Hi John I have, over the years, typed up many pieces from various early times. You may also like to check the newpapers (Trove) as they are an excellent source of information. This one is from the 1830's that you may find of interest adn the source is "Who's Master? Who's Man? Michael Cannon WE HAVE SEEN that Sydney in the 1830’s had developed into a thriving trading post looking outwards to the sea. Its frontier was the blue water, across which most of the town's sustenance and new vigour still came, as it had come for nearly half a century. But this was not enough for the expansionist spirit of the age. To convert the seaport town into a capital city with limitless possibilities for growth, a developing land frontier and productive hinterland were needed. It was time to look to the earth and the riches thereof. There was already a good deal of productive work going on in the bush around Sydney Harbour. Alexander Harris boarded one of the 'snug little 2½ or 3 ton boats' which Lane Cove settlers used to bring timber downstream to sell to the merchants and householders of Sydney. These settlers, he found, were mostly ex-convicts who made a living by felling and squaring trees for girders, splitting slate-like shingles for roofing material, cutting posts and rails for fencing, and supplying firewood for domestic purposes and the various steam engines already in operation on water and land. The western road out of Sydney, painfully constructed and macadamised by the endless labour of the convicts, had become the main inland artery. Charles Darwin hired horses and rode out along George Street, past Brickfield Hill and Parramatta, and along the 120 mile route to Bathurst. In the country he found that apart from the iron gangs there was a close resemblance to the English countryside, although 'the alehouses here were more numerous.' The land was enclosed with timber railings, for the farmers had not succeeded in growing hedges. Many substantial homes and good cottages were scattered about, and considerable areas of land were under cultivation. Around Sydney the County of Cumberland was thoroughly settled, particularly in choice spots like Parramatta, Penrith, Windsor and Camden. Here the inheritors of the lavish government land grants of earlier days watched their flocks multiply effortlessly and their fortunes increase magically. They had leisure to engage in politics and cultural pursuits, and to dream fantasies of establishing a hereditary system in which birth and not ability would be the key to colonial power. It was not here that the ordinary free emigrant could hope to make his mark and plant his family. Good land would cost him a small fortune, the price of stock was too high, and he had missed most of the era of assigned convict labour. Further north, however, along the Nepean and Hawkesbury rivers, the land was cheaper and the small man stood a better chance, particularly if he had a large family to use as farm labour. Near Richmond, wrote Alexander Harris, he felt at once that he was 'in the land of the husbandman.' Whichever way he looked he could see fields of tall green Indian corn, orchards loaded with splendid peaches, ground being ploughed, paddocks of wheat ripening, herds of pigs grazing, and every few fields apart 'some more or less simple edifice' which marked the homestead. A sylvan scene indeed, after the horrors of hulk and gaol. But the overwhelming urge of more adventurous men was for great tracts of free land, unencumbered by previous owner or commitment. Many went further out and simply 'squatted' in the bush, bought or stole a few cattle and sheep from nearby properties, and began the process of multiplying their flocks with the minimum of expense. The well-established graziers, who had raised themselves on the scarified backs of their convict slaves, were incensed by the morality of the new type of land-takers. Captain Phillip Parker King, former naval officer who had become commissioner of the Australian Agricultural Company, told a Legislative Council committee on police and gaol establishments in 1835 that he could not express his feelings too strongly on the subject of squatters. 'The mischief they do is almost incalculable', he exploded. 'They harbour the settler's runaway convicts: they steal his cattle and sheep: they sell spirits on the sly: they entice shepherds from the care of their sheep: they shelter and feed bushrangers'. The committee's final report recommended strong action against squatters and cattle thieves to prevent them from moving about the countryside and taking 'uncontrolled possession of remote and un- frequented tracts of grazing ground.' Acting under instructions from London, earlier governors had done their best to contain the outward pressure from Sydney. In 1829 Governor Darling proclaimed the so-called 'Nineteen Counties’, an area bounded on the west by a line roughly following the Bell river beyond Bathurst, on the south by a line following the Murrumbidgee and Moruya rivers, and on the north by the Manning river beyond Newcastle. Darling forbade any new settlement beyond these bounds, hoping to contain the restless colony within the limited area controllable by his military forces. By this period, groups of land grants were scattered all over the western, southern and northern limits of the official settlement area, providing a nucleus of civilisation in the wilderness, and making it almost irresistible for squatters to fill in the gaps, then push on beyond the boundaries. To the west, Bathurst had grown from a tiny military depot established by Macquarie in 1815 to a sizeable township of about 2,000 people, with a hospital, two churches, and a bank. It was surrounded by the large sheep stations of the pioneer 'great Stock-holders', many of them now in the second generation and already degenerating into absentee landlords who tended to leave the management of their runs to currency lads and their convict assistants. This area remained a wealthy but fairly static community until disrupted by the gold rushes. To the south, in Argyle County, Goulburn was a well-established centre for small cattle stations and lately-arrived graziers pasturing their flocks. To the north, the major settlements along the Hunter River, the town of Maitland and the former penal settlement of Newcastle were thriving. Since the southern and western areas of the Nineteen Counties were practically filled up by 1836, many free settlers were moving north to this area, engaging in agriculture as well as sheep-watching. When James Backhouse visited Maitland during that year, he found it to consist of a considerable number of houses, mainly solid brick. A large proportion of the inhabitants were' drunken with rum and prosperity'. Still the outward pressure grew. By 1836 the boundary of the Nineteen Counties had been scattered in all directions. To the north the New England plains were filling up, and men were driving their sheep and cattle over the future Queensland border towards the legendary Darling Downs, discovered by the botanist-explorer Allan Cunningham in 1827. To the south-west, men penetrated with their herds beyond the legal area of settlement to where Young, Gundagai and Wagga now stand. To the south, great flocks of sheep and herds of cattle were moving towards Port Phillip, following the deep tracks blazed by Major Mitchell's drays in 1836 when he explored the route through what he t described as' Australia Felix'. Once again Bourke demonstrated his larger vision in comparison with the views of earlier governors and established landowners. In 1836 he decided to throw open the colony's 'waste lands' to legitimate squatting settlement, but to clamp down more harshly on unlicensed squatters. For a payment of £10 a year and ½d. per animal, any reputable person could now take out a squatting licence and run his stock on Crown lands as he pleased, up to a maximum occupation of twenty square miles. http://www.claimaconvict.net/index.html CLAIM A CONVICT email: [email protected] On 1/06/2011 12:18 PM, John Read wrote: > Hi! > > After an absence of several years we am back researching my convict - > William Jarvis. > > We seem to have most of the trail complete now from his birth through > his activities before, during and after being a convict and on to his > death in Victoria but we am looking for some details of what Sydney/Port > Jackson would have been like when he arrived in 1838. > > The things we am looking for are - were the streets paved? Were there > ferries/boats plying along the harbour? Where the streets lit at > night? Etc. > > Can anyone point in the direction where we can find this sort of > information? > > It maybe a bit of topic but similar info for Wollongong and the > Illawarra generally. > > Regards, John and Lyn Read Kurwongbah > >

What a list - it seems to get better and better. Firstly to Maureen, Graham and Russel Thanks for the suggestions - I shall certainly check them out. To Lesley Thank you for your note and the reference to Trove. I should have thought of Trove as I have used it to trace many family members and their activities. Another question if I may. When was the spelling for Sydney settled? being an ex Sydneysider I always thought Sydney was Sydney. In recent research I have come across several instances where it was spelt Sidney, even on official type documents. (Can't think of any off hand to gove you an example). Regards, John and Lyn Read Kurwongbah