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Australian Crime Timeline: 1788-1868

"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"

1788
The 11 ships of the First Fleet left Portsmouth, England, in 1787, with more than 1480 men, women and children on board. They arrived at Botany Bay on 18 January 1788, after a journey of approximately 20,000 kilometres. 

Governor Arthur Phillip decided that Botany Bay was an unsuitable settlement place because the area appeared to have poor soil, no reliable fresh drinking water, and the bay was too shallow to allow the ships to anchor close to the shore.

On 26 January 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip and the 11 ships of the First Fleet sailed into Port Jackson and planted the British flag to proclaim the colony of New South Wales.

On 11 February, convict Thomas Eccles becomes the first person to be tried in the new colony for drunkenness. And Thomas Barrett is the first person hanged on the 27th February.
The First Fleet entering Port Jackson on 26 January 1788 by Edmund Le Bihan
1789
The Night Watch and the Row Boat Guard were appointed by Governor Phillip from amongst the best-behaved convicts. Their major task was to prevent stealing and convicts trying to escape the colony by stowing-away on ships.

John Black Caesar (c.1763-1796), a convict and bushranger of African background, who had been living in Deptford, England, was transported on the First Fleet to Australia for theft. After being sentenced to a second term of transportation, this time to life, Black Caesar became Australia's first bushranger in 1789. In the following year, Caesar escaped from his chains various times. He robbed settlers and attacked Aboriginal people.

The mutiny on the Royal Navy vessel HMS Bounty occurred in the south Pacific on 28 April 1789, under the command of Captain Bligh. Fletcher Christian and other crewmen seized control of the ship and set Bligh and 18 loyalists adrift in the ship's open boat.
The mutineers turning Lt Bligh and some of the officers and crew adrift from His Majesty's Ship HMS Bounty. By Robert Dodd, National Maritime Museum
Luke Haines/Haynes was one of six Marines hanged at Sydney Cove for theft of government stores, 27 March 1789.
 
Ann Davis (alias Judith Jones) was the first woman hanged in Australia, 23 November 1789.
1790
The Night Watch, also drawn from convict ranks, were replaced by the Sydney Foot Police in 1790.

In December 1790, Pemulwuy, the Aboriginal warrior, speared John McIntyre, Governor Phillip's gamekeeper, who later died of from the injury.

1791
Mary Bryant (1765 –1794) was a Cornish-highway woman and convict who was transported to Australia for her crimes. She became one of the first successful escapees from the Australian penal colony. Along with her husband, William, and her children, Charlotte and Emmanuel.

Mary stole a boat from Governor Phillip and sailed to Kupang, in West Timor, a journey of 3,000 miles, taking sixty-nine days, without navigational equipment. Instead of facing the gallows, a famous lawyer took up the case, and Mary was granted a pardon in 1793, after a year in prison.

1795
In 1795, Black Caesar and other convicts were attacked by a group of Aboriginals, who included the warrior, Pemulwuy. Caesar retaliated and cracked Pemulwuy’s skull, wounding him up to seven times.

1796
Bushranger Black Caesar was shot, captured and killed in 1796.

Convicts in the NSW colony were either selling or gambling away their clothes, then stealing clothing from others, to replace their own clothes. 

A group of convicts were arrested for passing a forged ten guinea note bearing the Commissary's name. Convict, James McCarthy was sentenced to death for the crime, but most of the rest of the group were acquitted. In the end, McCarthy's life was also, spared, and he was sent to Norfolk Island.

1801
Colonel Paterson and British army officer, John Macarthur, became involved in a quarrel after Macarthur disclosed information contained in a private letter written by Mrs Paterson to Mrs Elizabeth Macarthur. Paterson then challenged Macarthur to a duel, and Paterson was wounded in the shoulder. John Macarthur was sent back to England under arrest.

The penal settlement at Newcastle was established and the town soon gained a reputation as a "hellhole", where the most dangerous convicts were sent to mine coal and burn lime.

1802
Aboriginal warrior, Pemulwuy, was ambushed, shot and decapitated. His head was sent to Sir Joseph Banks back in England, preserved in a barrel of spirits.

1803
Constable Joseph Luker, who had arrived in Sydney as a convict on the Third Fleet in 1791, was the first police officer killed in the line of duty in New South Wales. 

Constable Luker was investigating a robbery when a group of criminals attacked him with a desk they were stealing. He was bashed with the frame of a wheelbarrow and stabbed with his own cutlass guard. Constable Luker’s grave, in the Old Sydney Burial Ground, was marked “assassinated“.

Joseph Samuels was one of those who were convicted of Constable Luker's murder and sentenced to hang. However, three attempts were made to hang him and all were unsuccessful.  He was given a reprieve.
1804
The Castle Hill Rebellion of 1804 was Australia’s first uprising. More than 100 people died during the week of battle, when Irish convicts attempted to overthrow British rule in New South Wales, so, that they could return to Ireland and overthrow the British there.
This is the only known drawing of the Battle of Vinegar Hill. It is intended to be read clockwise from the center. Up the top at the center Father Dixon is asking the rebels to surrender. On the far right a rebel is saying, "Death or Liberty Major". Major George Johnston replies, "You scoundrel. I'll liberate you!". The next captions are Trooper Azlenark and William Johnston. To the left is Quartermaster Laycock slicing Phillip Cunningham with a sword." Hawkesbury Historical Society
An uprising was stopped in December on Norfolk Island by the execution of two leaders of the rebellion.

1805
Many forged English and Irish bank notes were circulating in Sydney during May 1805.

1807
William Bligh, fourth Governor of New South Wales, communicated his policy to the Colonial Office banning all forms of barter using spirits and outlawed illegal stills.

1808
The Rum Rebellion of 1808, involved the overthrow of Governor William Bligh by the New South Wales Corps. This uprising is the only successful armed takeover of government in Australian history.
A propaganda cartoon created within hours of William Bligh's arrest, portraying him as a coward
1810
In January, Governor Macquarie forbade work on Sundays and directed that police constables of the colony should place anyone found working on this day before a magistrate. Public houses were also ordered to be closed during the time in which church services occurred.

1816
The Appin Massacre occurred on April 17, 1816, after a period of land hostilities between the settlers and Aboriginal people. The 46th Regiment, led by Captain James Wallis, shot and killed about 14 Aboriginals, while other Aboriginal people ran “in despair over the precipice” and fell into the the Cataract River. The orders for the massacre came from Governor Lachlan Macquarie, who directed the reprisal raid to be carried out with "secrecy and dispatch".

1817
A great many hangings occurred in the colony for both small and large crimes. 
Patrick Ducey was hanged in Sydney for stealing a cow, the property of Patrick Devoy,  7 November 1817.

1822
20 September 1822 – Alexander Pearce, Bob Greenhill, and six others escaped from Macquarie Harbour Penal Station. Pearce and Greenhill later killed their fellow escapees and ate them. It was reported that just before he was hanged, Pearce said, "Man’s flesh is delicious. It tastes far better than fish or pork.''
Black and white photo of the skull of Alexander Pearce, which is held in the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. State Library of Tasmania
1826
Matthew Brady (1799-1826) was sent to Australia as a convict for stealing a basket and some butter, bacon, sugar and rice. Whilst in the colony, Brady received 350 lashes for various punishments. Matthew Brady became a notorious bushranger in Van Diemen's Land and was known as the “Gentleman Bushranger”, as he generally only used violence in self-defence. When Matthew Brady was sentenced to be hanged in May 1826, court proceedings were interrupted by many weeping women.

1827
On 27 October 1827, many of the women of the Parramatta Female Factory reacting to the lack of food and bad management, rioted, wielding pick-axes, storming the gates and pouring onto the streets of Parramatta like "Amazonian banditti". The first industrial action by women in Australia.

1828
Australia's first bank robbery occurred in Sydney in 1828 and most of the £14,000 was never found.

On the 10th February 1828, the Cape Grim massacre occurred, when four shepherds with muskets ambushed over 30 Tasmanian Aboriginal people from Cape Grim, killing 30 and throwing their bodies over a 60-metre cliff into the sea.
Rocks on the coast at Suicide Bay, Cape Grim, Tasmania. Gary Houston
1829
In 1829, the New South Wales Supreme Court advised the Attorney-General that it would be unjust to apply English law to the killing of an Aboriginal person by members of another tribe.[15

1830
Mary McLauchlan was the first woman to be executed in Van Diemen's Land, after being found guilty of infanticide and sentenced to death.

1831 
On July 11, the Aboriginal resistance fighter Yagan was shot and killed. His head was taken as proof of his death, and his body was transported to England and buried in the Liverpool Cemetery, with the bodies of stillborn babies. His head is now secretly buried in Perth, in the Swan Valley.
Yagan statue. Heirisson Island, Perth, Western Australia. The statue was sculpted in 1984 by Robert Hitchcock
1834
Ten Australian convicts hijacked the brig, Frederick, and sailed to Chile, where they lived freely for two years. Four of the convicts were later recaptured and returned to Australia, where they escaped the death sentence for piracy through a legal technicality.

1835
The Proclamation by Governor Bourke of terra nullius, upon which British settlement is based, 10 October 1835.
[In the eighteenth century, the three recognised ways of acquiring legal sovereignty were by conquest, cession or occupation of land that was ownerless. The American colonies were mainly acquired by conquest or cession, but in 1770, Australia was regarded as "common land" occupied only by "wandering tribes".
Politicians at the time were strongly influenced by the 1690 doctrine of John Locke that: As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property. He by his labour does, as it were, inclose it from the Common.] Read here

1836
On Monday mornings, people who had been found drunk and rolling about the streets over the weekend, would stand trial at the Barracks Bench. Punishments would include solitary confinement, working in leg-irons or spending days on the treadmill, grinding grain.

1838
Up to 30 Aboriginal people were slaughtered at Myall Creek in northern New South Wales. After two trials, seven of the 11 colonists involved in the killings were found guilty of murder and hanged.

Whilst being lectured on morality by a visiting preacher at the Cascades Female Factory, South Hobart, witness recorded that: "The three hundred women turned right around and at one impulse pulled up their clothes showing their naked posteriors which they simultaneously smacked with their hands making a loud and not very musical noise".
1840
The sailing ship, Maria, left Port Adelaide on 26th June for a voyage to Hobart with 25 passengers and a baby. The Maria was wrecked off Cape Jaffa but the passengers and crew managed to escape in a small boat unharmed. 

They began to walk back to Encounter Bay along the Coorong. The group never arrived. Newspapers reported that "a massacre site" had been found and those who went to investigate found "legs, arms and parts of bodies partially covered with sand and strewn in all directions". On August 25, two Aboriginal men were hanged from she-oak trees near the graves of their alleged victims.

1841
Edward Davis (1816–1841) was a convict who became a bushranger. He was Australia's only known Jewish bushranger, who roamed NSW, with a gang of escaped convicts and gained a Robin Hood-like reputation. He was hanged on 16 March 1841.

1842
The Melbourne Police existed alongside a Native Police Corps, formed in 1842. Although the first constables were all dismissed for drunkenness. (see here)

1844
Martin Cash (1808-1877) was born in Wexford, Ireland, and transported to Australia for housebreaking. After becoming involved in cattle duffing in the Hunter Valley, he was sent to Van Diemen's land and was again convicted, this time of larceny. 

Cash escaped three times and turned to bushranging, but avoiding unnecessary violence. On a visit to Hobart Town, he was captured and sent to Norfolk Island in 1844, where he became a hat-maker. A sensational version of his story was published in Hobart in 1870.
Martin Cash (baptised 10 October 1808 – 26 August 1877) was a notorious convict bushranger
John Graham Knatchbull (1793 –1844), the son of Sir Edward Knatchbull, 8th Baronet of Mersham Hatch, was an English naval captain and convict, who was found guilty of murder in 1844. 

On the way to Norfolk Island, Knatchbull conspired with other convicts to poison the ship's crews and guards' food with arsenic. Then, as a prisoner on Norfolk Island, he escaped punishment for being part of a planned mutiny by informing on his fellow mutineers. 

After returning to Sydney in 1839, he murdered shopkeeper, Ellen Jamieson, with a tomahawk and stole her money to pay for his wedding. Knatchbull's defence was conducted by Robert Lowe, later Viscount Sherbrooke, who made a plea of moral insanity (unsuccessfully). Knatchbull's hanging took place on 13 February 1844, at Taylor Square, Sydney, witnessed by 10,000 people.

Victoria's specialised Detective Force was founded in 1844. Detectives formed networks of informers, known as "fizzgigs", from among the associates of ex-convicts. 

1846
Major Joseph Childs became the commandant of the convict prison at Norfolk Island in 1844 and began a regime of harsh, rigid discipline that ended with mutiny, massacre and the execution of 12 men.

The convict rebellion, known as the Cooking Pot Riot, was led by William "Jackey Jackey" Westwood, a bushranger, who had been sent to Norfolk Island. The riot was sparked after a proclamation that food was to be served in bulk, that no personal cooking was to be permitted, and that kettles and saucepans held by prisoners were to be handed in.
Death mask of bushranger William Westwood, also known as Jackey Jackey. State Library of New South Wales
1851
HM Prison Pentridge was built in 1851. The gravesite of bushranger Ned Kelly, who was executed by hanging at the Melbourne Gaol in 1880, was once found within the walls of Pentridge. However, in 2011, Ned Kelly's remains, which did not include most of his skull, were exhumed and returned to his surviving descendants.
Entrance of Pentridge gaol circa 1861. State Library of Victoria
1852
In 1852, the Nelson, a ship containing cash and gold nuggets, was robbed at gunpoint by a band of 20 armed robbers, while she was anchored at Hobsons Bay, off Melbourne.

1854
Eureka Stockade rebellion took place on December 3, when gold prospectors in Ballarat, Victoria, seeking various reforms, such as the abolition of mining licenses, clashed with government forces. This led to the death of 22 miners and 6 soldiers. The riot was an important development toward economic justice, political representation and social reform, brought about by collective action.

1857

The Hornet Bank massacre of eleven British colonists (seven members of the Fraser family, including a woman and five of her children) and one Aboriginal person, occurred at about one or two o'clock in the morning of 27 October 1857, at Hornet Bank station in central Queensland. Approximately 300 Aborigines were shot in retaliation. There are claims that Poisoned food had been given to the Yeeman tribe, resulting in the death of many members.
Sketch of the retaliation after the Hornet Bank Massacre, 1925
1861
Anti-Chinese riots occurred at the Lambing Flat camps (around the present-day town of Young) over 10 months, between 1860 and 1861, as European miners were incensed by increasing Chinese presence on the goldfields. 

They cried: "Come on and let us drive the long tailed devils off at once". Europeans were said to be concerned that most of the Chinese were "idol-worshippers". Their differences in dress and language and the Chinese mining methods involved wastage of water, which was in short supply. The Lambing Flat riots went on for weeks and involved terrible levels of violence.

The Cullin-la-ringo massacre or Wills Tragedy occurred in Central Queensland on 17 October 1861, when about 50 Aboriginal people attacked men, women and children with nulla nullas, killing about 25. Terrible reprisal attacks ensued.

1865
The notorious Bushranger "Mad Dog Morgan", born in Campbelltown NSW, was regarded as "the most bloodthirsty ruffian that ever took to the bush in Australia". His killing spree ended 9 April 1865, when he was shot in the back by stockman, Jack Quinlan. Police Superintendent Cobham took Morgan's body to Wangaratta and put it on display. Dr Henry, of Benalla, cut off Morgan’s head and sent it to Professor George Halford at Melbourne University for examination.
Morgan, shot and killed at Peechelba Station, State Library of Victoria
1867
The Clarke brothers, Australian bushrangers from the Braidwood district of NSW, have been described as the most bloodthirsty bushrangers of all. They were responsible for about 71 robberies and hold-ups and the death of at least one policeman. At their trial in 1867, Chief Justice of New South Wales, Sir Alfred Stephen, stated that the Clarkes were to be hanged, not as retribution, but because their deaths were necessary for the peace, good order, safety and welfare of society.
The Clarke brothers apprehended in Braidwood Jail, May 1867. Thomas (right) is shot in the arm.
1868
The last convict ship left Britain in 1867 and arrived in Western Australia on 10 January 1868. All together, about 164,000 convicts were transported to the Australian colonies between 1788 and 1868, on board 806 ships.


Books To Read

Fled, by Meg Keneally an epic historical adventure based on the life of Mary Bryant.

A Commonwealth of Thieves: The Improbable Birth of Australia, by Thomas Keneally.

Forgotten War, by historian Henry Reynolds

Banished Beyond The Seas, by Sue Cox

Sydney, NSW: Deep History and an Audacious Experiment

Sydney, Australia, is the state capital of New South Wales. As a famous Harbour City, Sydney is close to the ocean and sandy beaches and the culturally diverse sprawling suburbs.  

The Eora People

Sydney, before European settlement, was occupied by the Eora people who lived in small, nonhierarchical groups. There are many clans who are collectively called the Eora Nation.

The name Eora was the word that the Aboriginal people said when asked by the British where they came from. The Aboriginals answered "Eora", which may mean "here" or "from this place". However, other wordlists documented other meanings.
"Eora" in the wordlists of First Fleet officers[2]
SourceSpellingTranslation
Dawes[8]EeōraMen, or people
Collins[9]Eo-raThe name common for the natives
King[10]Eo-raMen or people
King[10]Yo-raA number of people
Southwell[11]E-ō-rǎhPeople
Anon.[12]Eō-ra (or) E-ō-rāhPeople

The Eora language first documented by William Dawes has frequently been called "The Sydney Language". The words written in Dawes notebooks were conveyed by an Australian Aboriginal woman, thought to be from the Cammeraygal clan of the Eora nation. See here

The Gadigal clan of the Eora Nation lived in the area called "Cadi" located south of Port Jackson. 

When Governor Arthur Phillip arrived at New South Wales with the First Fleet, he estimated that the Aboriginal population of the Sydney district was about 1,500 people. Other estimates have ranged from as low as 200 to as high as 4,000. The Cadigal clan was estimated to have 50-80 people.

The name Eora is accepted for the tribal group around Port Jackson, instead of the hordal term Kamaraigal used in my 1940 work. David Collins (1798-1802) supplied a meaning of “black men” for Eora and wrote the term with a capital letter. John Hunter (1793:408), however, was the first to mention the word, giving it a meaning of “men or people.” On a later page of his vocabulary, he gave “yo-ra” with meaning of “a number of people.” The suffix -gal attached to certain locality names in the Sydney area was accepted by Hunter and later by Collins as indicating areas of residence of “tribes.” In the nomenclature of this work, they are names of hordes. While discussing the differences be­ tween Port Jackson people collectively and those of the Hawkesbury River who spoke a different dialect, Hunter, by inference recognized the existence of the larger groupings called tribes in this study.

The boundary between the Eora and the Daruk, who lived northwest of Sydney, was first established by observations during Governor Arthur Phillip’s explora­ tions in April 1791. Having ventured beyond the hordal territory of the Bidjigal, somewhat north of Castle Hill, his party was preparing to camp when his aboriginal companions came upon a young man and a boy who were of another tribe and spoke a different language or dialect. Subsequently, on the Hawkesbury River a few miles farther north, the governor met the same man and others of his horde, the Buruberongal. They were in possession of several canoes. Their camp was on the northern bank of the river but there were indications of their presence farther south. Phillip’s native helpers who had discovered a camp made by a hunter in the bush south of the river wished to destroy it on the excuse that it belonged to an enemy. Their own evident lack of security seemed to imply that they were very close to their own tribal boundary. Information on Eora hordes is incom­plete. 

Tribes living along the New South Wales coasts appear to have been relatively sedentary, having little communication with peoples over the inland ranges, and they could not understand the speech of folk living less than 100 miles (160 km.) away.
Aboriginal Tribes of Australia, by Norman B Tindale. Read here

Archaeological remains tell us that the Eora people hunted and gathered as they moved about their lands. Some of the foods they may have consumed include, seals, dugongs, dolphins and whales, as well as shellfish and crustaceans.
Image from page 45 of "The Australian Museum magazine" (1921) Internet Archive Book Images
Beached whales provided an occasional feast for the Eora people. According to an account by Watkin Tench, a British marine officer, an incident with a beached whale occurred at Manly Cove in 1790, involving Captain Nepean of the New South Wales Corps and others: 
"....a dead whale, in the most disgusting state of putrefaction, was seen lying on the beach, and at least two hundred Indians surrounding it, broiling the flesh on different fires, and feasting on it with the most extravagant marks of greediness and rapture".

Rock art depicting whales and other animals can also be found around Sydney, engraved into the sandstone, dating back about around 5,000 years.
Aboriginal carvings, Nth Bondi, Sydney, Australia. Sardaka
Aboriginal groups often engaged in tribal warfare and rivalries between different clans were common. As Russian naval officer Aleksey Rossiysky wrote in 1814:

"Each man considers his own community to be the best. When he chances to meet a fellow-countryman from another community, and if someone speaks well of the other man, he will invariably start to abuse him, saying that he is reputed to be a cannibal, robber, great coward and so forth."

The ubiquity of this warfare between Aboriginal groups was noted, not only by the British who arrived in 1788 but in Aboriginal oral traditional storytelling. It appears that the tribal warfare was not motivated by the aim to conquer other groups, but to assert authority over them.
Aboriginal man making fire, Image from page 298 of "The Australian Museum magazine" (1921)
 Internet Archive Book Images
Horatio Hale, an American scientist visiting Australia in 1840, identified four varieties of Aboriginal warfare: formal battles, ritual trials, raids for women and revenge attacks. Often these battles came to an end once there had been a few casualties: wounded or dead. The duration of these battles was often limited, as their intention was not to conquer, destroy or displace others.

Captain Cook

On April 29 1770, on his way up the east coast of Australia, the HMS Endeavour arrived at Botany Bay’s Inscription Point, and Captain James Cook and his crew stepped ashore and surveyed the damp, marshy and unfamiliar surroundings. 

Initially, Cook named the place Stingrays Harbour, as there were many of these animals in the water. However, Cook changed the name to '"Botanist Botany Bay", as Joseph Banks and Dr Solander had collected many plant specimens there. 
By Phillips Fox, World's News (Sydney, NSW : 1901 - 1955), Saturday 3 June 1939
Replica of HM Bark Endeavour, Dennis4trigger
"Dr Solander and myself went a little way into the woods and found many plants."
Joseph Banks Journal, 29 April 1770.


Two Aboriginal men approached the Endeavour but would not accept the gifts offered by Cook. This was perhaps an early sign that with no means of communication or understanding of each other's culture, things were bound to go wrong.

"I thought that they beckoned us to come ashore, but in this we were mistaken, for as soon as we put the boat in they again came to oppose us I fired a musket between the two which had no effect one of them took up a stone and threw at us".
- Cook's journal, 29 April 1770

Some other Aboriginal men returned and threw spears at Cook and his crew, but they ran off after two more rounds were fired. The adults left the scene but several Aboriginal children were found in the huts.
A 19th-century engraving showing natives of the Gweagal tribe opposing the arrival of Captain James Cook in 1770
"We found here a few Small hutts made of the bark of trees in one of which were four or five small children with whome we left some strings of beeds &C".
- Cook's journal, 29 April 1770

Cook was the first European to visit the east coast of Australia. Dutch explorer, Willem Janszoon, made landfall near Weipa in Queensland in 1606.
Aboriginal scarred tree, Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW : 1883 - 1930), Friday 10 September 1926
The Gweagal clan of Botany Bay were not to know that the arrival of Cook was but a taste of what was to come some eighteen years later, with the landing of the First Fleet (1788), backed by the legal principle, stemming from the Roman law of Terra Nullius.

This law was based on complex philosophical ideas of the times, especially the ideas of John Locke, related to the belief that societies without agriculture, did not possess property rights in land. And the common belief that colonisation by the British would bring a civilising and Christianising influence to wild and untamed lands. Interestingly, it seems that the Norman conquest of England would also provide the model on which British colonialism proceeded.

The First Fleet

The First Fleet of 11 ships left Portsmouth, England, in 1787, with more than 1480 men, women and children on board, bound for Terra Australis (the great southern land). The mood on the ship can be imagined, with the outcast convicts brooding over "the impracticability of returning home, the dread of a sickly passage, and the fearful prospect of a distant and barbarous country" (Watkin Tench, 1789).

The convicts were unwilling participants in the British Government's penal colonisation scheme, but so were the Eora Aboriginal people, who called the new arrivals of 1788, the "Bèerewalgal', meaning "people of the clouds". 
The First Fleet entering Port Jackson, NSW, Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1870 - 1907), Saturday 16 December 1899
And so began the clash of cultures, as Aboriginal people had a very different concept of land ownership to Europeans, who sort to impose what they saw as a superior system of government, legal system, Christianity, institutions, such as schools, hospitals and farming. 

However, reports such as those of Alexandro Malaspina in 1793 and Louis de Freycinet in 1802 convey the impression that the settlers' relations with the Eora were generally agreeable. For example, Governor Phillip chose not to retaliate after he was speared by Willemering at Kayemai (Manly Cove) on 7 September 1790.

In April 1789, 15 months after the arrival of the First Fleet, a major smallpox epidemic broke out. This epidemic was disastrous for Aboriginal populations in the area. Debate rages about how smallpox entered Australia at this time.
Aboriginal people at Botany Bay, NSW, Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 12 January 1901
The Eora were apprehensive but they were also curious about the foreigners. They had the idea that the British men must actually be women, as they had no facial hair. This led to the dropping of pants.

The Aboriginal group made signs and pointed, "where it was distinguishable" and Lieutenant Philip Gidley King ordered one of the sailors to "undeceive them" on that matter. There was a shout of Admiration and a great number of Aboriginal woman and girls appeared suddenly on the Beach, according to the words of King: "All in puris naturalibus pas meme lafeuille de figeur" (completely naked). King then tried to cover one of the women with his handkerchief.
Aboriginal woman, Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW : 1883 - 1930), Friday 10 September 1926

The French

One week after the arrival of the First Fleet, the ships, la Boussole & l’Astrolabe commanded by Monsieur De La Perouse sailed into Botany Bay, the same day that Governor Phillip was moving to the more hospitable Sydney Cove.
la Boussole & l’Astrolabe
In January of 1788, after rejecting Botany Bay as unsuitable, Governor Arthur Phillip chose Sydney Cove in the harbour of Port Jackson, as the site of the first English outpost and convict colony in Australia.
The First Fleet entering Port Jackson on 26 January 1788 by Edmund Le Bihan
The French stayed at Botany Bay for six weeks and built a stockade around their camp, with two small mounted cannons, which were kept ready for action. La Perouse, King noted, was less well disposed to the local people than the British, as Samoans had attacked a group of his men in 1787, killing 12 and wounding 20. 
26 January 1788, by Captain Arthur Phillip R.N. Sydney Cove, by Algernon Talmage

Culture Clash

The Eora people were shocked and overwhelmed by the new arrivals, and as Aboriginal people had no immunity to many of the diseases which had previously wiped out huge numbers of people in Europe, many died of smallpox within the first two years of contact with the Europeans. See here

There were so many points at which the two cultures could not understand each other. Such as when Colby's wife (an Aboriginal man), died in childbirth and the living baby was placed in a shallow grave and hit with a stone. Colby's response, which horrified the British, was based on the fact that no woman could be found to feed the baby.

The British were also horrified by the Aboriginal concept of blood debt, whereby a murderer's relatives could be killed to settle the matter. The actual murderer may experience no punishment. Likewise, the Aboriginal people were appalled by the barbarity of the British system of justice, which involved horrific floggings and hanging.

However, despite many tales being written about the convicts receiving rum and engaging in scenes of debauchery after they landed, there is no real evidence that this ever happened. (see here)

But things were changing. Captain John Hunter began to survey, chart and rename the land features of Port Jackson. Warrane became Sydney Cove, Wogganmagule (Farm Cove), Pannerong (Rose Bay) and Booragy (Bradleys Head). Burramatta ("eel water place") was initially called Rose Hill but later renamed Parramatta by Governor Phillip.

Some Aboriginal place names still exist around Sydney, however. For example: Bondi, Cabramatta, Cogee, Jannali, Kurnell, Parramatta and Maroubra. (see more here)
Sydney Cove, Port Jackson in the County of Cumberland, from a drawing made by Francis Fowkes in 1788. National Library of Australia, Canberra, Australia
There were some signs of hope between the Aboriginals and the British, as Lieutenant William Bradley wrote, that soon after part of the First Fleet landed: “These people mixed with ours”...  “and all hands danced together.” 

This event symbolised the hope and good intentions outlined in King George's directions to governor Philip, that he must, "endeavour by every possible means" for "Our Subjects to live in amity and kindness", with Aboriginal people. 

Unfortunately, the British and the Aboriginal people had very different cultures and concepts of the world and were often at cross-purposes.

Between 1788 and 1792, convicts and the British military made up the majority of the population of the colony, and the Aboriginal population became engaged in resistance. The Aboriginal resistance leader, Pemulwuy, who had a turned eye and a foot that was damaged by a club, perhaps to mark him as a "clever man" or healer, led a guerrilla war against the British settlement. He was killed on 2nd June 1802. (interestingly, the convict that almost killed Pemulwuy, John “Black” Caesar, was one of 12 prisoners of African origin on the First Fleet)

In 1796,  the population of Sydney stood at 2,953.
Sydney town and cove, 1798, Thomas Watling 1762- c.1814; Edward Dayes 1763-1804; James Heath 1757-1834; Frank Walker 1861-1948

Early Sydney Town

As a penal colony for British outcasts, early Sydney was a very harsh place and the survival of the early settlement was very precarious, as food supplies were limited and the strange and unfamiliar environment led to crop failure and near starvation. 

The colony's second harvest at Farm Cove was as disastrous as the first, due to drought. And so, the government abandoned agriculture at Farm Cove for the arable plains, beside the Parramatta River. (Rose Hill)

James Ruse, a former convict produced the first successful wheat harvest in NSW, in 1789. Although there was not enough grain to make flour for the colony, he did produce enough seeds for the next crop, which luckily, proved successful. 
In October 1793, James Ruse sold his farm to the surgeon John Harris, who built this colonial cottage which exists today, at 9 Ruse Street, Harris Park, City of Parramatta, Sydney
Inside Experiment Farm Cottage, at 9 Ruse Street, Harris Park, City of Parramatta, Sydney
By October 1788, the first boat, named, the Rose Hill Packet (The Lump), was built in the colony and launched at Campbells Cove and soon enough, the Parramatta River was becoming a busy waterway.
Parramatta River with a distant view of the western mountains, taken from Windmill Hill, Sydney, circa 1797. National Library of Australia 

Free Settlers

Eight years after the First Fleet landed at Sydney Cove, the first free settlers arrived at Sydney Cove, onboard the Bellona in 1793. Thomas and Jane Rose were among those who left England as voluntary settlers, to journey to the other side of the world, to an unknown land, knowing that they would likely never see the place of their birth or family again.

The Rose family eventually moved to fertile land on the north bank of the Hawkesbury River, at Wilberforce, in 1802 and built Rose Cottage, which survives today as the oldest timber house in Australia. The oldest surviving building in Sydney is Cadman's Cottage built 1815-16, as a coxswains barracks.
Rose Cottage Wilberforce is the oldest slab hut in Australia, can be found at Hawkesbury Heritage Farm, which recreates an 1800s town. Rose Cottage was built in the 1820s or 1830s and was occupied by the Rose family right up until 1961
 Cadman's Cottage built in 1816, is one of only a few surviving Sydney buildings that remain from the first 30 years of the colony. Over the years this sandstone cottage has been a water transport headquarters, a sailors' home and a water police station, among other things
In 1802, there were about 70 huts in Sydney, along with two windmills for the grinding of grain, various storehouses, a wharf, a church and battery. However, the French were back in Australian waters in 1801-2 during the Baudin expedition. 

The French presence made Governor King quite anxious. Recent evidence shows that King was right to feel this way, as Baudin had prepared a report for Napoleon on various ways to invade and capture the British colony at Sydney Cove. 

François Péron, part of the Baudin expedition, also wrote a secret Mémoire sur les établissements anglais à la Nouvelle Hollande, advocating a French conquest of Port Jackson with the aid of rebellious Irish convicts
The Géographe and the Naturaliste. Baudin stopped at the British colony at Sydney for supplies, 1802
Sydney Town, approximately 1802, [London](Paternoster Row) : Published by M. Jones, Dec. 24, 1802




In 1803, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser became the first newspaper printed in Australia.
First issue of Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 5 March 1803

Rebellion

In 1808, an armed takeover of government called the Rum Rebellion occurred, when the men of the New South Wales Corps rebelled against Governor William Bligh.
Arrest of Govenor Bligh. A propaganda cartoon created within hours of William Bligh's arrest, portraying him as a coward

The Town Grows

By 1810 Sydney was starting to look like a town and less like a camping ground. Macquarie Street was laid out in this year and the population was around 6,200 people. Flour mills, breweries and shipbuilding enterprises were also operating successfully. 

Though very far from perfect (see here), Lieutenant Colonel Lachlan Macquarie, who became the fifth Governor of New South Wales in 1810, was instrumental in transforming Sydney from a penal colony to a prosperous Georgian town. 

With the assistance of the convict, Francis Greenway, appointed civil architect by Macquarie, he set about the building of hospitals, churches, schools, military and convict barracks and well-laid-out streets, accomplished with the help of convict labour. Australia's first post office and the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney were established in 1810.

In 1811 Governor Lachlan Macquarie established the second Sydney Common, extending south from South Head Road (now Oxford St) to where Randwick Racecourse is today.
Savings' Bank, Barrack Street, Sydney / W. Blackwood, 1859, State Library of New South Wales
Australia's first bank, the Bank of New South Wales opened in Sydney in 1817, at a building owned Mary Reibey, in Macquarie Place. At the time, Sydney did not have its own currency and so barter and promissory notes were used and Governor Macquarie himself had to resort to using cattle and rum when making payments for the building of Sydney Hospital.
Mary Reibey, baptised Molly Haydock, circa 1835. She was an Australian merchant, shipowner and trader. Originally a convict deported to Australia
Hyde Park Barracks was built in 1819, designed by Francis Greenway. Governor Macquarie noted that after the confinement of the male convicts to the Barracks at night, there was "not a tenth part of the former Night Robberies and Burglaries".
Convicts' Barracks - Hyde Park Barracks Museum - Sydney - Australia, Adam Jones
Also, in 1819, two priests were authorised by the British government to minister to the Catholics of the NSW colony. The foundation stone, laid by Governor Macquarie, for the first St Mary's Cathedral, Hyde Park, was laid on 29 October 1821.
Painting by Fred Garling of the first St Mary’s Catholic church, Hyde Park, Sydney, 1840s
The Devonshire Street Cemetery was established in 1820, and operated until 1866, when the cemetery was resumed to allow for the development of Central railway station.
Devonshire Street Cemetery, Sydney, circa 1902. NSW State Records
Home-grown industry also increased during Macquarie's period with increasing trade involving, wool, whaling and sealing. In the 1820s, the first wharves were constructed.

The construction of the Darlinghurst Gaol began in 1822 and finished in 1824, using convict labour, but the site was not used for 12 years due to lack of funds. Later, when the Australian poet Henry Lawson was incarcerated here, he dubbed it Starvinghurst Gaol.
Scanned from a picture in the "St.Vincents Hospital" book, source The Mitchell Library, State Library of N S W. Photo was taken from the air some time in 1930 after the Darlinghust Gaol had closed in 1912 when prison was moved to Long Bay
The British Government legislated for a Legislative Council to be established in New South Wales in 1823, to assist the Governor in the legislative process. This was a step toward a democratic system of government in NSW.

The first Sydney Royal Easter Show was also held in 1823.

St James' Anglican Church, in Kings Street, Sydney, was consecrated, February 1824.
St James' Church in about 1890, by Henry King. Powerhouse Museum





Sydney in 1823. An accurate picture of Sydney in 1823. St. Phillip's Church appears In the centre, and slightly to the left of this is old Scots Church, demolished a few years ago.
The General Hospital is shown on the extreme left. A solitary windmill stood on the site of the Grosvenor Hotel, which was demolished a few years back. The building In the foregroundis the old Military Hospital.Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), Thursday 3 February 1938
Sydney from the North Shore, 1827, J. Lycett, State Library of New South Wales

Arts and Culture

German-born Charles Rodius was a European artist known for documenting the Eora after contact. Working as a draughtsman and engraver in Paris, he was charged with theft and sent to New South Wales in 1829. 

Once in Australia, Rodius was assigned, without salary, to the Department of Public Works. Rodius frequented the nearby Domain, where he made many sketches of Aboriginal people, including the View from the Government Domain, Sydney, 1833, in which fishermen at Woolloomooloo Bay (Walla-mulla) wore cut-off trousers, yet still used the traditional mooting or pronged fishing spear.
Charles Rodius - views of Sydney and Parramatta, 1833. State Library of NSW
The first Australian Subscription Library was started by a group of wealthy Sydney citizens in 1826 and Australia's first public museum was established in Sydney in 1827. 

If you happened to be visiting the Sydney Museum on 21 September 1874, you may have seen Gerard Krefft, the museum's director at the time, being carried on a chair by two men. Krefft, one of the very few supporters of Darwinism in Australia during the 1870s, had been fired and was thrown out onto the street. (read and listen here)

On April 18, 1831, the Sydney Herald was founded, with only 750 copies with four pages printed. In 1840, it became a daily paper.

The Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts was founded in 1833, with the aim to increase further education for working men through public lectures and classes.
School of Arts building, Pitt Street, circa 1869, State Library of NSW
Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 - 1842), Tuesday 2 August 1836
The Aboriginal people in Sydney as seen by Captain Abel du Petit-Thouars, 24 November to 9 December 1838 (Warning: this is a confronting read)

Convict System Finishes

Australia's first political party, the Australian Patriotic Association formed in 1835, with the aim to bring about democratic government. One of its leaders being the prominent citizen, William Wentworth.

By the 1840s, the population of Sydney was around 35,000, and the transportation of convicts had ceased. In 1841, Sydney streets were lit by gas from Millers Point Gasworks and by 1842, Sydney had a mayor. 

The first gas street lights were turned on in 24 May 1841 to celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria.

Government House was built in 1845. In 1850, the University of Sydney was established as Australia's first tertiary institution, encompassing Grose Farm, which had been granted to Lieutenant-Governor Francis Grose in 1792.
Sydney University as viewed from Parramatta Road in the early 1870s

Commerce, Industry and Science

By the 1850s, with the gold rush in full swing, Millers Point and The Rocks were thriving hives of activity. The wharves of Millers Point were the commercial hub and the place where the flood of immigrants landed. 

The Rocks, named by the convicts who lived there, became renown for its brothels and villainy. Of course, The Rocks was also a place of opportunity and it is the place where convict and businesswoman Mary Reibey got her start.
Argyle Cutting, The Rocks, Sydney, circa 1870

Reversed photograph looking east towards Circular Quay from Princes Street, The Rocks, State Library of NSW, n.d.
In 1854 the Sydney Cricket Ground opened. Iniatially, part of the Sydney Common, south of Victoria Barracks, was granted to the British Army to use as a garden and cricket ground.
England v Australia at SCG, 27 January 1883, State Library of NSW 
By 1855, the first train line was in operation from Redfern to Parramatta. The original Sydney station opened in the same year in an area known as Cleveland Fields. This station (one wooden platform in a corrugated iron shed), called Sydney Terminal, had Devonshire Street as its northern boundary.

With the gold rush, Australia transformed from a forbidding place where nobody wished to be sent, to a place overrun with hopeful fortune seekers. Sydney also became more multicultural at this time.

The first observatory in New South Wales was established by Captain William Dawes in 1788, at a place now called Dawes Point, under the southern approach to Sydney Harbour Bridge. 

Dawes made recordings of rainfall, wind, temperature and air pressure. Governor Thomas Brisbane came to Australia in 1821, and set up a private observatory at Parramatta. Later in 1858, Sydney Observatory was built at the highest natural point in Sydney, marking an important moment in Sydney's scientific development, being concerned with timekeeping, meteorology and astronomy.
The Sydney observatory in 1874, Upper Fort Street, Millers Point, City of Sydney,
By 1860 there were six British colonies in Australia.

In 1861 the population of the city and suburbs was at 95,000.
Cuthbert's Ship Building Yard : Sydney, New South Wales : photographed by Freeman Brothers. Circa 1865
Circular Quay, Sydney Harbour c 1868, Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons
Express and Telegraph (Adelaide, SA : 1867 - 1922), Wednesday 11 March 1868
Sydney's first tram was horse-drawn, introduced in 1861, running from the old Sydney railway station to Circular Quay, along Pitt Street. Steam trams operated from 1879, many of them built in Australia and electric trams began in Sydney in 1890. However, by the early 1900s, cars were becoming cheaper to buy and the last tram operated on the La Perouse and Maroubra Beach lines, on the 25 February 1961.
Horsedrawn tram which ran between Newtown Station and St Peters Dated, circa 01/01/1894
Steam tram on George Street West, Sydney, circa 1889. national Library of Australia
In 1869, the Sydney Free Public Library opened with 20,000 books, on the corner of Macquarie and Bent Streets.
Free Public Library, corner of Bent & Macquarie Sts, Sydney, circa 1877
The telegraph linked the six colonies of Australia in 1872, helping to increase communication and in the same year, the first Glebe Island Bridge was built.
The first Glebe Island Bridge in 1872, (New South Wales. Government Printing Office)
Sydney Harbour from Fort Macquarie, Blue Mountains City Library
This picture of the north-eastern corner of George and Bathurst streets depicts the old Emu Inn, as it stood In 1886, the year in which it was demolished, Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 - 1954), Saturday 1 March 1913
Sydney from Pyrmont, NSW, Dated: 31/12/1870, NSW State Archives
Centennial Park was opened in 1888, as the "people's park", by Sir Henry Parkes. And, from 1869 to 1889, Sydney's, high Victorian, Town Hall, was built on the Old Sydney Burial Ground, set aside in September 1792, by Governor Phillip.
Sydney Town Hall as it appeared in the early 1900s facing north with St. Andrew's Cathedral to the left. The Powerhouse Museum
Sydney's early shops were set up in the homes of shopkeepers. But by the 1840s, specialist shops began to be established. Anthony Hordern senior, from Staffordshire, England, arrived in Sydney on the Phoenix on 6 August 1823, and set up a drapery business at 12 King Street. In 1838, David Jones, a Welsh immigrant opened a store on the corner of George Street and Barrack Lane in Sydney. The Strand Arcade opened in 1892.
George and Liverpool Streets Sydney, between circa 1884 and circa 1917
By 1871, the population of Sydney was almost at 138,000 people and in 1900, 481,000 people, called Sydney home.

Waverley Cemetery located on the cliff-tops at Bronte opened in 1877. 
Hearse arriving at Waverley cemetery, 1930. The State Library of New South Wales

 The City Grows

King Street, Sydney, from corner of George St looking eastward - showing condition of awnings, verandahs, signboards, circa 1880. NSW State Archives
The Sydney International Exhibition was held in 1879, in the Garden Palace, which was a large, purpose-built exhibition building. This building, also had a wooden annexe, to house the colony's art collection for a period. The only remains of the building today, are the carved sandstone gateposts and wrought iron gates, located on the Macquarie Street entrance to the Royal Botanical Garden.
The Garden Palace, on September 22nd 1882 NSW State Records
In 1891 the population of the city and suburbs of Sydney was 399, 270.
Circular Quay, Sydney from Fred Hardie, circa 1892-1893
Circular Quay, Sydney from Fred Hardie, circa 1892-1893
In 1892, the Strand Arcade was described as, "The finest public thoroughfare in the Australian colonies" opened.

Frog Hollow Reserve, in Surry Hills, from 1895 to 1904, was known as "one of the most depraved areas of Sydney". The area was about 9 metres below the surrounding streets and approachable from three directions only, by a steep flight of stone steps. 

The houses here were literally piled on top of each other and police claimed that this enclave had bred some of the most "desperate and dangerous criminals" they had encountered. One of these was Samuel "Jewey" Freeman, leader of the Riley Street Gang. (see here)
Houses and gardens in a slum area, Sydney, 11 April 1940, Fairfax archive of glass plate negatives
The Romanesque Revival style, Queen Victoria Building, opened in 1898. Mei Quong Tart's tearoom, called, Elite Hall, was located on the ground floor. Mei Quong Tart was born in China in 1850, but while living in Australia, he acquired a Scottish accent, played the bagpipes and had the manner of an English gentleman.
King Street, Sydney from Pitt Street, looking East, Quong Tart's Tea House, on right, February-March 1895 
Ferry boats starting for Neutral Bay and Milson's Point, Sydney NSW, Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1870 - 1919), Saturday 11 March 1899
 Departure of the Second Contingent of New South Wales Troops for the Transvaal (NSW Boer War Contingent). Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1870 - 1919), Saturday 11 November 1899
By 1900 Sydney's population was 481,000.
Pitt St, Sydney, circa 1900, from The Powerhouse Museum Collection

Becoming One Nation

On 1 January 1901, the federation of the colonies occurred. The prison colony of Sydney had changed beyond recognition and was now part of the Commonwealth of Australia.

A crowd of more than 100 000 people witnessed Lord Hopetoun being sworn-in as Australia's first Governor-General. He then proclaimed the Commonwealth of Australia and swore-in the Prime Minister, Sir Edmund Barton, and his ministry.
Federation celebrations, Sydney, 1901, National Library of Australia
The departure of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York from Farm Cove, Sydney, 6 June 1901. NSW State Archives
In 1902 the Second Pyrmont Bridge was built.
Dockyard from Millers Point, Sydney Harbour, circa 1905 Australian National Maritime Museum

Strike A Light!

On the evening of 8 July 1904, a switch-key was turned on at the Powerhouse in Pyrmont, and the city of Sydney was transformed by the glow of electric-powered light for the first time. However, Tamworth NSW was first to get electric street lights, on 9 November 1888.
Sydney's first electric lights were witched on in July 1904. This photo shows Martin Place in the CBD lit up in 1937. Ausgrid photos
Bondi Surf Bathers' Life-Saving Club, Australia's oldest Surf Life Saving Club, was founded in 1907. In the same year, the Waverly Shire Council regulations required male bathers to wear a skirt-like tunic swimming costume, with a skirt reaching at least to the knees and the arms concealed to near the elbows. Protests from the media and public were "prompt, universal and absolute" and the proposal was dropped.
 REPRESENTATIVES OF THE EAST SYDNEY SWIMMING CLUB, Winners of the 500 Yards Flying Squadron Championship of New South Wales.Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), Wednesday 8 March 1905

WWI

Returned soldiers in Sydney, NSW, welcoming back their returning comrades, Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 25 December 1915
Allies Day, Sydney, NSW, Leader (Melbourne, Vic. : 1862 - 1918, 1935), Saturday 27 November 1915

Man O'War Steps

1. petty offers' boat off to the ship. 2. Sailors leaving to rejoin their ships. 3. Waiting for the boats to go off to the warships. 4. Visitors being taken in launches to ships. Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 23 August 1919
Bondi Beach, between 1895-1908, State Library of New South Wales
The Conservatorium of Music officially opened in May 1915 with a grand
concert.
The entrance to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 1938. This image was contained within a roll of film found lying on a street. The film roll was donated to the Royal Australian Historical Society
Australian soldiers carrying the "little digger" Billy Hughes down George Street after he returned from the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, National Archives
In 1921 the Commonwealth Government purchased land in Mascot for a public airfield. Sydney airport began operating in 1924.
Barnardo girls who arrived in Sydney, NSW, The Child Migration Scheme was a product of a historical period when there was a lack of understanding of the long-term impact on children and young people sent so far away from their country and family of origin. Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 16 May 1923
Sydney's first electric trains began running on the Illawarra Line in June 1926, and in December of that year, the city underground system was opened at St James and Museum Stations.
Circular Quay early 1920s. E, O and P class trams can be seen. The trams on the left were for the Western Suburbs via George Street, while trams on the right were for the Eastern Suburbs via Elizabeth Street

St James Railway Station decorated for the visit of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip - Elizabeth St entrance, possibly 1954 NSW State Archives
The Capitol Theatre in Sydney’s Haymarket, opened in 1927. The building was originally a fruit and vegetable market constructed in 1893.
Looking down to the box office from dress circle vestibule, at the Capitol Theatre, Sydney
1929, During the Great Depression, Hickson Road in The Rocks area was called The Hungry Mile because of the hundreds of men who went from wharf to wharf in search of work.

The Grace Building on York Street, Sydney, opened in 1930. The Grace Brothers, Albert Edward and Joseph Neal Grace migrated from England in the 1880s and sold goods door-to-door. They opened their first small shop in George Street, Sydney, in 1885.
Railway Square tram interchange circa 1930. L, N and O Class trams can be seen. The waiting shed in this photo has been preserved by the Sydney Tramway Museum
Sydney Harbour Bridge celbrations, Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 23 March 1932

Australia's March to Nationhood' parade outside the Queen Victoria Building on George Street during the 1938, Royal Australian Historical Society
A wet Angel Place, Sydney, 1930s / Sam HoodNote: The bright sign almost in the middle of the photograph is for the 2UW (Sydney radio station) Concert Hall, State Library of New South Wales
The Kodak Australia building, George Street, circa 1930s
Anzac Day Parade on Martin Place in 1930, National Library of Australia 
The Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened 19 March 1932, with New South Wales Premier, Jack Lang, ready to cut the ribbon. However, Captain Francis de Groot of the New Guard, pro-monarchy political party, got in before Lang and declared the bridge to be open in the name of “the decent and respectable people of New South Wales”. De Groot was arrested for offensive behaviour in a public place and fined five pounds.
Captain Francis de Groot cutting the ribbon and opening the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the name of King George V (who hadn't been invited)
Sydney Harbour Bridge, tram, road and rail tracks and Milsons Point Station, January 1935, Royal Australian Historical Society
Town Hall railway station also opened in 1932. It is built on top of our oldest colonial cemetery, the Old Sydney Burial Ground. Wynyard railway station opened the same year.

Luna Park was constructed in 1935 on the northern shore of Sydney Harbour.
View of Milsons Point and Luna Park (NSW). No date. NSW State Records
The 1938 British Empire Games were held in Sydney. Australian athlete, Decima Norman, won five gold medals in track and field and Margaret Dovey, the future wife of Australian prime minister, Gough Whitlam, finished sixth in the 220 yards breaststroke.

The Day of Mourning protest was organised by the Aborigines Progressive Association (APA), on 26 January 1938, protesting their treatment and appealing to the Australian Nation. (The Uluru Statement from the Heart is also directed to the Australian public).
Aborigines day of mourning, Sydney, 26 January 1938, State Library of NSW
The AWA Tower opened in 1939. This company, Amalgamated Wireless Australasia Limited, was the first to manufacture televisions in Australia.
Douglas Grant, draughtsman and soldier, with his ornamental pond and Harbour Bridge, Callan Park, between 1932-1940 / photographer Sam Hood, Douglas Grant was orphaned in a tribal battle or some say, in punitive action. He had a good education and became a clever draughtsman. After working at Mort's dock he enlisted twice, because of bureaucratic rules for Aboriginal Australians and joined the 13th Battalion. He was taken prisoner at Bullecourt. State Library of New South Wales

The AWA Tower from Wynyard Street, Sydney, in 1939. national Library of Australia
Tram shots around the city of Sydney from 1933 to 1942, State Library of NSW

At War

6th Division boards the troopships, Pyrmont, Sydney, 9-10 January 1940 / by Sam Hood
On 3 September 1939, prime minister Robert Menzies declared that Australia was at war. In May and June 1942, three Japanese midget submarines, two crew members in each, were found in Sydney Harbour. 

The first submarine was caught in anti-submarine nets, which caused the Japanese crew to self destruct by activating an explosive. The second submarine fired two torpedoes and killed nineteen Australian and two British naval officers. The third submarine was sunk by allied ships. (read more)

Sydney celebrated the end of World War II in 1945. The man filmed dancing on the street in Sydney, takes place, 15 August 1945.
Historic image of a yet unidentified man dancing in the streets of Sydney, Australia at the close of World War II (August 15, 1945)

Migration

Large numbers of Chinese came to Australia during the gold rush and settled around The Rocks. By the 1920s, Sydney's Chinatown moved over to Campbell Street and then to Darling Harbour and Haymarket.
Chinese banquet, 58 Dixon Street, Sydney, Sam Hood, State Library of NSW
Angelo Tornaghi, born in Milan in 1831, arrived in Sydney in 1858 at the age of 24. He was appointed to the position in charge of all government turret clocks in NSW, and became a maker of scientific instruments. One of his major achievements was the clock for the Sydney GPO.
Angelo Tornaghi, Australian Men of Mark, 1889
In 1855–56 hundreds of immigrants from the north of Italy and Italian-speaking areas of Switzerland migrated to Sydney, and some made Hunters Hill their home and worked as stonemasons. After WW1 there was a huge increase in Italian migration to Australia.
Greek Day in Sydney during World War II, State Library of Victoria
The first Greeks to migrate to Australia were seven sailors convicted of piracy by the British navy and transported to Australia. They arrived in August 1829. Later, after being pardoned, two of the sailors remained in Australia.

After World War II, large numbers of Greeks migrated to Australia. Greek-born migrants became the largest postwar community in the suburb of Marrickville.

After 1975, many Vietnamese came to Australia and settled in places like the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta, after the armed forces of the Communist north seized the south of Vietnam. Many Lebanese also came to Australia at this time due to the outbreak of civil war in Lebanon. The Sydney suburb of Greenacre and Lakemba has many residents of Lebanese descent.

Migration from a Asian countries and the Middle East comprise more than half of the most recent, or "third wave" of migration to Australia.

Changing Attitudes

In 1945, an unnamed woman walked along the Bondi promenade wearing a bikini and according to a Sunday Telegraph report in 1946, "caused a near riot." She was later charged with offensive behaviour.
Horsham Times (Vic. : 1882 - 1954), Tuesday 13 November 1951
Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW : 1931 - 1954), Saturday 15 December 1951
In the late 1950s, Sydney's tram network was destroyed. It had been one of the largest in the world, but car ownership had changed how people travelled. The trams were rolled to the workshops in the city’s eastern subiurbs, stripped, tipped on their sides and set on fire. By 1961 the last tramline closed.
Trams operating at the intersection of Barrack Street and George Street, Sydney - showing the David Jones Barrack Street store, circa1950s, NSW State Records

In 1953, the federal Television Act was passed, providing the initial regulatory framework for both the ABC and commercial television networks. Commercial station TCN-9 Sydney was the first to broadcast in Australia.

Fort Macquarie Tram Depot was demolished in 1858 to make way for the construction of the Sydney Opera House, which began construction in 1959.
Fort Macquarie depot, Sydney, 1940s

Times a-Changing

Last tram in operation Dated: 25/02/1961, NSW State Records
The 1960s was a time of immense change with the emergence of organised crime and corruption in Sydney. This was the time of Lennie McPherson, Abe Saffron and George Freeman.

In 1966, Joern Utzon quit the construction of the Sydney Opera House.
Sydney Opera House Construction, circa 1966, Wikipedia Commons
This green bans movement of Sydney and Melbourne in the 1970s was the first of its type in the world. At that time, the Builder Labourers Federation (BLF), was led by Jack Mundey, Joe Owens and Bob Pringle. Green bans, with the combined power of citizens and the BLF, saved The Rocks and Woolloomooloo from demolition.
Jack Mundey Australian union and environmental activist. He came to prominence during the 1970s for leading the New South Wales Builders' Labourers Federation (BLF) to protect the built and natural environment of Sydney from excessive and inappropriate development. Sydney Harbour YHA is raised off the ground on pillars, allowing public access to the archaeological site. Interpretation panels, historic streetscape images, etc. are incorporated into the structure
Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Sydney, 1970, Meeting at Sydney's Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs to discuss the bicentenary of James Cook's arrival. State Library of New South Wales
The Sydney Opera House was formally opened on 20 October 1973. The estimated cost to build this structure was $7 million. The final cost was $102 million.
Spontaneous protest occupying the width of George street, Sydney, outside the Sydney Town Hall on 11 November, 1975, the afternoon of the dismissal of the Whitlam Labor Government by the Govenor-General, Sir John Kerr. Tirin
The Granville train disaster occurred on Tuesday 18 January 1977, at Granville. It remains the worst rail disaster in Australian history.

The Australian Bicentenary was celebrated in 1988. It marked 200 years since the arrival of the First Fleet of British convict ships at Sydney in 1788. The day has also been called Foundation Day, Survival Day and Invasion Day. 

Read the deep and perceptive thoughts of Stan Grant, an Australian of Wiradjuri, Gamilaroi and Irish heritage, on the subject of Australia Day here
The Søren Larsen taking part in a tall ships race across the harbour, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia (1989) GothPhil

Around Sydney

Hyde Park Barracks, Macquarie Street, Sydney, Australia, circa 1817,  J Bar
Government House, Sydney, circa 1837,  located within the Royal Botanic Gardens, entry is from Macquarie Street, Diego Delso
Parliament House, Sydney, near the southern terminus of Macquarie Street. Originally the northern wing of Sydney Hospital, constructed between 1811 and 1816, Adam.J.W.C
The first use by the British colonial administration of the land on which the Campbell's Bond Stores were built appears to have been to graze sheep on the shores of what had yet to be named Campbell's Cove. The land was leased to Henry Waterhouse, commander of the Reliance, in 1794. Two years later he went to the Cape of Good Hope and brought back a flock of sheep from Spain, which were the first merinos to arrive in New South Wales. More
The Rocks, Sydney, NSW
Former Bank of New South Wales building, on the corner of Bathurst Street, Sydney, circa 1894, Hermione9753
St Andrew's Cathedral, west side, The cathedral was built from 1837 to 1868, Hermione9753
The Chief Secretary's building, constructed in circa 1878, consisting mainly of dressed sandstone
The Department of Education building is a six-storey, sandstone building, built circa 1912
The Burns Philp Building, 5-11 Bridge Street, Sydney, built from 1899 to 1900
Former CBC building at 343 George Street, in the Sydney central business district, former Commercial Banking Company of Sydney, was completed in 1925, Sardaka
36-38 Argyle Place, Millers Point, City of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, circa 1890. Rangasyd
82-84 Windmill Street, Millers Point in the City of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, circa 1860, Rangasyd
The Australian Museum, College Street, Sydney. Construction started 1846 by Greg O'Beirne
Cyprus Hellene Club - Australian Hall, 150-152 Elizabeth Street Sydney, was the site of the Day of Mourning protests by Aboriginal Australians on 26 January 1938, built 1910–1913. Collywolly
The Anzac Memorial, Sydney, Hyde Park, built from 1932 to 1934, Hpeterswald 
Capitol Square Hotel on the corner of George and Hay St in Sydney, built 1876-1877, Bidgee
Central Court (Police Court), Liverpool St, Sydney, completed 1892, Sardaka
 Foy brothers opened Mark Foy'sPiazza Store in 1909 on Liverpool Street, Sydney, NSW, g_kat26
"Waimea", circa 1856, Victorian Georgian house, Waimea Avenue, Woollahra, NSW
Department of Lands building, in the Classical style, building commenced 1892, will be refurbished into a hotel, petamini_pix
The Metropolitan Fire Station in Castlereagh Street, operated continually since 1888 as a first station by Fire and Rescue NSW, Adam.J.W.C
Pitt Street Congregational Church, Sydney, built from 1841 to 1846. There have been several attempts to demolish the building
Heritage-listed former water police station, offices and courthouse, located at 4-8 Phillip Street, built from 1854 to 1886
The Sydney Opera House, designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, opened in 1973. Rosino
The Strand Arcade, Sydney, built 1892
Former ANZ Bank building, Oxford Street, Darlinghurst, Commissioned by the London Bank in 1912 Sardaka
Customs House, Sydney, built 1845 to1887, by Greg O'Beirne

Historic building, on Broadway, Sydney, built in the 1890s as the first branch of the Bank of New South Wales
The General Post Office, Martin Place, Sydney, completed 1891. Freehold over the building had been sold to Far East Organisation and Sino Land
The Old Registry Office of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, built from 1859 to 1862
Paddington Town Hall , Sydney, circa 1890
The Queen Victoria Building in Sydney Adam.J.W.C.
Luna Park, North Sydney, Australia, Built and opened in 1935, Cabrils
Waverley Cemeteryis an heritage-listed cemetery on top of the cliffs at Bronte in the eastern suburbs of Sydney
Heritage-listed, Addington House was built between 1794-1841. It is the oldest surviving building in Ryde, NSW
Federation Bungalow, Appian Way, Burwood, NSW, Sardaka
Bankstown Reservoir, in the Federation Free Classical style, established in 1920 Meganesia
Cottage in Arts and Crafts style, Bondi Junction, Sydney, NSW, Sardaka
Juniper Hall, also known as Ormond House, located at 1 Ormond Street, Paddington, built circa 1825, Sardaka
Historical house called the Abbey in Annandale, Sydney, built 1882, Adam.J.W.C.
871 George St, Sydney NSW, constructed in the Victorian Mannerist style, circa 1898
Glebe point road, Sydney, looking south, Adam.J.W.C
The "Crest" Theatre/Ballroom in Blaxcell Street (corner Redfern st), Granville, NSW, built in 1948
The Ritz Cinema, 43 St Pauls Street, Randwick, built 1937
Robin Hood Hotel, Bronte Road, Waverley, NSW, building in an Ocean Liner/International style, built from 1915-1945
Old Canterbury Hospital building, Canterbury, officially opened on 26 October 1929



Things To Do and Places To Go


History Walks of Sydney




Government House Sydney


Art Gallery of New South Wales


Naval Heritage Centre

Sydney Tramway Museum







Elizabeth Bay House

Sydney Jewish Museum

Sydney Royal Mint

Experiment Farm Cottage is a National Trust managed historic house built in the 1830s on a piece of land originally granted to convict farmer James Ruse



Nicholson Museum Sydney University, More than 30,000 artefacts of artistic and archaeological significance from Egypt, Greece, Italy, Cyprus and the Middle East.



Books To Read


The Australian Frontier Wars, 1788-1838, By John Connor

Dancing with Strangers: Europeans and Australians at First Contact, by Inga Clendinnen

Napoleon's Australia, by Terry Smyth

Sydney Noir: the golden years, by Michael Duffy and Nick Hordern

Talking to My Country, by Stan Grant

Mary Reibey, by Kathleen Pullen