Succeeded by	Alexander Spotswood
3rd colonial governor of New Jersey
In office June 1710 – 1720
Monarch	Anne George I
Preceded by	Richard Ingoldesby (Lt. Governor)
Succeeded by	Lewis Morris, President of Council
19th colonial governor of New York
In office June 1710 – 1719
Monarch	Anne George I
Preceded by	Richard Ingoldesby (Lt. Governor)
Succeeded by	Pieter Schuyler, Acting Governor
Governor of Jamaica
In office 1728 – March 1734
Monarch	George I
Preceded by	John Ayscough, President of Council
Succeeded by	John Ayscough, President of Council
Personal details
Born	1666 Edinburgh, Scotland
Died	31 March 1734 Jamaica, West Indies
Nationality	Scottish
Occupation	Military officer, Governor, Playwright

Biography

Hunter was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1666, grandson of the twentieth Laird of Hunterston in Ayrshire, being the son of lawyer James Hunter and his wife Margaret Spalding.

Hunter had been apprenticed to an apothecary before running away to join the British Army. He became an officer in 1689 who rose to become a general, and married a woman of high rank. He was a man of business whose first address to the New Jersey Assembly was barely 300 words long. In it, he stated, "If honesty is the best policy, plainness must be the best oratory."

He was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Virginia in 1707, but was captured by a corsair on his way to Virginia, taken to France, and in 1709 exchanged for the French Bishop of Quebec. He was then appointed Governor of New York and sailed to America with 3,000 Palatine refugees as settlers in 1710. In 1715 he advocated the local minting of copper coins, but the king refused. Governor Hunter's philosophy was that "the true Interests of the People and Government are the same, I mean A Government of Laws. No other deserves the Name, and are never Separated or Separable but in Imagination by Men of Craft."[1]

Hunter was succeeded as Governor by Pieter Schuyler as acting governor from 1719 to 1720 and finally by William Burnet, whose post as Comptroller of Customs was given to Hunter in exchange. Hunter was then Governor of Jamaica from 1727 until his death on 31 March 1734. While in Jamaica, Hunter waged an unsuccessful war against the Jamaican Maroons.

He was a member of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in May,1709.[2]

Playwriting

His play, Androboros, written in 1714, was the first known play to be written and published in the North American British Colonies.

See also

• List of colonial governors of New Jersey
• List of colonial governors of New York
• Androboros

Further reading

• Lustig, Mary Lou (1983). Robert Hunter, 1666–1734: New York's Augustan Statesman. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 9780815622963.

References

1. Scanlon, James Edward (10 February 2014). Birkner, Michael J.; Linky, Donald; Mickulas, Peter (eds.). The Governors of New Jersey: Biographical Essays. Rutgers University Press. pp. 56–59. ISBN 978-0-8135-6245-2.
2. Purvis, Thomas L. (2014). Colonial America To 1763. Infobase Publishing. p. 274. ISBN 9781438107998. Retrieved 27 June 2018.

External links

• Biography of Robert Hunter, New Jersey State Library
• Colonial Governors of New York
• Robert Hunter Papers,1699-1744 New-York Historical Society

Government offices
Preceded by Edmund Jenings	Governor of the Province of Virginia 1707–1709	Succeeded by 1st Earl of Orkney
Preceded by Richard Ingoldesby	Governor of the Province of New Jersey 1710–1720	Succeeded by William Burnet
Preceded by Gerardus Beekman (acting)	Governor of the Province of New York 1710–1719	Succeeded by Pieter Schuyler (acting)
Preceded by John Ayscough (acting)	Governor of Jamaica 1728–1734	Succeeded by John Ayscough (acting)