James Shairp (original) (raw)

James Maitland Shairp (died 1795) was an officer in the British Marines and a member of the First Fleet which founded European settlement in Australia. Commissioned as a Marines officer in 1778, Shairp volunteered for Australian service in 1787 and spent two years as second in command at Rose Hill, New South Wales, the colony's only inland settlement. In 1789 he was a principal protagonist in the "Criminal Court Affair," a dispute between civilian and military authorities which was a catalyst for the 1792 replacement of the colony's Marine detachment with the New South Wales Corps.