Jorge JorgensonPrint Page

The monument commemorates Jorge Jorgenson (1740 -1841), the former Lord Protector of Iceland who became a field policeman and constable in Oatlands.

Jorgenson was engaged as an interpreter on an English trading expedition to Iceland in the summer of 1809 and he became the ruler of Iceland for two months. This event is seen as the beginning of the road to eventual Icelandic independence from Denmark in 1944, but back in 1809, Jorgenson was deposed by the British Navy and sent back to England.

In London, gambling and alcohol led to a conviction for theft, banishment from England, and when it was discovered he was still at large, he was sentenced to death. The gallows became transmuted to transportation to Van Diemen`s Land in 1826, where he became engaged as an explorer for the Van Diemen`s Land Company, and then as a police constable in the Midlands. As a constable he was involved in the roving parties, and after Robinson, had more contact with the Tasmanian Aborigines in their natural surroundings than any other colonist at the time, and would later write of his experiences and observations.

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