Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane-Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington (1860–1940) had served four years in the House of Commons before being appointed governor of Queensland in October 1895. He arrived in Brisbane in April 1896 and served until December 1901, his governorship characterised by conservatism and his fear that Federation would lead to the strengthening of socialism. During his term, he also travelled to New Guinea and throughout Queensland in an effort to learn more about the treatment of Aboriginal and Melanesian people. After leaving Queensland, Lamington served as governor of Bombay (from 1903 to 1907). He was knighted in 1900. On the strength of his journeys to South America and Asia during the early 1890s, Lamington was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Geographical Society; he later served on the Society’s council and as its vice-president. Queensland’s Lamington Plateau and Lamington National Park are named after him. It is supposed too that it was in honour of either him or his wife that a Queensland cook first gave the name ‘lamington’ to squares of chocolate and desiccated coconut-covered sponge cake, although New Zealand lays claim to this culinary invention also.
