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Detailed map of New South Wales, issued in the London Atlas by John Arrowsmith. The "newly formed" counties are marked, as are the inland expeditions made 1817–1840. The Nineteen Counties were the limits of location in the colony of New South Wales, Australia. Settlers were permitted to take up land only within the counties due to the dangers ...
The Colony of New South Wales was a colony of the British Empire from 1788 to 1901, when it became a State of the Commonwealth of Australia. At its greatest extent, the colony of New South Wales included the present-day Australian states of New South Wales , Queensland , Victoria , Tasmania , and South Australia , the Northern Territory as well as New Zealand .
In May 1787 the British government sent the First Fleet 20,000 kilometres around the world to establish a British colony in New South Wales. Charting the land. Sydney Cove lies 3 leagues to the northward of Botany Bay which is situated in Lat. 34 S : Long 151 E. The eastern coastline of Australia had been charted by James Cook during his first ...
- State Library of New South Wales
- Overview
- Early settlement
- Growth of the modern city
When the English admiral Arthur Phillip arrived off the coast of southeastern Australia with the First Fleet in 1788, he sailed first to Botany Bay, which had been discovered by Captain James Cook in 1770 and to which he had been directed by the British government. Finding the bay too exposed for safe anchorage and the surrounding country unsuitable for settlement, he looked farther north and soon discovered the entrance to Port Jackson only a few miles away. Phillip’s first impressions of Port Jackson, which had been named but not explored by Cook, are recorded in a famous dispatch to Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney, then the British home secretary, dated May 15, 1788.
We got into Port Jackson early in the afternoon, and had the satisfaction of finding the finest harbour in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line may ride in the most perfect security.
Phillip immediately decided to move the whole fleet to Port Jackson and to establish the first settlement on a cove, which had a good freshwater stream and in which his ships could anchor close to the shore in deep water. He called it Sydney Cove, for the home secretary. Present-day Sydney Cove is still the city’s heart, though it is now more commonly known as Circular Quay.
The early history of Sydney was grimly dominated by its existence as a British penal colony. Convicts, dumped on this alien shore, found the environment a harsh one. The soil was poor, and the land was rough and had to be cleared by hand. The little settlement was often short of food until the settlers were able to cross the Blue Mountains and find the richer land to the west of the Great Dividing Range. There were also constant troubles between the governors, the free settlers, and the convicts.
When the English admiral Arthur Phillip arrived off the coast of southeastern Australia with the First Fleet in 1788, he sailed first to Botany Bay, which had been discovered by Captain James Cook in 1770 and to which he had been directed by the British government. Finding the bay too exposed for safe anchorage and the surrounding country unsuitable for settlement, he looked farther north and soon discovered the entrance to Port Jackson only a few miles away. Phillip’s first impressions of Port Jackson, which had been named but not explored by Cook, are recorded in a famous dispatch to Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney, then the British home secretary, dated May 15, 1788.
We got into Port Jackson early in the afternoon, and had the satisfaction of finding the finest harbour in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line may ride in the most perfect security.
Phillip immediately decided to move the whole fleet to Port Jackson and to establish the first settlement on a cove, which had a good freshwater stream and in which his ships could anchor close to the shore in deep water. He called it Sydney Cove, for the home secretary. Present-day Sydney Cove is still the city’s heart, though it is now more commonly known as Circular Quay.
The early history of Sydney was grimly dominated by its existence as a British penal colony. Convicts, dumped on this alien shore, found the environment a harsh one. The soil was poor, and the land was rough and had to be cleared by hand. The little settlement was often short of food until the settlers were able to cross the Blue Mountains and find the richer land to the west of the Great Dividing Range. There were also constant troubles between the governors, the free settlers, and the convicts.
The most astoundingly rapid growth of Sydney—from 60,000 to 400,000 population—took place in the years between 1850 and 1890, as suburbs of tightly packed terrace houses were built. These houses, with their balconies and decorative cast-iron railings, are now Sydney’s most attractive heritage from the past. The first railway, from Sydney to Parramatta, began as early as 1855.
The financial collapse of the 1890s acted as a slight check to Sydney’s growth, but population doubled again by 1914 and reached the million mark soon after. Yet during this period Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, was growing still faster, partly as a result of the gold rush in that colony in the 1850s. Temporarily overtaking Sydney in both size and importance, Melbourne became the financial centre of Australia, and it was the capital of the Commonwealth of Australia until the Federal Capital of Canberra was built in 1927 halfway between the two cities. By 1911 Sydney had once again become Australia’s largest city, and after World War II it benefited from a shift in Australia’s trade toward North America and Asia and away from Britain. Sydney has remained slightly more populous than Melbourne and has equaled or surpassed the other city in importance as a centre of finance, commerce, and manufacturing. In its growth it has not escaped the ills that have afflicted so many other large cities of the world, including environmental pollution, traffic congestion, and crime. Nevertheless, Sydney has become the most international and most sophisticated of Australian cities. The most striking example of this was its role as host of the 2000 Summer Olympics.
A map of the County of Cumberland in the Colony of New South Wales 1840–1860 by William Henry Wells The colony in 1799. Macquarie served as the last autocratic Governor of New South Wales from 1810 to 1821 and had a leading role in the social and economic development of Sydney which saw it transition from a penal colony to a budding free ...
Convict Colonies. There were two major convict colonies: New South Wales (1788-1840) and Van Diemen’s Land (later Tasmania, 1803-1853). Eventually, Swan River (Western Australia) would become a third penal colony when the failing settlement requested an injection of convict labourers (1850-1868). The country of origin, colonial distribution ...
People also ask
How many counties were there in the New South Wales colony?
When did Sydney become the capital of New South Wales?
What states were part of New South Wales?
Why was Sydney a great colony?
Where is Sydney Cove?
When did Australia become a colony?
The 1820s and 30s would see a rapid increase in convict traffic to the colony. Van Diemen's Land'a expansion was even more rapid. By 1824 it was clear that the population of this island needed its own administrative support especially as the 800 miles of sea were particularly treacherous. The first satellite colony grew out of New South Wales.
