New South Wales
In 1788 the 11 ships of the First Fleet brought convicts, settlers and soldiers from Britain to Sydney Cove to found Australia's first penal colony. The ill-prepared outpost struggled to feed itself for several years until farming began at Parramatta and on Norfolk Island and supply ships arrived more often.
From the start, the fate of convicts rested on their skills rather than on their crimes. Until about 1820, convict carpenters, brick makers, nurses, servants, stockmen, shepherds and farmers were assigned to government and private employers on a range of colonial worksites. When they had served their sentences they joined colonial society.
As the colonial population increased throughout the 1820s and 30s, discipline became tougher and convicts were isolated from public view. Settlements spread across the mountains and along the coast and many convicts were given private assignments on distant country estates. Few remained in the towns.
Troublesome convicts faced additional sentences or toiled in chain gangs to build roads in remote regions. The most feared secondary punishment was banishment to stations like Port Arthur, Moreton Bay (Brisbane) or Norfolk Island. By 1840, when transportation to New South Wales ended, around 80,000 convicts had served time in the colony. Many were still under sentence, and places like Cockatoo Island operated as convict institutions for many more decades.
From the start, the fate of convicts rested on their skills rather than on their crimes. Until about 1820, convict carpenters, brick makers, nurses, servants, stockmen, shepherds and farmers were assigned to government and private employers on a range of colonial worksites. When they had served their sentences they joined colonial society.
As the colonial population increased throughout the 1820s and 30s, discipline became tougher and convicts were isolated from public view. Settlements spread across the mountains and along the coast and many convicts were given private assignments on distant country estates. Few remained in the towns.
Troublesome convicts faced additional sentences or toiled in chain gangs to build roads in remote regions. The most feared secondary punishment was banishment to stations like Port Arthur, Moreton Bay (Brisbane) or Norfolk Island. By 1840, when transportation to New South Wales ended, around 80,000 convicts had served time in the colony. Many were still under sentence, and places like Cockatoo Island operated as convict institutions for many more decades.
Hyde Park Barracks:
SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES
![Picture](/uploads/1/3/7/6/13765630/3790380.jpg)
This refined architectural edifice was built in 1819 to house male convict workers assigned to the government. Its early inmates laboured in gangs and specialist workshops under a strict, though productive, system ruled by the clock. In the 1830s the barracks became a brutal and feared administrative hub with convict courts and accommodation for those awaiting reassignment. During the 1840s it grew increasingly derelict and its population dwindled. After 1848 it was converted into lodgings for free immigrant women.
Old Government House and Domain:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES
![Picture](/uploads/1/3/7/6/13765630/2877083.jpg)
Between 1790 and 1856, successive colonial governors employed hundreds of convict workers on this sprawling agricultural estate. As farming operations expanded and certain governors chose to live at Parramatta rather than in Sydney, the initial single-storey cottage was transformed into a gentrified mansion. The house, its complex of outbuildings and several of the early-19th-century improvements to the Governor's domain, including an observatory, bathhouse and dairy, survive today overlooking the city of Parramatta.
Cockatoo Island:
SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES
![Picture](/uploads/1/3/7/6/13765630/9117061.jpg)
Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour was established in 1839 as an island prison, an accessible place of banishment - in the words of Governor Gipps, 'under the very eye of authority'. It became an infamous place of exile where reoffending criminals and convicts lived and worked under brutal conditions. For 30 years convicts worked
to construct prison quarters, a massive dry dock, underground silos and a notorious underground punishment hole on the island.
to construct prison quarters, a massive dry dock, underground silos and a notorious underground punishment hole on the island.
Old Great North Road:
UPPER HAWKESBURY, NEW SOUTH WALES
![Picture](/uploads/1/3/7/6/13765630/280062.jpg)
Gangs of convicts serving secondary sentences, often in chains, laboured from 1826 to 1832 in harsh, isolated conditions to construct this buttressed stone road of remarkable quality. Forging its way northwards through craggy upper Hawkesbury bushland, the road connected colonial Sydney with the newly opened Hunter Valley farmlands.