Colonial Australia's Early History

Colonial Australian History pre-1810

Image: The town of Sydney c.-1799 Thomas Watling (1762-1814)

This website, created by Narissa Phelps, aims to showcase aspects of social, penal, political and economic life in the Australian colonies of Sydney, Parramatta & surrounds, Dyarubbin (Hawkesbury) and Norfolk Island pre-1810. Grounded in historical rigor, it aims at providing accurate information to supplement the existing research of family and social historians.

Elizabeth McDougle’s intriguing letter to Arthur Phillip Esq.

On the 14th September 1796, Elizabeth McDougle (McDougall), a convict who arrived in the colony in July 1791, penned a letter to Arthur Phillip.[1] There is…

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Lennox Head Pioneers

These biographies of Lennox Head’s earliest pioneers are published each moth in The Lennox Wave magazine.

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Convict to settler: an analysis of the transition of the female convicts of the second fleet vessel Neptune from the status of convict to settler and the role they played in the early colonisation of Australia during the period 1790-1792

Southern Cross University. Master of Arts (MA), Southern Cross University, 2019 An analysis of the lives of sixty-one women from the convict class reveals the pivotal…

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Colonial Australia's Early History

Colonial Australian History pre-1810

Elizabeth McDougle’s intriguing letter to Arthur Phillip Esq.

Lennox Head Pioneers

Convict to settler: an analysis of the transition of the female convicts of the second fleet vessel Neptune from the status of convict to settler and the role they played in the early colonisation of Australia during the period 1790-1792

‘The lowest Ebb in life.’ Individual responses to the forced evacuation of Norfolk Island’s first settlement, 1803-1814

Maligning Molly Morgan:A Convict Woman of ‘Dominant Influence’, Sexualised and Stereotyped:

The colony’s first free settlers: