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Representations of life in the penal settlement at Sydney Cove

Maps & Images
Arthur Bowes-Smyth
Settlement - 1788

  • Pleas to the Mother Country for officers prepared to manage the convicts; tradespeople

  • Request for free settlers and convicts experienced in farming

  • Hopes for improved relations with Aborigines/concern for their welfare

  • Failure of flax plant

  • Hopes pinned on arrival of livestock and seeds from Cape Good Hope

  • Request for clothing, tools

  • Military barracks being built

  • Convicts indolent

  • Town plan made

  • Stores over-run by rates

  • Deaths, births at end of two years

  • Norfolk Island, Lord Howe's Island

  • Rose Hill (Parramatta) established

  • The Hawkesbury, Richmond Hill, Nepean River

  • Proposal to assign convicts to military / free settlers as farm labourers

The London Chronicle

  • The journey

  • Botany Bay & Port Jackson

  • ​Land clearing

  • The 'natives'

  • Livestock

  • Crops

  • Leadership

David Blackburn, Master of Supply

  • Turtles caught  for Arthur Phillip

  • Description of NSW

  • ​Aborigines

  • First recorded earthquake

  • Kangaroos, possums, dingoes, birds, whales, sharks and fish

  • Gardens & soil quality

  • Hoax gold discovery

  • Crops

  • Food shortages and rationing

  • Batavia provisioning mission

  • Colony awaiting relief ships

  • Bennelong, Arabalanoo, Nanbarry, Ataroo

  • Drought

  • Aborigines begin to assimilate

  • Founding of Australia

  • Sydney Cove 1791

Deborah Brooks, free settler

  • Food shortage

  • Unfavourable description of convicts

  • Aborigines

  • Landscape

  • Small farming household

  • Prospects of the colony

Arthur Philip - Letters

  • Pleas to the Mother Country for officers prepared to manage the convicts; tradespeople

  • Request for free settlers and convicts experienced in farming

  • Hopes for improved relations with Aborigines/concern for their welfare

  • Failure of flax plant

  • Hopes pinned on arrival of livestock and seeds from Cape Good Hope

  • Request for clothing, tools

  • Military barracks being built

  • Convicts indolent

  • Town plan made

  • Stores over-run by rates

  • Deaths, births at end of two years

  • Norfolk Island, Lord Howe's Island

  • Rose Hill (Parramatta) established

  • The Hawkesbury, Richmond Hill, Nepean River

  • Proposal to assign convicts to military / free settlers as farm labourers

Watkin Tench - Marine Officer

  • Victuallers

  • Restocking 

Rev Richard Johnson

  • Restocking 

Convicts/Women
Ralph Clarke
Captain James Campbell

  • Candid early account

  • Environmental observations

  • Wildlife descriptions

  • Aboriginal cultural observations

  • Health and food shortages

  • Criticism of leadership

  • Criticism of settlement policy

  • Crisis worsens

  • Morale declines

  • Description of Sydney as 'vile'

John White Esq

  • ​​Hospital

  • Governor's house

  • Survey of harbour

  • Storehouse

  • Criminal court

  • Marriages

  • Manly, Lord Howe Island

  • Scurvy

  • Poor wood quality, Aborigines indicate poisonous foods

  • Cabbage tree huts

  • Place is named 'Albion' (not Sydney)

  • Discovery of 'gold'

Lieutenant William Bradley

  • Early conflict with the Aboriginal Peoples

Overview
Settlement - 1788
The London Chronicle
Arthur Philip ~ Letters
Watkin Tench
John White
Arthur Bowes-Smyth
Newton Fowell
Deborah Brooks
David Blackburn
Rev Richard Johnson
Lieutenant William Bradley
Captain James Campbell
Convicts/Women
Ralph Clarke
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