The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Ligar, Charles Whybrow
Ligar, Charles Whybrow, sometime Surveyor-General of Victoria, was born in 1809 at Ceylon, where his father was stationed with his regiment. Educated at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, he received a commission in the Royal Engineers, which he shortly afterwards resigned. He was employed on the Ordnance Survey of Ireland until 1840, when he was appointed Surveyor-General of New Zealand by Lord John Russell. Being wrecked at the Cape of Good Hope, he did not arrive in New Zealand until the end of 1841. In the latter colony he purchased a vast quantity of land from the Maoris for the European settlers, and was appointed colonel and commandant of the New Zealand Militia, in which capacity he took part in the war at the Bay of Islands. He retired from the position of Surveyor-General of New Zealand in 1856, and after residing for a short time in the southern portion of that colony, went to Victoria in 1857 as land commissioner for the province of Otago. In 1858 he became Surveyor-General of Victoria, retiring on a pension in 1869. He then returned to Europe, but finally settled in Texas, where he embarked in stock-raising. Mr. Ligar married in 1839 Grace, daughter of Thomas Hanyngton, of Dungannon, Tyrone, and granddaughter of the Earl of Charlemont, and in 1869 Marie, daughter of the late Captain Williams, of Auckland, N.Z. He died in 1879.