Depth Topic 2: the birth of British Australia, 1788-1829

How did the Australian colony survive its first years?

Background: Why had the British chosen to establish a penal colony at Botany Bay?

Once Captain Cook’s famous expedition returned in 1771, it was well known that there was a vast
land ‘there for the taking’ in the southern hemisphere. The Cook expedition had also reported
favourably as to the fertility and emptiness of the land. Importantly, Cook did not consider the
Aboriginal people to have any claim to the land as they did not appear – to him – to be using it).
Botany Bay was picked on the suggestion of Joseph Banks, the botanist on the Cook expedition. He
appeared before a Parliamentary Committee on Transportation (1779), looking at the possibility of
transporting convicts to Australia, as an expert witness. James Matra, also a member of the
expedition, spoke favourably of the possibly of growing key crops in the area, especially flax for sail-
making. The government was also calculating that, by settling a colony in Australia, they would be
preventing any French claim to the territory. There was also some weight given to the reports that
Norfolk Island, 877 east of Sydney in the Pacific Ocean, was rich with both pine trees and flax (both
crucial in ship-building). The First Fleet came into being, with very little further thought by the British
government. The fitting out (the preparation of ships to ensure their seaworthiness) of the fleet cost
£84,000 – which, although not exactly cheap, appeared to the government of the day to be worth it.

However, the fundamental reason for the decision to transport convicts to Australia was the crisis in
the prison system in Britain. By the late 1780s, the prisons in Britain were full to bursting with
convicts. By the 1780s, the penal system was in crisis. Urbanisation and slum poverty resulted in
more and more crime, undeterred by severe punishments. The system of trial by jury also meant
that increasingly, juries were finding defendants not guilty rather than hanging them for crimes.
George III, in particular, was assiduous in his exercise of prerogative (special powers of the Crown) in
dispensing mercy to those who appealed to him. The introduction of transportation of felons (those
who had committed a serious crime) to the American colonies earlier in the early eighteenth century
had provided temporary relief to ease pressure on the prison system, and transportation provided a
third and more merciful option to death or imprisonment. However, the American War meant that
felons could no longer be transported to American colonies. The Pitt government judged that the
new continent of Australia would be suitable for felons, many of whom were currently crowded into
rotting frigates moored in the Thames, rather than attempting the overhaul and reform of the prison
and justice system that was glaringly necessary.

Background: Who were the first British settlers?

Approximately 1420 people boarded the First Fleet in Portsmouth, 775 of whom were convicts. They
were escorted by approximately 300 non-convicts, responsible for guarding them and ensuring the
safe transportation of the fleet.

Existing records suggest that 732 convicts landed (543 men, 189 women and 22 convicts’ children),
but no precise record of the number of seamen and their families who made the voyage exists. The
youngest convict was John Hudson, aged 9, who had been given seven years’ transportation for
 Depth Topic 2: the birth of British Australia, 1788-1829

stealing. The oldest was a woman of

82, Dorothy Handland, transported
for housebreaking. Of all the
convicts:

 2/3s had been sentenced for

minor theft and the average
age was under 30
 The majority of women were
listed as domestic servants
and sentenced for theft, but
it was likely that many were
also prostitutes (prostitution
itself was not a transportable
offence).
 As well as the English and Scots, there were Americans (black and white), Germans and
Norwegians, and Jews made up a significant religious group.

A stereotype grew up in the late 19th and early 20th century in Australia of convict ancestors
transported for petty theft, poaching, or stealing to feed a family, but fundamentally honest and
decent nonetheless. This view has largely been demolished by statistical analysis. The convicts
transported in the First Fleet and on later ships were overwhelmingly city dwellers and half to two-
thirds of the convicts had at least one previous conviction. They were not murderers (a capital
offence) but in the most part they were criminals rather than innocents caught up by unfortunate
events. Only a tiny minority, even of the Irish felons, were transported for political activity.

The remaining personnel (more than 600 in number) were marines, their wives and families; seamen
and their families; and civil officers. The marines, under the command of Major Robert Ross, were to
prove a thorn in the Governor Phillip’s side as they were disinclined to do anything other than
military duties, which were effectively non-existent. Instead, Philip relied on seamen and convicts to
act as overseers and even police, as he got on with the tasks in hand of building shelter and
maintaining food supplies for all in the new settlement.

What challenges faced the initial settlement?

To those charged with establishing a colony, the choice of Botany Bay must have seemed bizarre, as
the area lacked a fresh water supply and the soil was obviously unsuitable for cultivation. Indeed,
having landed on the 18th of January 1788, the fleet moved out on the 26th to Port Jackson, landing
at Sydney Cove, which was much more suitable for settlement. The rapid move was a matter of
immediate survival. Despite this, in the first few months of the settlement, Governor Phillip revisited
Botany Bay several times, as if he was afraid to accept that his orders, based on Banks’
recommendation, could have been so wrong.

However, Sydney itself was to prove such a challenging environment that the first full settlement
was lucky it did not repeat the fate of the settlement at Roanoke in Virginia, where all 107 settlers
perished between 1587 when they arrived and 1590 when the relief ship arrived. Although the
Sydney settlement was larger than Roanoke, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the entire
 Depth Topic 2: the birth of British Australia, 1788-1829

colony could have collapsed. Within six months, the livestock that had been bought with the Fleet
had either been eaten or disappeared. There was no plough available to till the soil or animal
suitable to pull a plough, and the thin soil around Sydney Cove did not yield much of a crop to the
miserable hand-hoed efforts of the non-farming convicts. Even governor Phillip was initially lodged
under a canvas structure, which let in the wind and rain, and building efforts were hampered by the
difficulty of making bricks and a lack of mortar. The settlement existed on supplies they had brought
with them and whatever fresh fish or birdlife they could kill. The settlers traded with the Aboriginal
people, whose superior hunting skills enabled them to kill kangaroo, but their meat intake was
largely limited to dried supplies.

The task of forming a working society was also a

hard one. Phillip had, in order of priority, to
ensure subsistence for all in the colony, control
the convicts, build adequate shelter and housing,
command the marines, manage smooth relations
with the Aboriginal peoples, encourage
respectable and ‘godly’ behaviour thereby
reforming the convicts, encourage settlement
once convictions were spent, build a township and
develop economic life – and this was all without
recourse to advice from London and in an
unfamiliar environment. Furthermore, the
material he had to work with – the convicts
themselves – were not the knowledgeable farmers, skilled carpenters or hunters he desperately
needed. Their skills, if they had any, were generally of an undesirable nature and they were unused
to working as part of a team. Phillip often had to resort to harsh physical punishment to maintain
control: lashings were commonplace and hangings frequent.

Phillip’s instructions also left a great deal to his own initiative. London initially envisaged that the
colony would be self-sufficient in four years, and the government costed the venture at just over
£70,000. All supplies of food and clothing within the settlement were the property of the
government and distributed at the Governor’s discretion. The instructions given to the Governor
called for the appointment of a surveyor and the allocation of lots of land to those convicts who had
served their terms, and Philip duly complied with this instruction. He was also instructed to offer
encouragement to any serving officers who decided to stay on in the colony and, although most of
the First Fleet marines opted to return to Britain, some stayed and were granted land. The
development of private land holding did not ease the demands on government supplies, however, as
former convicts did not necessarily prove adept at farming and there was no real internal market
due to the universal reliance on the Government Store for supplies.

Task 1 – having read the information above, fill in the table on the next page.
 Depth Topic 2: the birth of British Australia, 1788-1829

Summarise the top three challenges faced by the Explanation of your top three ranking:
colony in its first years…
 Depth Topic 2: the birth of British Australia, 1788-1829

How did Governor Phillip overcome these challenges?

Phillip allocated work on the basis

of the skills he found among the
convicts and, by the time he
sailed back home for Britain,
everyone was housed in
rudimentary wattle and daub
dwellings and there was a brick-
built governor’s mansion. There
was also a Government farm at
Paramatta and 66 grants of land
had been made, of which 53 were
to those whose convictions were
now spent, and by 1792 there
was 1000 acres under public
cultivation and 516 under private cultivation. Phillip’s powers over discipline in the colony were
absolute, and included the power to sentence individuals to death if he saw fit. His even-handed
exercise of his powers prevented any mutiny, however. In addition, he had used the powers granted
to him to buy extra supplies for the colony opportunely in 1788, which helped the colony survive
until the arrival of relief ships.

Overall, the credit for the survival of the colony in its first few years must be given to Governor
Phillip. This semi-retired naval officer with a relatively undistinguished career up to this point, not
only pulled off one of the greatest sea journeys ever undertaken by transporting the First Fleet with
such a tiny loss of life, but his calm practicality ensured the survival of the colony in its most
vulnerable years. The survival of the British in the first two years after the departure of the first ships
for home was the result of four main reasons:

Task 2 – Read the bullet points on p90-91 of the textbook and fill in the table below:

Reasons Details Importance ranking (1-4)

and explanation

Preparations for
the journey
 Depth Topic 2: the birth of British Australia, 1788-1829

Establishing a
second colony
at Norfolk Island

Phillip’s control
of food stores

Relocation to
better farmland

Nevertheless, the survival of the colony still hung in the balance, especially after the flagship Sirius
was wrecked at Norfolk Island on its way to Canton in China for more supplies. A relief ship, the
Guardian, from England never reached the colony and she also sunk near the Cape. As all the other
ships of the First Fleet had left apart from the Supply, which no one wanted to risk, the future of the
colony was not assured until the arrival of the Second Fleet with more vital supplies from Britain.
 Depth Topic 2: the birth of British Australia, 1788-1829

The Second Fleet

The arrival of Lady Juliana, the ship devoted to

transporting the female convicts of the Second
Fleet, on 3 June 1790 with letters from home, 222
female convicts and provisions for those they
carried in board was solid evidence that the colony
had not been forgotten and that further help was on
its way. The store ship the Justinian arrived two
weeks later, followed by the rest of the horrific
transport ships of the Second Fleet with their
cargoes of suffering and dying convicts. At least a
quarter of those transported had died in the
voyage, and a further 150 died soon after landing from a combination of scurvy, starvation, poor
sanitation and louse-borne diseases. Rather than entrust the Second Fleet to an officer, as they had
done with the First Fleet and Phillip, the government had chosen to contract the journey out to a
private firm – Camden, Calvert and King – with tragic results.

Despite the human tragedy, the arrival of the Second Fleet dramatically increased the chances of the
colony’s survival because they brought vital supplies of livestock and crops on the store ship
Justinian. Phillip augmented the colony’s supplies further by dispatching the Atlantic of the Third
Fleet to Calcutta to buy rice for the colony, and this eked out his supplies until London sent further
supplies in reply to messages sent home on the return leg of the Third Fleet voyage. At the end of
his governorship, Phillip was able to sail home in 1792, and to retirement in Bath, secure in the
knowledge of a job well done. Even the government’s orders regarding the establishment of a
settlement on Norfolk Island had been executed and over a thousand people were now living there.
In Sydney and Paramatta, there were just over 3000 split between the two settlements.

Further fleets remained in private hands and the government dealt with the public response to the
reports of losses on the Second Fleet by appointing a Royal Commission into the affair which
resulted in no prosecutions. As the years went on, although the conditions remained grim, they were
never as inhuman again.

Task 3 – answer the question below using evidence from your reading so far…

What was more important for the survival of Australia: the role of Governor Phillip, or other
factors? Explain your answer.