"A Traveller" 2nd Baron Lamington (Image plate from Vanity Fair)

Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane-Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington (1860–1940) was 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. 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, and it is supposed that it was in honour of either him or his wife that the name ‘lamington’ was given by a Queensland cook to squares of chocolate and coconut-covered sponge cake, although New Zealand lays claim to this culinary invention also.