Australian Dictionary of Biography

Patrick Gould Hogan (1777-1860), public servant and farmer, was born in Ireland. He joined the clerical staff of the Commissary's Office in London in June 1810 and in 1812 was ordered to New South Wales with David Allan, who was to take charge of the reorganized branch of the commissariat in the colony. Hogan arrived in Sydney in June 1813 and in September went to Van Diemen's Land as deputy assistant commissary general to relieve Leonard Fosbrook who was then awaiting trial. His command of the Van Diemen's Land commissariat was short: accused of drunkenness and of irregular use of commissariat bills, he was himself superseded in 1816, tried by court martial in Sydney, convicted of neglect of duty and of fraudulent use of his powers, and dismissed from office.

Hogan had already established himself in the colony as a landowner and trader in stock. Though some property was sold after his return to Hobart Town in 1818 to reduce his public deficiency, he was able to buy the picturesque Sandy Bay hillside farm, Riverview. Almost immediately he was contracting with his successors at the commissariat to supply meat to the government stores. In 1821 he received a further grant of 400 acres (162 ha) at North-West Bay, but this farming venture did not prove profitable, and in the late 1820s he returned to the civil service as commissariat clerk at the Sarah Island convict settlement at Macquarie Harbour.

His wife Sarah, née Berry, who in these difficult years was held in more esteem than Hogan himself, died in April 1831, leaving one son and four daughters. Next year he resigned his Sarah Island appointment and settled at Riverview, where he became a respected elder citizen actively supporting the Church of England and such schemes as road development in the Sandy Bay district. As his health deteriorated he passed over the ownership of the property to two unmarried daughters, Teresa Elizabeth and Sarah Maria, who conducted there during his lifetime a small private girls' school, taking both boarders and day scholars. After a long illness Hogan died at Riverview in January 1860, and the property with which he had been long associated finally passed out of the family in 1884.