Featured
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Archival Silences and Disrupted Families:
Rethinking Male ‘Orphans’ in Early Colonial New South Wales 1819 to December 1823. On 24 October 1823, seven-year-old Thomas Howard was admitted to the Sydney Male Orphan Institution (MOI) by his father, Robert Howard, a labourer of Wilberforce.[1] Beyond a brief entry in the admission register, no official record survives to explain the circumstances of…
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Drunkenness, insolence and abuse. The recidivism of women convicts
Since the very earliest days of transportation, female convicts were stereotyped as ‘habitual and recalcitrant offenders’ who were a corruptive force in colonial society.1 This article investigates the extent and nature of the criminal recidivism of First Fleet women in the settlements of Port Jackson, Rose Hill and Norfolk Island during the period 1788 to…
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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 no doubt whatsoever that the recipient was the Australian colony’s previous governor, for the letter is addressed to ‘Arthur Phillip Esq, Late Governor of His Majestys Territories New South…
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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 role women played as agents of colonisation. As homemakers, landholders, farmers, partners and neighbours, they contributed significantly to the spread of white settlement and the corresponding dispossession of First…
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‘The lowest Ebb in life.’ Individual responses to the forced evacuation of Norfolk Island’s first settlement, 1803-1814
Journal of Australian Colonial History, Vol 24, July 2022. This article analyses memorials, also known as personal petitions, written in response to the evacuation of Norfolk Island’s first settlement. The colonists’ forced removal, between 1803 and 1814, resulted in the forfeiture of homes, possessions, community and security. The personal narrative contained within the evacuees’ memorials…
Colonial Australia's Early History 