Australian history timeline

• 50,000BC. The Aborigines arrive on the Australian continent.
• 1642. Abel Tasman discovers Tasmania and New Zealand.
• 1770. Captain James Cook explores the east coast of Australia, which he calls New South Wales.
• 1788. Britain establishes a penal colony in Sydney Cove.
• 1808.
• 1851.
• 1854.
• 1895.

The terms of two prime ministers dominated the 1990s. Paul Keating of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) was elected as prime minster from 1991 until 1996. The 1990s saw the introduction of the internet and the mobile phone, which began to change the face of telecommunications and entertainment.

From 1788, Australia was treated by the British as a colony of settlement, not of conquest. Aboriginal land was taken over by British colonists on the premise that the land belonged to no-one (‘terra nullius’). Possession of Australia was declared on the basis of unilateral possession.

Australia, once known as New South Wales, was originally planned as a penal colony. In October 1786, the British government appointed Arthur Phillip captain of the HMS Sirius, and commissioned him to establish an agricultural work camp there for British convicts.

Colonisation has resulted in inequity, racism and the disruption of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. In fact, it has been the most detrimental of the determinants of health that continues to significantly influence Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health outcomes today.

The free settlers impacted Australia greatly. They impacted the indigenous Australians greatly by killing them off and taking their land. Free settlers cultivated the land, built infrastructure – cities, roads, businesses. Laws and law enforcement, parliaments and courts, defense force etc..

The diet of the earliest settlers was monotonous and inadequate, with numerous crises of both local and imported supply. The stores issued at Sullivan’s Cove were initially limited to beef or pork (later supplemented by locally caught fish, kangaroo, emu and seafood), flour or wheat and sugar.

Top 5 Famous Australian Convicts

1. Francis Greenway. Francis Greenway arrived in Sydney in 1814.
2. Mary Wade. The youngest ever convict to be transported to Australia at the age of 11.
3. John ‘Red’ Kelly. John Kelly was sent to Tasmania for seven years for stealing two pigs, apparently.
4. Mary Bryant.
5. Frank the Poet.

Very few transported convicts ever returned to Britain, from either Australia or America. One of the conditions of a “ticket of leave” was that the freed Australian convict had to stay in the colony. The terms of transportation were usually seven or fourteen years, or life.

Throughout the convict era, ‘flogging’ (whipping) convicts with a cat-o’-nine-tails was a common punishment for convicts who broke the rules. In Australia today, flogging a prisoner with a whip or keeping them locked in a dark cell for a long period of time is not an acceptable form of punishment.

The Western Australian records we’ve been using for our recent research and digitised for the Digital Panopticon project reveal the story of Samuel Speed, the last living Australian convict. He was transported to Western Australia in 1866 and died in 1938, just short of his 100th birthday.

Convicts Food Convicts ate bread,hardtack,salted beef or pork,peas,oatmeal,butter,cheese. They also ate rise,fruit,vegetables.

The majority of convict or orphaned boys aged between 9 and 18 worked as labourers and herdsmen assigned to settlers, as they were usually too small for the rough work of clearing the land, quarrying stone and building roads.

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.

hammocks

Convict women were employed in domestic service, washing and on government farms, and were expected to find their own food and lodging. Punishment for those who transgressed was humiliating and public. Exile itself was considered a catalyst for reform.

Between 1788 and 1868, about 162,000 convicts were transported from Britain and Ireland to various penal colonies in Australia. The British Government began transporting convicts overseas to American colonies in the early 18th century.

Convicts played cards or games like chess or draughts that required different sorts of tokens, many of which were handmade. These might have been carved from animal bones (perhaps saved from dinner) or pieces of ceramic and wood they found, or cast in lead.

Pardons were generally given to convicts with life sentences and shortened the sentence by granting freedom. There were two types of pardons: conditional and absolute. New South Wales Convict Registers of Conditional and Absolute Pardons 1791-1867 provides details about the convicts, such as: Convict’s name.

Up until the closure of Port Arthur in 1877, the old convicts were used to cut firewood, but no longer did they cut down the massive trees to feed the sawmill. From 1877 the area was given over to private interests, as individuals and companies began logging the area, often using the old convict tracks for transport.

The women wore clothes such as ‘slops’ in blue or brown serge, or a stuff gown, white apron and straw bonnet for Sunday with a jacket and a coarse apron for weekdays. Children remained with their mothers at the Factory until the age of four, at which time they were placed in Orphan Schools.

The factories were called factories because each was a site of production. The women produced spun wool and flax in all the factories. In the main factories other work was undertaken such as sewing, stocking knitting and straw plaiting. Hard labour included rock breaking and oakum picking.

The crime of stealing clothes, along with jewellery, fabrics, and other household items, was particularly common among female convicts, especially those who worked as domestic servants or prostitutes.

25,000

48 deaths

Convict transport It is estimated there were about 50 children on the First Fleet when it arrived at Botany Bay. Over 20 children were born at sea during the eight-month voyage.

“The oldest convict was Dorothy Handland, a dealer in rags and old clothes who was 82 years old in 1787.