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Curriculum Focus: Causes of British colonisation

The Industrial Revolution and overcrowded prisons in Britain

Reasons for transportation and penal colonies

The First Fleet and early colonial establishment

(BTN and Inquisitive)

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2. Convict Life and Settlement Challenges

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2. Convict Life and Settlement Challenges

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Curriculum Focus: Daily life in colonial Australia

(Hobart Penitentiary and Women's Factory)

(Port Arthur)

Daily routines, jobs, food, clothing, punishment systems

Gender roles and family life in convict settlements

Experiences of women and children

Challenges such as disease, climate, food shortages, and isolation

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3. Free Settlers and Their Contributions

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3. Free Settlers and Their Contributions

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Curriculum Focus: Experiences of different groups

The arrival of free settlers and their reasons for migration

Conflict and cooperation between convicts and free settlers

The growth of farming, trade, and infrastructure

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Curriculum Focus: Impact of colonisation on First Nations Australians (Ryan and Sharyn)

Connection to Country and traditional life pre-colonisation

Dispossession, displacement, and resistance

Early encounters and cultural misunderstandings

Long-term effects of colonisation (e.g. loss of land, culture, and autonomy)

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Curriculum Focus: Using primary and secondary sources

(BTN, National Museum etc)

Historical photos, artefacts, artworks, letters, journals

Excursions to Cascades Female Factory and Hobart Convict Penitentiary

Exploring historical bias and missing voices

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Curriculum Focus: Colonial governance and systems

Laws, punishments, and court systems

The role of authority figures (e.g., governors, soldiers, judges)- Hobart Penitentiary visit

Comparing British justice with Aboriginal lore and justice systems

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(add in students voices)

These are designed to anchor the unit, meet Australian Curriculum outcomes, and promote rich, ongoing inquiry:

Big Understanding Question:

How did colonisation change life in Australia for convicts, settlers, and First Nations peoples?

Supporting Inquiry Questions:

-Convicts and Colonial Life

What was life like for convicts in early Australia?

-Why were people transported to Australia?

-What were the roles of men, women, and children in a convict colony?

-How were convicts punished, and what was considered a crime?

-Motivations for Colonisation

Why did Britain want to establish a colony in Australia?

-What challenges did early settlers and convicts face?

-Impact on First Nations Australians

How did colonisation affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples?

-How did First Nations peoples respond to the arrival of British settlers?

-What stories and voices are missing from traditional colonial narratives?

-Reflection and Perspective

Was everyone treated fairly in colonial Australia?

-How can we learn from the past to create a fairer society today?

-What evidence can we use to understand people’s lives in the past?

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Students will demonstrate their understanding of colonial Australia through both formative and summative assessments that integrate History and English.

Formative assessments include:

KWL chart or Padlet entry to capture prior knowledge and questions

Exit slips and reflection prompts to track developing understanding

Source analysis tasks to examine historical perspectives

Excursion reflections connecting real-world experiences to classroom learning

Song lyric deconstruction to explore figurative language techniques (English link)

Summative assessments:

Historical Perspective Poem (History)

Students write a poem from the perspective of a convict, settler, or First Nations person

Incorporates figurative language devices explored in English (e.g. imagery, repetition, metaphor)

Includes a short written reflection explaining historical context and voice

Assesses empathy, understanding, and perspective-taking

Informative Report (English)

Linked to the novel Tom Appleby: Convict Boy

Students write a factual report on an aspect of colonial life (e.g. convict children, Female Factory)

Builds skills in research, factual writing, and use of historical language

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7. Understanding the Impact on First Nations Peoples – Through Voice and Poetry

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7. Understanding the Impact on First Nations Peoples – Through Voice and Poetry

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Curriculum Focus: Empathy, perspective, and cultural impact

(Ziggy Ramo)

Pick appropriate verse from Birdz)

Explore how colonisation led to loss of land, culture, and connection for First Nations peoples

Discuss intergenerational trauma and the emotional impact of dispossession

Read and respond to First Nations poetry (e.g., Oodgeroo Noonuccal)

Support students to express their understanding through poetry, art, or reflective writing

Encourage respectful language, active listening, and cultural awareness

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Unshackled: Hobart Penitentiary – National Trust

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Solitary cells, dark Tunnels, austere Courtrooms and grim Gallows - Visit the Penitentiary Chapel for THE convict experience in Hobart’s CBD

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Cascades Female Factory | Book your Tour of the Historic Convict Site

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Cascades Female Factory Historic Site is the most significant site associated with female convicts in Australia.

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One of Australia's favourite tourist destinations

A lesson in history

Established in 1830, Port Arthur Historic Site is a place of global significance and one of the 11 places that make up the UNESCO Australian Convict Sites World Heritage Property.

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World Heritage listed Port Arthur Historic Site is the best preserved convict site in Australia, and among the most significant convict era sites worldwide.

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A space for exploring feelings, impact, and reflection through creative expression.

Published poems by First Nations authors (e.g., Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s “No More Boomerang”, “We Are Going”)

Links to poetry performance videos (e.g., NITV or ABC education)

A poetry-writing scaffold (acrostic, free verse, or structured template)

Student-created poems reflecting on:

Life as a convict

Dispossession as a First Nations child

Voices of the land before colonisation

Emotional response to learning

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Literature Link – Tom Appleby: Convict Boy

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Literature Link – Tom Appleby: Convict Boy

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Author: Jackie French

Genre: Historical Fiction

Theme Focus: Convict life, resilience, injustice, identity, and hope

How This Connects to Our Inquiry:

This novel offers a narrative lens through which students can explore the lived experience of a young convict boy. It complements our historical learning by:

Humanising convict stories

Encouraging empathy and perspective-taking

Introducing historical language and customs

Prompting discussions around fairness, survival, and identity in early colonial life

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National Museum of Australia – Defining Moments: Convict Transportation Peaks

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National Museum of Australia – Defining Moments: Convict Transportation Peaks

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Interactive timeline and resources about convict transportation.

Visit Website

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware this website contains images, voices and names of people who have died.

A prison continent

1833: Convict transportation to Australia peaks when nearly 7000 people arrive in one year

1833: Convict transportation to Australia peaks when nearly 7000 people arrive in one year

State Library of New South Wales a928944

Use the following additional activities and discussion questions to encourage students (in small groups or as a whole class) to think more deeply about this defining moment.

Questions for discussion

1. Do you think transportation was a fair punishment for many of the crimes committed by the convicts? Why or why not?

2. Do you agree with the National Museum of Australia that the peak of convict transportation is a defining moment in Australian history? Explain your answer.

Image activities

1. Look carefully at all the images for this defining moment. Which 3 images do you think are the most important for telling this story? Why?

2. If you could pick only one image to represent this story, which one would you choose? Why?

Finding out more

1. What else would you like to know about this defining moment? Write a list of questions and then share these with your classmates. As a group, create a final list of 3 questions and conduct some research to find the answers.

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State Library of New South Wales a928881

In a snapshot

Between 1788 and 1868 more than 162,000 convicts were transported to Australia, of which approximately 25,000 were women. In 1833 a total of 7000 prisoners arrived - the largest number of convicts to arrive in one year. Convicts were transported as punishment for crimes they had committed in Britain and Ireland. Although their experiences varied, their lives were hard in Australia as they helped build the new colony. When they had served their sentences, most stayed in Australia and some became successful settlers.

Can you find out?

1. Why did transportation to America stop in 1783, and what did this lead to in Britain by 1788?

2. What did Arthur Phillip, the first Governor of New South Wales, believe the new colony could become?

3. Does it surprise you that by 1830 'only about 6 per cent of convicts were locked up'? Give reasons for your answer.

How did transportation start?

Britain used transportation as a form of punishment from the early 1600s. At that time many crimes that we now think of as minor could be punished by death. But sometimes convicts who were given a death sentence were transported to another country instead of being hanged.

In the 1700s most criminals who were sentenced to transportation were sent to British colonies in America. More than 50,000 criminals had been transported to America by 1775. During the American Revolutionary War (1775-83) transportation was put on hold. When the American colonies officially won their independence from Britain in 1783, America stopped accepting convicts.

Why were convicts transported to Australia?

Between 1776 and 1788 no British convicts were transported, and prisons soon became overcrowded. Many criminals were kept on hulks along the coastline of southern England. Disease spread quickly throughout the hulks, and many prisoners died on board.

James Matra had been a junior officer on James Cook's 1768 voyage to the Pacific. In 1783 Matra suggested to the British Government that Botany Bay was a good place for a new colony, and they agreed to this proposal in 1785.

When were the first convicts sent to Australia?

In 1786 Captain Arthur Phillip was appointed as the first governor of New South Wales. He began organising for the First Fleet of convicts to sail to New South Wales. Phillip believed that the new colony was not just a place of punishment, but that it could give convicts the opportunity to rehabilitate themselves.

In May 1787 the First Fleet sailed from Portsmouth, England, and arrived in Botany Bay on 18 January 1788. But Phillip decided that Botany Bay was not suitable for a colony, so the fleet sailed north and set up the new colony at Sydney Cove (now Circular Quay). There were 751 convicts on board, including 193 women, along with 252 crew and officials.

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National Museum of Australia

'A great number of those whose terms have expired have turned settlers, some of whom are doing well, better than many farmers in England.'

Reverend Richard Johnson, Sydney, 29 July 1794.

What was it like to be a convict in Australia?

The convicts sent to Australia were mostly from England, Wales and Ireland. Many, including the majority of women, were sentenced to transportation for stealing food and clothing.

Convicts were sent to Australia to work. They had to work from sunrise to sunset, Monday to Saturday every week. Convicts were used to build roads, bridges and public buildings in the new colony. Also when the first free settlers arrived in New South Wales in 1793, some convicts were sent to work on their farms. Most of the early convicts sent to Australia were men, but in later years the British government sent a larger number of female convicts, with women being seen as 'tamers and breeders'.

Research task
Research a convict (e.g. George Barrington, Henry (Harry) Power or Mary Reibey). Why were they transported and how did they fare in Australia? The Australian Dictionary of Biography can help you.
Australian Dictionary of Biography

Convicts lived under very strict rules. If they broke the rules they could be punished. Punishments included whippings, being forced to wear leg-irons and being locked in solitary confinement. For serious crimes they could be sent to hard-labour prisons in other parts of Australia, such as Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) or Norfolk Island.

By the 1830s only about 6 per cent of convicts were locked up. Most worked for the government and free settlers. Many who had behaved well were given special permission to earn their own living. Most convicts stayed in Australia when their sentence was finished. Once they were free they could own land, and some were given jobs in the colonial government.

Convict transportation peaked in 1833 when 7000 prisoners arrived in Australia in one year. Convicts were transported to Australia until 1868.

Read a longer version of this Defining Moment on the National Museum of Australia's website.

What did you learn?

1. Why did transportation to America stop in 1783, and what did this lead to in Britain by 1788?

2. What did Arthur Phillip, the first Governor of New South Wales, believe the new colony could become?

3. Does it surprise you that by 1830 'only about 6 per cent of convicts were locked up'? Give reasons for your answer.

Related resources

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Convict transportation peaks | Australia's Defining Moments Digital Classroom | National Museum of Australia

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Between 1788 and 1868 more than 162,000 convicts were transported to Australia, of which approximately 25,000 were women. In 1833 a total of 7000 prisoners arrived - the largest number of convicts to arrive in one year. Convicts were transported as punishment for crimes they had committed in Britain and Ireland.

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Kid-friendly articles and images about colonial Australia's history.

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Teaching resources and activities related to convict life in Australia.

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Teach This – Impacts of Colonisation on Indigenous Australians

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Teach This – Impacts of Colonisation on Indigenous Australians

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Worksheets and teaching materials focusing on the effects of colonisation.

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Impacts of Colonisation on Indigenous Australians

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Impacts of Colonisation on Indigenous Australians

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Stories and perspectives from First Nations Australians about the effects of colonisation.

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Skip to content

Prior to British settlement, more than 500 First Nations groups inhabited the continent we now call Australia, approximately 750,000 people in total.[1] Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures developed over 60,000 years, making First Nations Peoples the custodians of the world's oldest living culture. Each group lived in close relationship with the land and had custodianship of their Country.

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We respect and honour Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders past, present and future. We acknowledge the stories, traditions and living cultures of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on this land and commit to building a brighter future together.

Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that this website may contain images, voices and names of deceased persons.

Find out more

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Colonisation | History Of When Australia Was Colonised

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Skip to content Prior to British settlement, more than 500 First Nations groups inhabited the continent we now call Australia, approximately 750,000 people in total.[1] Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures developed over 60,000 years, making First Nations Peoples the custodians of the world's oldest living culture.

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Australian Museum – First Nations and Colonisation

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Australian Museum – First Nations and Colonisation

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Insights into the impact of colonisation on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

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Thanks for visiting the new Australian Museum website! The page you are looking for may have been unpublished or moved to a new location during the redevelopment of the website.

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National Museum of Australia – Convict Life

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National Museum of Australia – Convict Life

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Explore the daily lives of convicts, reasons for transportation, and their impact on Australian society.

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corporateName=National Museum of Australia; address=Lawson Crescent, Acton Peninsula, ACT; contact=+61 2 6208 5000

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UNESCO World Heritage – Australian Convict Sites

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UNESCO World Heritage – Australian Convict Sites

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Information on the 11 sites that represent the global phenomenon of convictism.

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Outstanding Universal Value

Brief synthesis

The property consists of eleven complementary sites. It constitutes an outstanding and large-scale example of the forced migration of convicts, who were condemned to transportation to distant colonies of the British Empire; the same method was also used by other colonial states.

The sites illustrate the different types of convict settlement organized to serve the colonial development project by means of buildings, ports, infrastructure, the extraction of resources, etc. They illustrate the living conditions of the convicts, who were condemned to transportation far from their homes, deprived of freedom, and subjected to forced labour.

This transportation and associated forced labour was implemented on a large scale, both for criminals and for people convicted for relatively minor offences, as well as for expressing certain opinions or being political opponents. The penalty of transportation to Australia also applied to women and children from the age of nine. The convict stations are testimony to a legal form of punishment that dominated in the 18th and 19th centuries in the large European colonial states, at the same time as and after the abolition of slavery.

The property shows the various forms that the convict settlements took, closely reflecting the discussions and beliefs about the punishment of crime in 18th and 19th century Europe, both in terms of its exemplarity and the harshness of the punishment used as a deterrent, and of the aim of social rehabilitation through labour and discipline. They influenced the emergence of a penal model in Europe and America.

Within the colonial system established in Australia, the convict settlements simultaneously led to the Aboriginal population being forced back into the less fertile hinterland, and to the creation of a significant source of population of European origin.

Criterion (iv): The Australian convict sites constitute an outstanding example of the way in which conventional forced labour and national prison systems were transformed, in major European nations in the 18th and 19th centuries, into a system of deportation and forced labour forming part of the British Empire's vast colonial project. They illustrate the variety of the creation of penal colonies to serve the many material needs created by the development of a new territory. They bear witness to a penitentiary system which had many objectives, ranging from severe punishment used as a deterrent to forced labour for men, women and children, and the rehabilitation of the convicts through labour and discipline.

Criterion (vi): The transportation of criminals, delinquents, and political prisoners to colonial lands by the great nation states between the 18th and 20th centuries is an important aspect of human history, especially with regard to its penal, political and colonial dimensions. The Australian convict settlements provide a particularly complete example of this history and the associated symbolic values derived from discussions in modern and contemporary European society. They illustrate an active phase in the occupation of colonial lands to the detriment of the Aboriginal peoples, and the process of creating a colonial population of European origin through the dialectic of punishment and transportation followed by forced labour and social rehabilitation to the eventual social integration of convicts as settlers.
Integrity and authenticity
The structural and landscape integrity of the property varies depending on the site, and on the type of evidence considered. It has been affected by local history, at times marked by reuse or lengthy periods of abandonment. The integrity varies between well preserved groups and others where it might be described as fragmentary. Apart from certain visual perspectives in urban settings, the level of the property's integrity is well controlled by the site management plans.

Despite the inevitable complexity of a nomination made up of a series of eleven separate sites with more than 200 elements that convey the value of the property, the authenticity of the vast majority of them is good.
Protection and management requirements
All the sites forming the property are inscribed on the National Heritage List. They are also protected by the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

There is no direct major threat to the sites forming the serial property.

The general protection and management of the property are satisfactory. Conservation is articulated around a positive dynamic driven by the application of the conservation plans at each of the sites. The Brickendon and Woolmers Estate domains are an exception, and require ongoing assistance, both in terms of protection and conservation.

The management systems of the sites forming the property are appropriate, and they are adequately coordinated by the Strategic Management Framework for the property and its Steering Committee. For the sites involving the participation of private stakeholders for visitor reception, improved interpretation is however necessary; that includes the common objectives outlined in the Strategic Management Framework. It is also important to consider visitor reception facilities and their development in a way which respects the landscape conservation of the sites.

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The property includes a selection of eleven penal sites, among the thousands established by the British Empire on Australian soil in the 18th and 19th centuries. The sites are spread across Australia, from Fremantle ...

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Intelligent search from Bing makes it easier to quickly find what you’re looking for and rewards you.

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History Archives | Ridgy Didge Resources

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Injecting fun into the Australian Curriculum!

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To ensure this inquiry honours truth-telling and respectfully includes First Nations perspectives, I will ask/invite Ryan and Sharyn, to support our learning. They will support students in understanding the ongoing impact of colonisation and help unpack stories and viewpoints that are not mine to tell.

This collaboration will:

Provide cultural context and deepen students’ understanding

Help guide respectful discussion around identity, connection to Country, and dispossession

Ensure that First Nations voices and experiences are authentically represented in our learning

Model the importance of listening, learning, and sharing responsibility in truth-telling

Their insights will also support students as they engage with poetry and creative responses, ensuring these are grounded in empathy and respect.

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Add in the mentor texts from English unit

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Add in the mentor texts from English unit

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North West Coast Aboriginal Centre

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Tiagarra Cultural Centre | Devonport Tasmania

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Tiagarra is a revered Aboriginal site of profound cultural significance, serving as a window into the history and spirituality of the first peoples of Tasmania.

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JACK EVANS, REPORTER: On the other side of this bay is the exact spot Captain James Cook first landed. It's hard to imagine what it would have been like 250 years ago, watching as the Endeavour sailed into what we know today as Botany Bay. But over the years we've uncovered and learnt more about that first encounter between Australia's Indigenous people and Captain Cook and his crew.

A lot of what we know comes from Cook's journals.

We saw several people ashore four of whom were carrying a small boat or canoe which we imagined they were going to put into the water in order to come up to us but in this we were mistaken.

But there also stories that have been passed down by the first Australians who saw the Endeavour arrive. Beau from the National Maritime Museum has put together an exhibition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artworks. To tell the story of Cook's arrival as seen from the shore.

JACK: So Beau, what do we know about that first encounter?

BEAU: Well I think these days we know a lot more. I mean when I was at school, we were taught that Captain Cook, the first encounter was at Kamay the local people there at Botany Bay. Cook came ashore and everything went quite well. But now looking back at it we now know from that very first time that Cook tried to come to shore there was conflict.

The people Cook and his crew saw were Gweagle, a clan of the Dharawal people.

JACK: Do we have any idea who the Gweagal people thought Captain Cook and his crew were?

BEAU: I think a lot of the local people nowadays are saying that they thought that Cook was a spirit - being white, fair skinned. You know that there is a spirit coming back and not to go near the spirit. The local people didn't want them to come ashore. They were shouting at them, threw rocks at them, trying to make them go away.

But Cook and his men didn't go away and when they were confronted by two Gweagal men they shot at them hitting one man in the leg. Cook and his men then entered the Gweagal camp and took shields and spears. Leaving in return beads, cloth and nails. In his journal, Cook wrote of his admiration for the Indigenous people's way of life.

From what I have said of the Natives of New Holland they may appear to some to be the most wretched people upon earth, but in reality they are far more happier than we Europeans.

He also acknowledged that `all they seem'd to want was for us to be gone'. But that didn't stop him claiming the entire east coast for the British crown. The land was said to be terra nullius, meaning land belonging to no one. Of course, that wasn't the case.

JACK: And why have you chosen to include this piece in the exhibition?

BEAU: Really important because as I said it talks about that deep time and that deep connection, you know. That we have been here forever that we have been practising these traditions and cultures forever. But we're also an evolving culture and we're still here.

JACK: Do you think Cook was aware of that?

BEAU: Sometimes I like to be on Cook's side and say that he did think about that. But you know I don't think that was his mission either. His mission was to come and find this great southern land and if he was able to claim it for the crown.

JACK: So, Beau can you tell me about this artwork?

BEAU: This is done by Paddy Fordham, who is actually from Arnhem Land. What Patty is trying to explain is that it wasn't the first Captain Cook for them. It was all the Captain Cook's that came afterwards.

To many Captain Cook has become a symbol of all of the European colonists who came after him who took the land from Indigenous people, brought diseases and tried to erase cultures. While they didn't succeed, the devastating impact of colonisation is still being felt.

JACK: So, I recognise this guy, Cook. There's two of him, what's this all about?

BEAU: So, this is a contemporary work by Jason Wing. He's actually called them Captain Crook and this is Captain Crook unmasked and Captain Crook Masked.

JACK: It's quite a powerful image, what are you expecting audiences, their reaction to be?

BEAU: I hope it makes them think a little, you know. I hope they do think about the history we have been taught to the history we know now and the history that hopefully is being spoken about in this 250th year, you know, that we've moved as a country to go - well yeah how can you discover a place that's already inhabited? How can you claim a space that already has people living here? And that's really what Jason's wanting people to think about you know. We're not fixed to this one way of seeing or one way of viewing a certain point in time, you know. There is always a dual perspective and our voices need to be heard now and our stories need to be told.

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Indigenous Perspectives of Cook Visit - Behind The News

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JACK EVANS, REPORTER: On the other side of this bay is the exact spot Captain James Cook first landed. It's hard to imagine what it would have been like 250 years ago, watching as the Endeavour sailed into what we know today as Botany Bay.

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Highlights from First Fleet Collections of the State Library of NSW

State Library of New South Wales

State Library of New South Wales

Scene inside Newgate Prison, Bristol, where the artist awaited transportation for forgery, 1812, oil painting by Francis Greenway. (1812) by Francis GreenwayState Library of New South Wales

FLOATING PRISONS

In late 18th-century Europe, the Industrial Revolution caused widespread economic displacement. People flocked to the cities where unemployment and cheap gin saw the crime rate rise dramatically. As British gaols became increasingly overcrowded, the government was forced to use dilapidated warships (or hulks) moored in various ports as makeshift floating prisons. Under English law, convicted criminals and other undesirables were transported to a penal colony as an alternative to capital punishment. With most prisoners being jailed for petty theft, the sentence of transportation was increasingly applied. England transported convicts to its colonies in the Americas until 1783, the end of the American Revolutionary War, when the newly formed United States refused to accept further shipments of British convicts. With Cook's discovery of the East Coast of New Holland came the proposal of a new penal colony and, between 1788 and 1868, the British government transported approximately 165,000 convicts to Australia.

View near Woolwich in Kent shewing [sic] the employment of the convicts from the hulks, ca. 1800, hand coloured engraving printed for Bowles & Carver. (c1800) by Francis GreenwayState Library of New South Wales

In May 1787, the British government sent a fleet of 11 ships - carrying over 1500 men, women and children - 20,000 kilometres around the world.

This historic convoy, later known as the First Fleet, was led by Captain Arthur Phillip.

The First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay on 20 January 1788.

Sirius, Supply & Convoy : Needle Point ENE 3 miles. Hyaena in Companny. 13 May 1787', watercolour drawing by William Bradley, from his journal `A Voyage to New South Wales' (opp. p. 13). (1787) by William BradleyState Library of New South Wales

SETTING SAIL

Leaving Portsmouth, England, on 13 May, the First Fleet was at sea for more than 252 days. The First Fleet's 11 ships comprised two Royal Navy escort ships, the HMS Sirius and HMS Supply, six convict transports, the Alexander, Charlotte, Friendship, Lady Penrhyn, Prince of Wales and the Scarborough, and three store ships, the Borrowdale, Fishburn and Golden Grove. Travelling via Tenerife and Rio de Janeiro, the Fleet then tracked back across the Atlantic to the Cape of Good Hope, the last port of call before striking out for Terra Australis.

Western or Atlantic Ocean, showing the Sirius' outward bound track in 1787 and the Waaksamheyd's homeward bound track in 1792, hand coloured manuscript map attributed to William Bradley. (1787) by William BradleyState Library of New South Wales

Cape Town, Table Mountain &c; Sirius & Convoy in Table Bay, November. 1787', watercolour drawing by William Bradley, from his journal `A Voyage to New South Wales' (opp. p. 46). (1787) by William BradleyState Library of New South Wales

Botany Bay. Sirius & Convoy going in : Supply & Agents Division in the Bay. 21 Janry 1788', watercolour drawing by William Bradley, from his journal `A Voyage to New South Wales' (opp. p. 56). (1788) by William BradleyState Library of New South Wales

View of Botany Bay', hand coloured engraving by G. Robinson & Co., for the Ladies Magazine. (c1773-1848)State Library of New South Wales

FIRST LANDING

The First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay on 20 January 1788. Unfortunately, Botany Bay did not live up to the glowing account provided by the explorer Captain James Cook and was not suitable for the establishment of a colony. The bay was open and unprotected, the water was too shallow to allow the ships to anchor close to the shore, and fresh water was scarce. The poor quality and the dampness of the soil also made it an unhealthy place for a settlement. While Captain Phillip determined another site for the colony, First Fleeters on board ship caught glimpses of their new homeland and its local inhabitants. The State Library's First Fleet collections include letters, drawings, maps and charts created by those who actually travelled to Australia on the First Fleet. It is one of the Library's most treasured and valuable collections.

[Forest landscape with kangaroo and waratah], ca. 1817, watercolour by Edward Charles Close, in his 'New South Wales Sketchbook: Sea Voyage, Sydney, Illawarra, Newcastle, Morpeth', ca. 1817-1840. (c1817) by Edward Charles CloseState Library of New South Wales

An exact Portrait of A Savage of Botany Bay, 1795, hand coloured engraving by J. Chapman. (1795) by J. ChapmanState Library of New South Wales

The Cadigal people of the Botany Bay area witnessed the arrival of the Europeans.

Several First Fleeters also recorded their encounters with Aboriginal people in their journals.

Sydney Cove, Port Jackson. 1788', watercolour drawing by William Bradley, from his journal `A Voyage to New South Wales' (opp. p. 84). (c1788) by William BradleyState Library of New South Wales

The Founding of Australia. By Capt. Arthur Phillip R.N. Sydney Cove, Jan. 26th 1788', ca. 1937, original oil sketch. (c1937) by Algernon Talmage R.A.State Library of New South Wales

RAISING THE FLAG

On 22 January Governor Phillip sailed north to Port Jackson with a small expedition party. There he selected a sheltered site for anchorage which he named Sydney Cove. Returning with the remainder of the Fleet on 26 January 1788 - now celebrated as Australia Day - the first permanent European colony on the Australian continent was established. This settlement has since developed into the city of Sydney.

Convictos en la Nueva Olanda [Convicts in New Holland], 1789-94, wash drawing by Juan Ravenet, in Felipe Bauza's drawings made on the Spanish Scientific Expedition to Australia and the Pacific in the ships Descubierta and Atrevida under the command of Alessandro Malaspina., Juan Ravenet, 1789-1794, From the collection of:
State Library of New South Wales

Approximately 775 convicts were disembarked at Sydney Cove along with 645 free persons including officials, members of the ships crews and marines with their families and children.

Ingleses enla Nueva Olanda [English in New Holland], 1789-94, wash drawing by Juan Ravenet, in Felipe Bauza's drawings made on the Spanish Scientific Expedition to Australia and the Pacific in the ships Descubierta and Atrevida under the command of Alessandro Malaspina., Juan Ravenet, 1789-1794, From the collection of:
State Library of New South Wales

Natives of New South Wales, 1813, watercolour drawing by T.R. Browne, in 'Select Specimens From Nature of the Birds Animals &c., of New South Wales Collected and Arranged by Thomas Skottowe Esqr., T.R. Browne, 1813, From the collection of:
State Library of New South Wales

First contacts were made in Port Jackson with the Eora, the local indigenous people, who seemed curious but suspicious of the newcomers.

It was the British Government's official policy to establish friendly relations with any Aboriginal Australians encountered. Governor Phillip ordered that all Indigenous people should be well treated but it was not long before conflict began.

Fishing No. 2', hand coloured engraving, Foreign field sports, fisheries, sporting anecdotes &c., containing one hundred plates, with a supplement of New South Wales. London : Edward Orme, 1814., 1814, From the collection of:
State Library of New South Wales

Mackabarang, A Native of New South Wales. A frequent Visitor in the Colony, known by the name of Broken Bay Jack', 1803, hand coloured mezzotint by Nicolas-Martin Petit., Nicolas-Martin Petit, 1803, From the collection of:
State Library of New South Wales

Hunting the Kangaroo', hand coloured engraving, Foreign field sports, fisheries, sporting anecdotes &c., containing one hundred plates, with a supplement of New South Wales. London : Edward Orme, 1814. (1814)State Library of New South Wales

`The Kangaroo', Arthur Bowes Smyth - drawings from his journal `A Journal of a Voyage from Portsmouth to New South Wales and China in the Lady Penrhyn ...', 1787-1789 (1787-1789) by Arthur Bowes SmythState Library of New South Wales

FIRST VIEWS

A lasting outcome of the arrival of the First Fleet was the artwork produced, from early encounters with the Australian environment and Indigenous people, throughout the first decades of European settlement. The artists from the First Fleet included convicts and naval officers, whose formal training included sketching and watercolour painting. The State Library collection includes over 370 drawings and illustrations, dating from the first years of the colony, and recording many of the earliest depictions of Australia's unique native fauna and flora.

Emu, or `New genus of Bird at Botany bay 1788', Arthur Bowes Smyth - drawings from his journal `A Journal of a Voyage from Portsmouth to New South Wales and China in the Lady Penrhyn ...', 1787-1789, Arthur Bowes Smyth, 1787-1789, From the collection of:
State Library of New South Wales

[Koala and young], 1803, watercolour by J.W. Lewin. (1803) by J.W. LewinState Library of New South Wales

First interview with the Native Women at Port Jackson New South Wales', watercolour drawing by William Bradley, from his journal `A Voyage to New South Wales' (opp. p. 70). (c1788) by William BradleyState Library of New South Wales

LOOKING AROUND

The First Fleet brought supplies and animals from England including horses which were used by parties exploring the surrounding countryside and led to further interaction with the local Indigenous people. The ships of the fleet, and smaller boats on board, were used to sail up and down the coastline in search of farm land and resources. British naval officers used their navigation, chart making, surveying and sketching skills to record these discoveries and first impressions of all they encountered.

Kilpriera. A Native of New South Wales, the sister of Calee but of a very different disposition, being extremely Savage and untameable', 1803, hand coloured mezzotint by Nicolas-Martin Petit., Nicolas-Martin Petit, 1803, From the collection of:
State Library of New South Wales

Captains Hunter, Collins & Johnston, with Governor Phillip,Surgeon White, &c., Visiting a Distressed Female Native of New South Wales, at a Hut near Port Jackson', hand colured engraving, published by Alex. Hogg., c1773-1848, From the collection of:
State Library of New South Wales

Sydney Cove, Port Jackson', ca. 1790, manuscript chart by William Bradley, from his journal `A Voyage to New South Wales'. (c1790) by William BradleyState Library of New South Wales

View in Broken Bay New South Wales. March 1788', watercolour drawing by William Bradley, from his journal `A Voyage to New South Wales' (opp. p. 90)., William Bradley, c1788, From the collection of:
State Library of New South Wales

Black & White Cockatoo [sulphur-crested cockatoo], 1813, watercolour drawing by T.R. Browne, in 'Select Specimens From Nature of the Birds Animals &c., of New South Wales Collected and Arranged by Thomas Skottowe Esqr . (1813) by T.R. BrowneState Library of New South Wales

[Platypus], 1810, watercolour by by J.W. Lewin. (1810) by J.W. LewinState Library of New South Wales

Opossum, [1794], Zoology and botany of New Holland and the isles adjacent : with illustrations by George Shaw, James Edward Smith & James Sowerby. London. (1794)State Library of New South Wales

Nonpareil Parrot, [1794], Zoology and botany of New Holland and the isles adjacent : with illustrations by George Shaw, James Edward Smith & James Sowerby. London. (1794)State Library of New South Wales

Waratah, [1794], Zoology and botany of New Holland and the isles adjacent : with illustrations by George Shaw, James Edward Smith & James Sowerby. London. (1794)State Library of New South Wales

Banksia, [1794], Zoology and botany of New Holland and the isles adjacent : with illustrations by George Shaw, James Edward Smith & James Sowerby. London. (1794)State Library of New South Wales

British naval officers such as John Hunter, Philip Gidley King and William Bradley formed the earliest exploratory parties. After Arthur Phillip and John Hunter served successive terms as supreme commander, King returned to Australia, as the colony's third Governor, in 1799.

View in Broken Bay New South Wales. March 1788', watercolour drawing by William Bradley, from his journal `A Voyage to New South Wales' (opp. p. 90). (c1788) by William BradleyState Library of New South Wales

[View of a river landscape with five cut out pasted down drawings of five standing Aborigines], ca. 1818, watercolour collage by Major James Wallis., James Wallis, c1818, From the collection of:
State Library of New South Wales

Native Arms, 1813, watercolour drawing by T.R. Browne, in 'Select Specimens From Nature of the Birds Animals &c., of New South Wales Collected and Arranged by Thomas Skottowe Esqr ., T.R. Browne, 1813, From the collection of:
State Library of New South Wales

Warriors of N S Wales', hand coloured engraving, Foreign field sports, fisheries, sporting anecdotes &c., containing one hundred plates, with a supplement of New South Wales. London : Edward Orme, 1814. (1814)State Library of New South Wales

Kangaroo [eastern grey kangaroo], 1813, watercolour drawing by T.R. Browne, in 'Select Specimens From Nature of the Birds Animals &c., of New South Wales Collected and Arranged by Thomas Skottowe Esqr ., T.R. Browne, 1813, From the collection of:
State Library of New South Wales

The Emue (sic), 1813, watercolour drawing by T.R. Browne, in 'Select Specimens From Nature of the Birds Animals &c., of New South Wales Collected and Arranged by Thomas Skottowe Esqr ., T.R. Browne, 1813, From the collection of:
State Library of New South Wales

The Channel to Rose Hill from the beginning of the flats at the head of Port Jackson from the wharf where Stores are landed for Rose Hill: Survey'd 1 Jany 1790.', manuscript chart by William Bradley, from his journal `A Voyage to New South Wales'., William Bradley, 1790, From the collection of:
State Library of New South Wales

William Bradley accompanied John Hunter to survey and chart Sydney Harbour - the naming of various harbour landmarks included Bradley’s Point (now Bradley’s Head).

Over the next three months Bradley also accompanied Arthur Phillip on exploratory trips to Broken Bay, Manly Cove and the upper reaches of the Parramatta River, the site of the colony's first successful farming community.

Entrance of Paramatta River, 1803, hand coloured engraving by V. Woodthorpe. (1803) by V. WoodthorpeState Library of New South Wales

View of the Government Farm at Rose Hill [later Parramatta], Port Jackson, ca. 1791, watercolour by an unknown artist. (c1791)State Library of New South Wales

Governor's House at Sydney, Port Jackson 1791', watercolour drawing by William Bradley, from his journal `A Voyage to New South Wales' (opp. p. 225). (1791) by William BradleyState Library of New South Wales

View of the east side of Sydney Cove, ca. 1803, watercolour attributed to G. W. Evans. (c1803) by G. W. Evans attrib.State Library of New South Wales

A Government Jail Gang, Sydney, NSW, ca. 1830, hand coloured engraving by Augustus Earle, Views in New South Wales and Van Diemens Land : Australian scrap book, London : J. Cross., Augustus Earle, c1830, From the collection of:
State Library of New South Wales

Convicts transported to Australia were sentenced for 7 years, 14 years or for the term of their natural life.

A convict who re-offended could be sent to work on the chain gang. Well-behaved convicts, having served part of their sentence, could apply for a 'ticket of leave' allowing greater freedom to lead a normal life, to marry and raise a family.

Once freed, 'emancipated' convicts were allowed to return to England but many stayed, contributing greatly to the development of the colony.

A view of the west side of Sydney cove, ca.1803, watercolour attributed to G. W. Evans. (c1803) by G. W. Evans attrib.State Library of New South Wales

Sydney in all its glory’, ca. 1817, watercolour by Edward Charles Close, in his 'New South Wales Sketchbook: Sea Voyage, Sydney, Illawarra, Newcastle, Morpeth', ca. 1817-1840. (c1817) by Edward Charles CloseState Library of New South Wales

[A View of the Cove and Part of Sydney, New South Wales, taken from Dawe's Point], ca. 1818, watercolour drawn by a convict [ie. Joseph Lycett]. (c1818) by Joseph LycettState Library of New South Wales

MAKING OF A CITY

The colony very nearly collapsed in its first few years. Crop failures forced the settlers to rely on infrequent supplies brought in by ship. Eventually colonists learned to grow their own food under Australian conditions. The population swelled with new arrivals, both convict and free, while increased trade and industry transformed the fledgling penal settlement into a bustling port within thirty years.

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The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.

Stories from State Library of New South Wales

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Highlights from First Fleet Collections of the State Library of NSW

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26th January is the official national day of Australia and marks the arrival of the First Fleet of British ships and the raising of the Union flag at Sydney Cove. Australia continues to recognise the story of its modern founding to this day.

The First Fleet as it became known, was formed of 11 ships that left from Portsmouth in southern England on 13th May 1787. This was an historic voyage across oceans to the other side of the world in order to establish the first European settlement, and penal colony, in Australia.

The Fleet used two Royal Navy vessels as well as six ships to transport around 1,000 convicts as well as seamen, officers and free people. The journey was arduous, first sailing south towards South America before turning eastwards at Cape Town and voyaging through the Great Southern Ocean to make its arrival at Botany Bay.
Arthur Phillip
The leader of this great expedition was Commodore Arthur Phillip who had the power to make land grants in the colony and create legislation. The arrival of the ships at Botany Bay on 21st January 1788 was met initially with relief at finally having reached their destination. Unfortunately, it was soon realised that the bay was not as favourable as they had hoped. The previous accounts by the navigator Captain James Cook had somewhat misled the crew into believing this would be a suitable location.

Botany Bay was in fact too shallow to allow the fleet to anchor by the shore and it was quickly discovered that strategically the bay was unprotected and open to attack. To make matters worse, a lack of fresh water and poor soil quality added to the lack of potential in the area. Attempts to cut trees and set up primitive living accommodation were futile, as the tools they had brought with them failed to bring down the large trees in the area.
The First Fleet enters Port Jackson
It quickly became clear that Phillip needed to move his colony onwards to a more suitable location. A party of men which included Phillip left Botany Bay and travelled in three smaller vessels in order to explore the coastline further north. It was on this investigative trail that the men discovered Port Jackson which immediately appeared to have better conditions. Good, fertile soil for growing crops, access to fresh water and easier anchorage of the boats made this the chosen spot for a new life and new era of discovery.

Some years earlier Captain James Cook had recorded a sighting of the harbour but had not investigated it. Phillip however instantly honed in on the potential of the bay, describing it in a letter as "the finest harbour in the world". He and his men would return to Botany Bay to tell the others of their good news.

By 26th January the Fleet had left its original position and sailed to Port Jackson. As soon as they arrived, Phillip named the area Sydney Cove in honour of Lord Sydney who was the British Home Secretary. This was a momentous day marking the beginning of the British settlement; few however could have realised that this day would be celebrated annually centuries later.

With the British flag firmly in position, the formal proceedings could begin. As for the convicts, unsure as to their fate, they could only watch on from the ship, awaiting their punishment and subsequent hardship with trepidation.

The question of what to do with Britain's criminals arose largely in the period of the Industrial Revolution which witnessed a surge in petty crime. The reason for this increase was largely due to economic hardship and unemployment caused by the advent of machinery which replaced the work of men and women. Rural to urban migration was on the rise and cities grew rapidly; for those without work, stealing became a means of survival.

Very quickly this problem escalated. Prisons began filling up with people and the old prison ships, known as hulks, were unable to accommodate the overflow. Transportation was therefore introduced to solve this problem, with around 60,000 criminals being taken to British colonies in North America.
Black-eyed Sue and Sweet Poll of Plymouth saying goodbye to their lovers who are about to be transported to Botany Bay, 1792
This all came to an end when the American War of Independence concluded British rule in North America and subsequently the Americans, no longer under British control, decided to refuse any further convict transportations. This created a crisis back across the Atlantic until it was decided that Australia would be the most suitable destination for the next penal colonies. On 6th December 1785 the Orders in Council were given; the colony was to be established, instructions were given and transportation to Australia commenced.

These colonies of convicts included men, women, minority groups and also some political prisoners. More serious crimes including rape and murder were made a transportable offence in 1830 but were also punishable by death and thus fewer of these criminals were transported.

Those who were taken to Australia had committed a range of different crimes including theft, assault, robbery and fraud. As part of their punishment they were sentenced to penal transportation for seven years, fourteen years or even life, despite the crimes that they had committed being generally low-grade.

The prisoners were transported on ships in appalling conditions; many of them would not survive the journey. During the period of transportation, nearly 2000 convicts died during the journey, usually from illnesses such as cholera due to the cramped and unhygienic conditions, where space was so limited that inmates were not even able to stand up. The high mortality rate was made worse by a lack of sufficient supplies, leading to widespread hunger and starvation.
Flogging of a convict in Tasmania, Australia
The plan was to settle in Australia and begin creating large areas of agricultural production. In theory this was a perfectly good aim, but skill shortages combined with a lack of livestock hindered first attempts.

The arrival of the Second Fleet did not improve the situation. Convicts arrived in poor health, unable to work and in 1790 only added more pressure to the new colony at Port Jackson. Those that could work were expected to get up as soon as dawn broke and work at least a ten hour day.

All convicts were to suffer the punishment of hard labour which consisted of any type of work that was deemed necessary for the settlement. This would include brick making and timber cutting, all of which would be carried out in sweltering conditions with little food to sustain them. The only reward promised was tobacco, awarded for a job well done.

The treatment of the transported convicts was poor and the use of excessive punishment was rife throughout the penal system. Lashings were commonplace and for those prisoners who did not behave accordingly, they were taken elsewhere to suffer a secondary punishment. This could involve being taken to areas such as Tasmania and Norfolk Island where additional punishment was carried out and long periods of solitary confinement enforced.
Jessica Brain is a freelance writer specialising in history. Based in Kent and a lover of all things historical.
There were some who objected to such excessive use of force and violence against prisoners. These included the ninth Governor of the New South Wales colony, Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Bourke. He was not happy with the use of force and passed the 'Magistrates Act' in order to limit the imposition of more than fifty lashes. His actions would make him a controversial and isolated figure. Others would oppose the transportation of more criminals to the colonies, but were mainly motivated by fears that their own reputations would suffer with any association with criminal behaviour.

The transportation penal system reached its peak in the 1830's after which the numbers dwindled and the last convict ship to arrive in Western Australia was on 10th January 1868. Other settlements such as Victoria and South Australia were established and would remain free colonies. The penal system was coming to an end after much protest and a changing approach and attitude to crime and punishment.

Those that suffered the unfortunate fate of being taken as labourers were to be emancipated and would eventually join their fellow Australians as free settlers. That was not to say that their hardship had come to an end; for years to come they would have to carry the label of a criminal and the social stigma would have lasting effects on the individuals.

The transportation of people to penal colonies to Australia contributed to thousands of lives suffering great hardship as a punishment for minor crimes committed in the UK.

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British Convicts to Australia - Historic UK

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26th January is the official national day of Australia and marks the arrival of the First Fleet of British ships and the raising of the Union flag at Sydney Cove. The fleet included six ships transporting around 1,000 convicts...

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware this website contains images, voices and names of people who have died.

Exile or opportunity?

1788: Captain Arthur Phillip establishes a convict settlement at Sydney Cove

1788: Captain Arthur Phillip establishes a convict settlement at Sydney Cove

State Library of New South Wales FL3268277

Use the following additional activities and discussion questions to encourage students (in small groups or as a whole class) to think more deeply about this defining moment.

Questions for discussion

1. What, if any, have been the long-term effects of convict transportation on Australian society?

2. Do you agree with the National Museum of Australia that the arrival of the First Fleet is a defining moment in Australian history? Explain your answer.

Image activities

1. Look carefully at all the images for this defining moment. Tell this story in pictures by placing them in whatever order you think works best. Write a short caption under each image.

2. Which 3 images do you think are the most important for telling this story? Why?

3. If you could pick only one image to represent this story, which one would you choose? Why?

Finding out more

1. What else would you like to know about this defining moment? Write a list of questions and then share these with your classmates. As a group, create a final list of 3 questions and conduct some research to find the answers.

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National Library of Australia, MAP NK 276

In a snapshot

The arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in January of 1788 marked the beginning of the European colonisation of Australia. The fleet was made up of 11 ships carrying convicts from Britain to Australia. Their arrival changed forever the lives of the Eora people, the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land in the Sydney area, and began waves of convict transportation that lasted until 1868.

Can you find out?

1. Who were Australia's first convicts? Why were they transported to Australia?

2. How did Governor Arthur Phillip manage the colony of New South Wales?

3. What were the main ways Aboriginal people were affected by the arrival of Phillip and the First Fleet?

Why was a convict colony set up in Australia?

Britain used transportation to distant lands as a way of getting rid of prisoners. After Britain lost its American colonies in 1783 the jails of England were full. The British decided to begin transporting prisoners to Australia, which had recently been claimed for the British Crown by Lieutenant James Cook.

Prisoners (also known as convicts) were transported for many reasons but mainly for crimes that we might consider to be minor today, such as stealing. Convicts who were transported were usually poor, often from the large industrial cities and were mostly from England (with a large minority from Ireland and Scotland).

The First Fleet of 11 ships, commanded by Captain Arthur Phillip, set up a convict settlement at Sydney Cove (now Circular Quay) on 26 January 1788. This was the beginning of convict settlement in Australia.

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National Museum of Australia

Who was Australia's first governor?

Captain Arthur Phillip was an experienced naval officer who became first governor of the colony of New South Wales. He faced many challenges in the early years of settlement. He was prepared to punish people who broke the rules, but also rewarded convicts and free settlers who behaved well.

Almost straight away, the new colony faced starvation. The first crops failed because of the lack of skilled farmers, spoilt seed brought from England, poor local soils, an unfamiliar climate and bad tools. Phillip insisted that food be shared between convicts and free settlers. The British Officers didn't like this, nor the fact that Phillip gave land to trustworthy convicts. But both actions meant that the colony survived, and they began an attitude of fairness that is still prized in Australia today.

Research task
Research the sorts of people who travelled on the 11 ships that made up the First Fleet. How many convicts (male and female), free settlers, crew, marines, officials and children were on board?

What effect did the First Fleet have on Australia's first peoples?

The arrival of the First Fleet immediately affected the Eora nation, the traditional Aboriginal owners of the Sydney area. Violence between settlers and the Eora people started as soon as the colony was set up. The Eora people, particularly the warrior Pemulwuy, fought the colonisers. This conflict was mainly over land and food.

Phillip was speared during a meeting with Eora at Manly in 1790, but he recovered and continued as the colony's first governor for two more years. He returned to England in 1792 with two Indigenous men: Bennelong, who later returned to Australia, and Yemmerrawannie, who died in England.

Thousands of Eora people died as a result of European diseases like smallpox.

What were the long-term effects of the First Fleet?

The First Fleet was the beginning of convict transportation to Australia and was followed by many other fleets of convict ships. When this ended in 1868, over 150,000 convicts had been transported to New South Wales and other Australian colonies. Most convicts stayed in Australia after serving their sentences, and some became well-known, important people within the Australian colonies.

Convict settlement continued to have devastating effects on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the decades after 1788. Thousands died in conflicts with settlers and from diseases, and many more suffered from the loss of cultural traditions and languages.

Read a longer version of this Defining Moment on the National Museum of Australia's website.

What did you learn?

1. Who were Australia's first convicts? Why were they transported to Australia?

2. How did Governor Arthur Phillip manage the colony of New South Wales?

3. What were the main ways Aboriginal people were affected by the arrival of Phillip and the First Fleet?

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The First Fleet arrives at Sydney Cove | Australia's Defining Moments Digital Classroom | National Museum of Australia

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The arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in January of 1788 marked the beginning of the European colonisation of Australia. The fleet was made up of 11 ships carrying convicts from Britain to Australia.

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1788 to 1810 - Early European Settlement

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A Convict Settlement in Sydney
The British colony of New South Wales was established in 1788 as a penal colony. After the American War of Independence, Britain, in a time of social upheaval at the beginnings of massive agricultural, industrial and social change, was faced with overcrowded prisons an…

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Was, is and always will be ...

By 1801 Sydney had grown into a little village with streets and buildings. Many of the buildings were made of timber and stone, some older houses were made from wattle and daub.

Convicts lived in their own homes in an area known as 'The Rocks', some with their families. But it wasn't just convicts living in the village; local Aboriginal people lived there too. They camped near the convict houses, fished on the harbour, traded goods and food with townsfolk and brought news from further away.

Aboriginal people had lived in and around Sydney Cove for thousands of years and they called it Warrane. By now they were used to the sight of new ships arriving and they would often be out on the harbour in their canoes.

For newly arrived convicts, the environment of Sydney was strange and very different to what they were used to. During summer, days of unbearable heat were often followed by ferocious thunderstorms and torrential rain.

Overhead flew flocks of brightly coloured parrots and cockatoos, while kangaroos, echidnas, wombats and goannas roamed the scrubby bush. Most convicts enjoyed living in Sydney more than living on settler farms in the bush. In town they could visit friends or family for a cup of tea or lunch, enjoy a dance in fancy clothes or visit a theatre. When they were not working, they gambled with their money, played games and relaxed.

What food did convicts eat?

Most convicts were given a daily ration by the government. They collected it from the government food store and were given:

450 grams of

450 grams of corn (sometimes still on the cob)

450 grams of wheat flour to make bread.

Women and teenagers were given smaller rations than the men - so they would have often been hungry.

Sometimes the meat was rotten because it had been kept for months, or even years, on a ship before being issued. In the colony, when the weather was bad and crops got damaged, the convicts were given less to eat.

If a convict had some money they could buy more food. Better still, if they had a small vegetable garden at their home they could eat, or sell, what they were able to grow. Some convicts tried to catch fish or collect oysters and shellfish in Sydney harbour to give them more to eat. They also tried to hunt animals like ducks, birds and kangaroos - but that was not easy.

Aboriginal people hunted, gathered and carefully managed the various local food sources, making sure they didn't take too much. But when convicts started to hunt and collect food in the same areas, they often took too much. This put pressure on the environment and reduced the amount of food available.

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What work did convicts do?

Convict men started work at 7am and did lots of different jobs. Most men worked for government 'gangs' although some worked for free settlers and soldiers. They cut down trees, sawed timber, made bricks, built doors, windows and furniture. Some men pulled carts and others moved buckets and barrels of water.

The government lumberyard (located on the corner of Bridge and George streets) was an important place where men with trades worked side by side.

Carpenters worked with wood, wheelwrights built wheels, tailors and shoemakers made clothes, and blacksmiths made chains and work tools. A few educated convicts that could read and write, like James Hardy Vaux, were given government desk jobs.

Female convicts did different work to the men. Many of them worked for families as cooks, maids, nurses or washerwomen. However, one female convict called Ann Marsh, ran a pub in the Rocks as well as a river ferry service between Sydney and Parramatta.

A lot of the work that convicts did affected Aboriginal people, their way of life and their close connection to their country. Cutting down trees and clearing land destroyed traditional hunting grounds. Catching fish and collecting oysters from the waterways meant there was less available for Aboriginal people to feed their families. Building farms and fences made it harder for Aboriginal people to travel across, care for and camp in areas that they had used and nurtured for many years.

What was it like inside a convict's house?

Convicts were often quite comfortable. They lived in two or three roomed houses, shared with fellow convicts or with a family. They had tables and chairs, cooked dinner (like pea and ham soup) over a fireplace and ate their food on china crockery using silver cutlery!

They slept on beds with mattresses, washed their clothes with buckets and washboards, and hung it out on the line to dry in the sun. Some convicts kept animals like chickens and pigs and might also have tended a small vegetable garden.

Were the convicts well-behaved?

Most convicts worked hard and tried to behave well so that they would earn a ticket-of-leave. A ticket-of-leave meant a convict could work for himself or herself, earning money and enjoying more freedom.

William Noah is a good example of a convict who worked hard and was well-behaved.

Noah had been convicted of robbery in England and sentenced to transportation for life. He arrived in Sydney in 1799 and was sent to work at the government lumberyard, where he worked hard for many years. In 1818 he was given an Absolute Pardon, which meant his 'life sentance' was over, and he then lived in Sydney for the rest of his life as a free man.

However, if a convict was badly behaved, refused to work, stole food or tools, or tried to escape they could be punished with a flogging or a stint in chains. If their behavior was really serious they faced being sent to work in the mines of Newcastle or further away on lonely Norfolk Island.

What clothes did a convict wear?

Convict men were given work clothes, called 'slops', by the government. They got a cotton shirt, a blue woollen jacket and waistcoat, white trousers and shoes. They were also given a woollen cap or hat.

Women wore jackats, shifts (with a petticoat underneath), stockings, shoes and a cap on their head.

After work and on weekends male and female convicts would take off their government clothes and change into something nicer. They would wear fancy coats, tailor-made dresses, new shoes and hats, and buy new clothes with any money they had saved.

History skills in action (source analysis)

Artworks are a terrific way to learn about history. They often contain evidence (clues) that shows you what life was like in the past for different people and how places have changed over time.

Student Activity:

Investigate both artworks for clues that help you answer the questions below. Then use those answers (as well as all the information provided above) to help you complete the creative writing task below.

Start with the first painting. Then investigate the sketch, it has a helpful key at the bottom with a lot of information about the different buildings and places you can see.

Click on the images to make them larger.

Questions:

1. Describe all the different people you can see in the painting and what they are doing.

2. Look carefully - can you find any evidence of vegetable gardens in the front yards of the houses?

3. Try and locate the Governor's house - it faces the ship in the harbour, has two chimneys and is high up on a hill.

4. What can you see being built on the shores of Sydney Harbour?

Now use the sketch to find out more about what the different buildings are, and who used them. Use the numbers in the key to start investigating.

Creative writing task:

Imagine you are a convict living near Sydney Cove around 1800.

Write a letter to a family member who lives back in London and tell them about:

where you live, what you eat and the work you do

the different people who live in Sydney, and where they live

what the different buildings are like

what the environment is like

the different activities you see people doing each day around the town

how you feel about living in Sydney.

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What was life in early Sydney like for convicts? | MHNSW

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By 1801 Sydney had grown into a little village with streets and buildings.Many of the buildings were made of timber and stone, some older houses were made from Side note: wattle and daub.Convicts lived in their own homes in an area known as 'The Rocks', some with their families.

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Was, is and always will be ...

At the end of the 18th century, a tiny British penal colony was established on the east coast of a vast southern continent. In their minds this was uncharted land, but the colony they helped to establish displaced the many Aboriginal groups who called it home. For the new arrivals, this was to be a self-sufficient farming settlement utilising the labour of criminals, or convicts, banished from England and Ireland. Rather than being chained and coerced, these castaways forged lively and productive communities, embracing the relative freedoms of this place 'beyond the seas'. Far from being a prison, this was the convicts' colony.

The story of colonial Sydney began in the early months of 1788, when, under the watchful eyes of Aboriginal people, 11 British tall ships sailed tentatively into the tranquil waters of Port Jackson - the six convict transports, three store ships and two naval escorts of the First Fleet.

Following an eight-month voyage, and after abandoning their original camp at Botany Bay, the weary convoy dropped anchor at Warrane, a sunny north-facing crescent of sand and shady trees deep inside a majestic harbour. They named it Sydney Cove.

Slightly more than 1000 travellers came ashore and milled around at the head of a freshwater stream. Here they planted a flag, toasted their king, and looked warily into the surrounding bush.

This left Phillip with one remaining ship, the diminutive Supply. Dispatching her to the nearest port - Java - for help left the anxious settlement completely cut off from the outside world. Rations were cut to half-allowance, public works were abandoned and all efforts went towards the procurement of food until the Second Fleet arrived in June 1790, carrying provisions but also another thousand or more mouths to feed.

Tentative steps

Scattered among rocks and trees above the foreshore were grimy clusters of canvas tents, makeshift shelters and huts, some of which were clad in cabbage palm leaves, others in twigs and clay.

Further afield were rudimentary farming plots and gardens, along with sandstone quarries, sawpits and shingle-cutting camps where the convicts worked every day. On the town's southernmost outskirts was a muddy field where clay was dug for brickmaking. In coming years Sydney's buildings would owe much to this increasingly productive brickfield.

In an effort to create order, future streets and building allotments had been pegged out while tentative plans for a hospital, jail, court and church were taking shape. The first building to be finished was an observatory for the lieutenant William Dawes, perched at the end of the rocky western ridge soon to be known as Dawes Point.

Curiously, this isolated observatory became a stopping-off point for Aboriginal people visiting the town. Initially, there had been little contact with Aboriginal people other than violent confrontations in the bush. In an attempt to learn more about them, Phillip ordered the kidnapping of several Aboriginal men in 1788 and 1789, but after a deadly smallpox epidemic swept around the harbour and beyond in early 1789, those who managed to survive kept their distance from the colony.

An unlikely turn of events in September 1790, arising from a dramatic confrontation between Governor Phillip and a large party of Aboriginal people on the beach at Manly, led to closer relations between colonists and Aboriginal locals. In what is now seen as a ritual 'payback' for the recent kidnapping of Aboriginal men, Phillip - to his and his soldiers' great surprise - was speared without warning as he stood on the sand. Instead of retaliating, his men dragged the severely wounded Phillip to the safety of a longboat. Intriguingly, this non-fatal spearing 'reset' the relationship, with Aboriginal people coming frequently into town, getting to know convicts and trading with them.

They named this place Sydney Cove, but to the Gadigal clan who lived there, it was Warrane. Like all the surrounding country, and everywhere beyond, the Sydney region was etched with meaning, interconnected by ceremony and song, and far from deserted. The appropriation of Warrane by the First Fleet was the first step in an unfolding saga of devastation and dispossession of Aboriginal society. Those who survived faced a very different world, and often became entwined with the colony and its convicts. They and their descendants have a very different view of the significance of the arrival of convicts in Sydney in 1788.

A harsh reality

As the first few months unfolded, the harsh reality of the colony's isolation began to set in. There had been glimpses of hope and happiness, such as several marriages and the births of at least 30 children. Fertile farming soils were found at Parramatta, 15 miles (24 kilometres) upstream from Sydney. A second settlement was started on Norfolk Island.

But the convicts had grown troublesome. Along with the sporadic theft of stores and belongings, and numerous runaways, the newly bonded community of cast-away strangers was rife with drunkenness, dirty deeds and a carefree approach to sexual relations. In early January 1789, a convict was hanged for repeated acts of armed robbery. Four others earned 100 lashes each for a three-day absence from work. Around the same time, a number of convict women were cruelly punished for the theft of clothing. Similar crimes were committed by the soldiers, who faced an even harsher fate.

Elsewhere, livestock died of disease or were struck by lightning. Unfenced cattle disappeared waywardly into the bush. In some cases, though not all, through lack of skills and motivation, convicts made poor farmers while the marines, dispirited and negligent, made reluctant overseers.

Ration time

Two years in the making and Sydney's food supplies were also dwindling. Still reliant on provisions shipped on the First Fleet, and with its storehouses ransacked by rats and rotten with damp, the settlement endured several periods of stringent rationing. Not surprisingly, as stored provisions vanished, local stocks of fish, fruit, marsupials and birdlife grew increasingly scarce from rampant over-harvesting. Violent encounters with Aboriginal people became commonplace as convicts chanced upon or stole food and implements, or unwittingly breached cultural protocols.

The pot received everything we could catch or kill, and the common crow was relished here as well as the barn-door fowl is in England.

John Hunter, 17881

Making a mercy dash to Cape Town in May 1789, the Sirius returned with little more than four months' worth of flour. With the new year dawning and the colony's hopes fading fast, the diarist Captain-Lieutenant Watkin Tench wrote, 'Famine besides was approaching with gigantic strides, and gloom and dejection overspread every countenance... ' ²

Recognising the need for desperate measures, Governor Phillip ordered a further 280 convicts and marines to sail for Norfolk Island, to bolster its farming operations and increase output. Afterwards, all things going to plan, the Sirius would continue north to China to stock up on food and supplies. The scheme was ruined, however, when the Sirius struck a reef and broke apart on the island's rocky shore.

ABOVE: The loss of the Royal Navy escort Sirius was a huge blow to the young colony, which faced perilous food shortages and, from early 1790, pinned its hopes on the Norfolk Island settlement.

Finding its feet

By 1792 the settlement was looking more secure. The colony's farms and gardens were starting to flourish, while recognisably English-looking cottages and soldiers' quarters and a parade ground had replaced the uncouth scattering of tents, shanties and bush tracks. Secure granaries and storehouses had lessened pilfering and, following a succession of crippling droughts, a series of angular rock pools - or tanks - were dug in the stream bed to divert the flow and fill with fresh water. The newly named Tank Stream kept early Sydney alive. There was still insufficient livestock to fertilise the arid coastal soil, but luckily for the settlement, corn, maize and vegetables thrived on the alluvial lands at the head of the harbour around Parramatta.

Closer to Sydney, convict workshops, timberyards and brick kilns produced an increasing range of building materials, tools and domestic items. The colony's self-sufficiency was still decades away, but the food and supply situation had improved.

As the 1790s progressed, the penal outpost - planned as a faraway prison - took on the familiar, though somewhat unintended, character of a small English town. Convicts were not locked away while still under sentence; they lived in their own freestanding cottages, among family or friends, with a private garden to be farmed in their own time. Once their sentence had been served, they received, if they wished, 30 acres of land. If they were married, they received even more.

Within two or three years, soldiers too would construct and occupy their own dwellings apart from the military quarters - comfortable cottages with gardens, where they might farm for themselves or try their hand at trading or commerce.

The British government's gamble was paying off. Here, gradually taking shape, despite the odds, was a bucolic, almost utopian, barter-based, agricultural community. Cleared, farmed and built upon by convicts and their families, who embraced and nurtured their new homes, overseen by soldiers and guards, and ruled over by a powerful, fatherly governor, Arthur Phillip, who did his best to follow the instructions of faraway British politicians.

ABOVE: These images of early Sydney show an infant settlement huddled around the sandy shores of Sydney Cove, with cottages and gardens scattered between rocks and trees. Roads and tracks radiate outwards on either side of the freshwater Tank Stream, carving out access into the unfamiliar bush or linking to convict worksites and brickfields. The shoreline remains jagged and undeveloped, although jetties have been sunk in the waters beside Government House and across the cove in front of the stores and hospital buildings. Shipping remains the lifeblood of the colony, with vessels undergoing repair or being built in the shipyards below the aptly named Rocks area, the rugged finger of land jutting into the harbour which soon came to be called Dawes Point.

The centrality of convicts

What distinguished this colony was its dependence on convict work and, at least in the early decades, the debt it owed to convicts, ex-convicts and their families, who underpinned the colony's social and economic wellbeing.

Huge amounts of lime mortar were needed for laying the bricks to build Sydney. Oyster shells were the key ingredient.

Initially, convict work was focused on the basics of survival and shelter: clearing land; cutting trees; forming docks, tracks, bridges and fortifications; and gathering materials for storehouses and workshops, such as shingles, logs, saplings, rocks, mud, sand and oyster-shell mortar. Convicts built their own houses, some in neat rows, others jumbled on the rugged shelves of The Rocks.

Convicts also hunted, fished, and collected oysters from the foreshores, as well as vegetables and tea from the bush. Historians think that this is why the population were reportedly in such good health. In addition, coming from a country where their beloved 'commons' had been taken from them and enclosed, they relished this new freedom to roam and forage in the bush.

By the mid-1790s, with the colony's future looking brighter, convict labour was directed towards larger-scale agricultural production. Throughout the decade, a series of expansive government farms were established to experiment with crops, train farmers and, most importantly, bolster the government's grain and vegetable stores.

The earliest efforts at large-scale farming took place at Farm Cove/Wogganmagule to the east of the town. As these failed, farms were established westwards towards the Blue Mountains - firstly at Grose Farm (where Sydney University stands), then Parramatta, Toongabbie, Castle Hill and Prospect.

These farms were often dangerous places to be, as their expansion into Aboriginal lands west of Sydney triggered frontier warfare from the 1790s through to the 1810s. Convict farmers, as both perpetrators and victims, faced mounting hostility and remained ever vulnerable to attack.

Throughout this period, an Aboriginal warrior called Pemulwuy led a large group of fighters (including escaped convicts) in a prolonged war of resistance, burning crops and attacking farms across western Sydney and the Georges River. After Pemulwuy was killed in 1801, fellow warriors and resistors waged ongoing attacks on Sydney farms. In some cases apprehended men, such as the Aboriginal warrior Musquito, became convicts themselves.

Ganging up

Convicts not suited to agricultural work, or who possessed useful trades and skills, worked in specialist gangs. In addition to basic public works like cutting and fetching timber, breaking rocks and clearing bush, there were boat gangs, shell gangs, shingling gangs and a range of gangs in the lumberyard, dockyard, quarries and gardens.

After their daily stint of government work, convicts were left to fend for themselves. This meant finding private work to pay for their food, clothing and accommodation.

Builders, carpenters, plasterers, blacksmiths, tailors, cobblers and others with specialist skills and tools of trade were typically in high demand, with many encouraged to start their own businesses. Those with servant skills found work in the homes of officers and officials. Those who could farm took on small plots of land, trading their crops at the government store for other necessities and luxuries.

Task work

What made Sydney a different kind of penal experience for those under sentence was a negotiated arrangement called 'task work'. Essentially, this involved setting minimum levels of 'public work' needing to be carried out for the government before a convict could undertake his or her own work, for personal gain or advancement. Free time was valuable, and in colonial Sydney it was officially viewed as an indulgence for good behaviour, to be offered or withheld, although more often regarded by convicts as a right.

Unlike their counterparts in British prisons, convicts were not confined or closely guarded. Instead, a careful balance was struck between work performed for the colony's greater good - its roads, docks, buildings, farms etc - and free time for convicts to establish and run private businesses and ply a variety of trades and lucrative services.

While in hindsight, a radical policy of granting convicts 'free time' in exchange for carrying out 'set tasks' seems humane and generous, the rationale was far from enlightened. The flipside of free time was the lack of government provisions and the need to keep public costs down. In fact, with no accommodation to count on, and only limited food rations, convicts had no choice but to work for themselves once their task work was done just to survive. This also suited colonial authorities, who were spared their obligation to provide convicts with basic necessities.

Despite its growing opportunities and relative freedoms, Sydney was still a place of exile, where misbehaviour and rebellion earned cruel and brutal punishments. However, the curious fit of privacy, free time and task work, together with a laxity of supervision gave the convict colony a surprisingly normal character, fostering social and economic participation and blurring the lines between free and unfree. For convicts, the impulse to bolster one's wealth, security and comfort through trade and enterprise proved unstoppable.

Convicts, colonisation and impact on Aboriginal people

The Macquaries arrive

In 1809, Major-General Lachlan Macquarie, accompanied by his wife Elizabeth, took control of the colony. In assuming command, Macquarie saw the benefits of a society where opportunities were opened to those who showed enterprise and diligence - whether convict, ex-convict, soldier or free. In contrast, what concerned him most was the dismal condition of public buildings, the neglect of public health, religion, marriage and an overwhelming rowdiness, decadence and indifference to rules.

As the colony's first army (rather than navy) commander, Macquarie stepped ashore with his own regiment of soldiers, the 73rd Battalion, adding force and formality to his considerable authority. Only a few years earlier, the colony had fallen under the control of a rebel administration, when the previous governor, the famed naval captain William Bligh, was dramatically deposed after he threatened the property rights of leaseholders in Sydney.

Setting to work quickly, Macquarie cancelled a long list of illegal land grants, restored civil posts, released Bligh's allies from jail and arrested the rebel officers, ordering them to London to face charges. Little did he know that the enemies and rivals made in these early years would eventually come back to destroy him.

There were other immediate problems as well. Struggling farmers who'd lost their crops and livestock to floods and drought were now fighting plagues of caterpillars. Not only was the colony's food supply threatened, but convicts no longer able to be fed or housed privately were being returned to government service and town, flooding into areas like The Rocks where accommodation was scarce and life was unruly.

Getting started

Commencing with an official tour of the colony, Macquarie selected level and elevated flood-free sites on the Hawkesbury-Nepean River for a series of villages - the five 'Macquarie towns' of Castlereagh, Pitt Town, Richmond, Wilberforce and Windsor - directing convicts into government work gangs to lay out wide, well-defined streets, create town squares and parks, and erect solid public buildings: churches, markets, courts, schools. A new turnpike road was constructed between Parramatta and Sydney, bookended with ornate tollhouses to help offset costs.

Under Macquarie, a range of social and sporting customs came under fire. New laws were passed against bare-knuckle fighting, gambling and sly grog selling. More acceptable sports, like horse-racing, cricket and athletic tournaments, were allowed to continue at designated spots.

In Sydney, genteel parklands replaced the original bushland of the

Side note: governor's domain on the eastern side of the town stretching down to Woolloomooloo. Bold new edifices, like those of the three-winged convict hospital, loomed promisingly on the town's eastern ridge, mirroring a soldiers' barracks and military hospital on the opposing western ridge.

Undeterred by or indifferent to these new impositions, Aboriginal people continued to move freely about town. As well as trading and interacting with convicts and others, they continued to hold bloody tribal 'payback' contests in places like Hyde Park.

Similar kinds of indifference and interaction also occurred on the settlement fringes, with Aboriginal people a visible presence along the slowly expanding frontier. Many, however, maintained a fearsome resistance to the appropriation of their land. In the mid-1810s, faced with frontier warfare in Sydney's Appin district in the south-west, soldiers (acting on Macquarie's orders) conducted a brutal massacre of at least 14 Aboriginal men, women and children.

Though this effectively ended armed Aboriginal resistance in Sydney, a similar story of violent dispossession unfolded across the state in the following decades, as convicts formed the vanguard of colonial expansion into the tribal lands of more Aboriginal groups.

Bush tracks and boulevards

Police constables and soldiers, patrolling newly defined curfew areas, strode along freshly paved footpaths, while town squares were prettified with monuments and masonry. Streets were renamed and re-levelled, while formerly roving pigs, poultry and goats were banned from view behind lofty walls and fences. Out on the fringes, stylish villas and neat cottages in soon-to-be fashionable zones to the south and east snubbed the 'untamed' enclaves of The Rocks and Cockle Bay, where the far-from-gentrified convicts and ex-convicts lived, loved and socialised.

Further afield, horizons were expanding. Having just extended its footprint beyond the once impassable Blue Mountains and bristling with commerce and shipping - whale oil, cedar, seal skins and sandalwood - the garrison outpost of Sydney was eager to shed its penal past. Many others, particularly Macquarie's superiors in London, worried that the colony was growing up too fast, 'taking on a character more colonial than should belong to a gaol'.

ABOVE: Macquarie arrived in Sydney in 1809 and, much to his surprise, found a seaport thronging with activity and optimism. This two-part view of Sydney Cove captured from the rocky shores of Bennelong Point (where the Sydney Opera House now stands) shows the waters crowded with trading ships, skiffs, tenders and Indigenous canoes. On the right is the two-storey Government House amid picturesque grounds and mature trees, with the Governor's finger wharf jutting into the cove. On the skyline beyond are the long dormitory blocks of the soldiers' barracks where York Street now runs. Beside this is the squat St Phillip's church and its medieval turret, which held the colony's first town clock. Further to the right are the battlements of Fort Phillip and a pair of lofty windmills crowning the ridgeline. Below are clusters of huts and cottages sprawling towards the waterline, where trading houses, handsome villas, shipyards and docks give Sydney Cove a European character.

By 1815, Macquarie's Sydney was a thriving port town, fed by large, productive farms on the Cumberland Plain, with expanding local industries, employing an ever-growing population of current and ex-convict colonists - most of whom now called the place home. Following years of declining convict arrivals, a laxity in supervision, along with wide-ranging incentives and opportunities to prosper, a growing commercial self-confidence, spurred by the unlocking of farming lands to the west, had given the colony hope. Blessed with good health and an agreeable climate, townsfolk saw the regular arrival of newborn babies as cause for celebration. In Lord Bathurst's words, the colony might become 'at no distant period a valuable possession of the crown'.

For the new governor, however, progress boiled down to building and infrastructure. In his mind, bold and expensive plans for a self-confident city were taking shape. Town squares and boulevards would soon replace the old bush tracks.

1. John Hunter, An historical journal of the transactions of Port Jackson and Norfolk Island, John Shopdale, London, 1793, p70.

2. Watkin Tench, A complete account of the settlement at Port Jackson in New South Wales including an accurate description of the situation of the colony; of the natives; and of its natural productions, G Nicol and J Sewell, London, 1793, Chapter 5, 'Transactions of the colony, from the beginning of the year 1790 until the end of May following'. University of Sydney SETIS

Convict Sydney © Sydney Living Museums, 2017

Gary Crockett

It was the dog-eared world of Rouse Hill House, back in 1991, that inspired Gary Crockett to become a curator. Gary produced exhibitions on convict, immigration and legal history at the Hyde Park Barracks, studied spatial history at the Museum of Sydney, collaborated with artists and tenants at Susannah Place, architects and engineers at Elizabeth Farm, designers at Rose Seidler House, curated Surf City, an ode to Sydney surf culture, along with a string of video, audioguide and interactive museum projects.

In the young colony, there was no prisoner's barrack - the bush and sea were the walls of the convicts' prison

Fraying at the edges, these were the Barracks' darkest days with only the worst convicts remaining

The combined aims of the assignment system, from 1826 onwards, were to equip farmers with cheap convict labour, to disperse convicts away from towns (and other convicts) and to keep an eye on each worker's whereabouts and treatment

Thief, mother, entrepreneur. Arrived 1789 on Lady Juliana

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Part one starts in 1788 with Sydney established as a British convict colony on the clan lands of the Gadigal people

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Amelie

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As a class, we engaged in collaborative discussions to guide the direction of our History unit. Through critical thinking and open-ended questioning, students reflected on what they already know and explored what they are curious to learn more about. This student-led approach encouraged ownership over their learning and helped shape a meaningful and engaging inquiry that reflects their interests and wonderings.

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Walk in our shoes, see through our eyes and journey alongside us... the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community.

- From Gumnuts to Buttons
About
The Orb celebrates Tasmanian Aboriginal people and the interconnections between Country, culture, identity, and Community.

The Orb features interviews with Tasmanian Aboriginal Community members. It provides teachers with Australian Curriculum aligned resources to assist the teaching of Tasmanian Aboriginal histories and cultures.

Contact: aboriginal.education@decyp.tas.gov.au

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From Gumnuts to Buttons About The Orb celebrates Tasmanian Aboriginal people and the interconnections between Country, culture, identity, and Community. The Orb features interviews with Tasmanian Aboriginal Community members. It provides teachers with Australian Curriculum aligned resources to assist the teaching of Tasmanian Aboriginal histories and cultures. Contact: aboriginal.education@decyp.tas.gov.au

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Year 5 History (HASS)

Knowledge and Understanding

AC9HS5K01 – Examine the causes and effects of British colonisation in Australia after 1800, including the impact on First Nations Australians.

AC9HS5K02 – Investigate what life was like for people (e.g. convicts, settlers, children) in colonial Australia and how those experiences shaped communities.

Inquiry and Skills

AC9HS5S01 – Develop historical questions to investigate people, events and developments.

AC9HS5S02 – Collect and organise information from primary and secondary sources.

AC9HS5S04 – Identify and examine different perspectives, including First Nations Australians’ viewpoints.

AC9HS5S05 – Use evidence to develop informed historical conclusions.

AC9HS5S07 – Present findings using historical terms and concepts.

Year 6 History (HASS)

Knowledge and Understanding

AC9HS6K01 – Analyse the causes and effects of the expansion of British settlement and the continuing impact on First Nations Australians.

AC9HS6K02 – Explore the contribution of individuals and groups to the development of Australian society during colonial times.

Inquiry and Skills

AC9HS6S01 – Pose questions and plan historical inquiries.

AC9HS6S03 – Evaluate sources to identify patterns, relationships, and perspectives.

AC9HS6S05 – Draw conclusions and communicate interpretations supported by evidence.

AC9HS6S07 – Use appropriate formats and conventions to present historical understandings (e.g. timelines, reports, poems, presentations).

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Inquiry Unit  – History: Life in Early Australia

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Inquiry Unit  – History: Life in Early Australia

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In this inquiry, we will explore the lives of convicts, free settlers, and First Nations Australians during the early years of British colonisation. Students will investigate how and why people came to Australia, what daily life was like in a developing colony, and how colonisation changed the lives of those who lived here. Through historical excursions, primary and secondary source analysis, and collaborative inquiry, students will examine significant events, people, and places that shaped Australia's identity.

This unit will also explore how different groups experienced life in colonial Australia, including the injustice faced by First Nations peoples and the harsh realities of the convict system. Students will be encouraged to think critically about the motivations for colonisation, the consequences of British settlement, and the long-lasting impacts on Australian society. The unit builds historical understanding while fostering empathy, ethical reflection, and intercultural awareness.