tragic crisis, unless his very remarkable habit of self-reliance, as shown in the story of his Australian journeys, is taken into account. Although he was not offered further public employment he received in 1874, from Disraeli's government, a pension as a retired colonial governor.
From Adderley Hall, Shropshire, Eyre removed to Walreddon Manor, near Tavistock, where he continued to live in seclusion. There he died on 30 Nov. 1901, and there he was buried. He married in 1850 Adelaide Fanny Ormond, daughter of a captain R.N., and had four sons, all in the government service, and a daughter. His widow was awarded in 1903 a civil list pension of 100l. A characteristic portrait of Eyre is reproduced as a frontispiece to Hume's ‘Life’ (see below). Another, of much later date, hangs in the council room of the Royal Geographical Society.
[The Times, 1 Dec. 1901; Men and Women of the Time; Eyre's Expedition into Central Australia, 1845; Heaton's Australian Dictionary of Dates; Frank Cundall's Political and Social Disturbances in the West Indies, published for the ‘Jamaica Institute,’ 1896. For Eyre's part in the Jamaica riot and the subsequent controversy, see the Parliamentary Papers on Affairs of Jamaica, February 1866, Disturbances in Jamaica, 3 pts., February 1866, Report of the R. Commission, 2 pts., 1866, and Copy of Despatch from Rt. Hon. Edward Cardwell to Sir H. K. Storks, 1866. Among publications on behalf of the Jamaica committee (Eyre's opponents) the following are the most noteworthy: Facts and Documents relating to the Alleged Rebellion in Jamaica, and the Measures of Repression, including Notes of the Trial of Mr. Gordon, 1866; The Blue Books, n.d.; Statements of the Committee and other Documents, n.d.; A Quarter of a Century of Jamaica Legislation, n.d.; Martial Law, by Frederic Harrison, 1867; Illustrations of Martial Law in Jamaica, by John Gorrie, 1867; and Report of Proceedings at Bow Street Police Court, on the Committal of Col. Nelson and Lieut. Brand for the Murder of Mr. G. W. Gordon, 1867. More favourable to Eyre are Dr. Underhill's Testimony on the Wrongs of the Negro in Jamaica examined, in a Letter to the Editor of the Times, by A. L[indo], Falmouth, Jamaica, 1866; Case of George William Gordon, by Baptist Noel, 1866; Narrative of the Rebellious Outbreak in Jamaica, by Arthur Warmington, London, 1866; Addresses to H. E. Edward John Eyre, 1865, 1866 (Kingston, Jamaica, 1866); Charge of the Lord Chief Justice of England to the Grand Jury at the Central Criminal Court in the Case of the Queen against Nelson and Brand, revised and corrected by Sir Alexander Cockburn, edited by Frederick Cockburn, London, 1867; Treatise upon Martial Law … with illustrations … from … the Jamaica Case, by W[illiam] F[rancis] F[inlason], London, 1866; the same author's Commentaries on Martial Law, London, 1867, and his valuable History of the Jamaica Case, 2nd edit., London, 1869; and Life of Edward John Eyre, by Hamilton Hume, 1867. For useful summaries of the events, see Herbert Paul's Hist. of Modern England, vol. iii. passim; and an article by J. B. Atlay in Cornhill, Feb. 1902.]
