George Barrington

Who was George Barrington?

George Barrington, an Irish-born pickpocket, popular London socialite, Australian pioneer, and author. His escapades, arrests, and trials, were widely chronicled in the London press of his day. For over a century following his death, and still perhaps today, he was most celebrated for the line "We left our country for our country's good." The attribution of the line to Barrington is considered apocryphal since the 1911 discovery by Sydney book collector Alfred Lee of the 1802 book in which the line first appeared.