I found this in The Sydney Morning Herald of December 24 1955. Most of us would have been quite young when this was written and some of you have not have been born! When Sydney was 11 months old …… As we celebrate this, our one hundred and sixty seventh Christmas and possibly the most prosperous in all our history, we might remember that the first Christmas of our pioneering forefathers was somewhat different. By December 25, 1788, Sydney town, Australia’s first settlement was 11 months old. Up till then progress had been steady, if not rapid. The bush around Sydney Cove had been cleared, and the thoroughfare that is now George Street North was a fairly well-defined track. A brick house had been erected for Governor Phillip on the site up near Loftus and Bridge Streets, while wooden houses had been put up for the officers and men of the regiment. The convicts were housed in wattle and daub huts. So it was that Australia’s first Christmas Day was “observed with proper ceremony” to quote the official record. The chaplain, the Reverend Richard Johnson, preached a sermon adapted to the occasion. He had no church, the soldiers and convicts being drawn up on the north bank of the Tank Stream. This was probably in the vicinity of Sydney’s present Bridge and Pitt Streets. Most of the officers were later entertained at dinner by Governor Phillip. History doesn’t go into much detail as to what was served at the first Christmas dinner of the infant Colony. We can assume, however, that vegetables, fish, salt beef and salt pork, some of it years old, formed a solid basis, while the highlight, in addition to the plum pudding, might have been roast pig. We gather this from the dispatch Phillip had sent home earlier in September in which he wrote “One sheep only remains of 70 which I had purchased at the Cape but the pigs are flourishing.” Little account exists as to the convicts’ Christmas fare, but possibly that at least were given an extra grog ration so that they could enjoy the day. One young lady certainly did not enjoy this particular season. She had been found guilty, a few days before Christmas, of receiving stolen property. “And” the record proceeds, “the convicts being assembled, this woman, after her hair was cut off, was clothed with a canvas frock on which was painted in large characters ‘R.S.G.” – received of stolen goods. A cabbage weighing 26 lb and grown at Parramatta was sent to Governor Phillip for the Christmas dinner of 1789, while butter landed from a Dutch ship which had arrived from Batavia on December 17 made the Christmas of 1790 memorable. Sydney town’s Christmas of 1791 wasn’t the bright occasion all would have wished for. The year’s crops had been poor and this, coupled with the non-arrival of urgently awaited supply ships from home, meant that foodstuffs were so low that rations had to be reduced. The best that Phillip could do for this Christmas was to give an extra pound of flour to each woman in the settlement. Christmas Day services that year were held in both Sydney and Parramatta for the first time. One plucky Sydneytown man, however, more daring than the rest, appeared determined not to let the festive season go by without celebration, no matter how hard the times and how short the ration. He broke into the Marine Store on Christmas night and stole 22 gallons of spirits. Christmas Eve of 1797 was marked by a curious drinking duel between two friends which resulted in the death of one, and the near-death of the other. During the Christmas Eve of 1799 the log cabin gaol at Parramatta was wilfully and maliciously set afire by convicts and totally destroyed. All the prisoners were saved, but one died a day or two later. Sydneytown’s first Christmas picnic of which we have record was held in 1806, when Captain John and Mrs Macarthur entertained many friends on their grant of land, later dining and wining them. The guests, the historian tells us “examined with unexpressable satisfaction the picturesque scene afforded.” Indeed, one fair visitor was moved so far as to call this serene and tranquil spot the repose of the soul. That may come as something of a surprise to those living at Pyrmont now! Up to the twenties of the last century we find nothing to differentiate one Christmas from another – church, dinner and an extra grog marked the event. That of 1824, though, was memorable in that it was the first occasion on which the Australian aboriginal was officially feted. No less than eight tribes were invited to a Christmas feast at Parramatta that year, where they were entertained by Governor Sir Thomas Brisbane. About 600 were present, and the feast consisted of 400 loaves, 22 monstrous dishes of roast beef, a large cask of soup, several tubs of potatoes, 13 huge plum cakes, and a hogshead of three-watered grog – just the Governor’s way of preventing over-merriment and its consequences. The country Christmas of the latter part of the last century always had unique aspects. Mothers and daughters would be busy in the kitchen for days before. Guests would arrive on horseback, or in drays. Then after a huge dinner, the earth floor was cleared, and dancing commenced to the strains of concertina and fiddle. Naturally, a barrel of rum would be on tap and very often a free fight would cap such entertainment. Christmas customs have come and gone in those 167 years. With the arrival of the New Australian, new ones are being introduced. These communities are bringing something of an old-world charm to the rather more modern and perhaps more rugged approach to Christmas as we have known it. (Author L. T. Sardone) Merry Christmas and regards Lesley Uebel mailto:ckennedy@bigpond.net.au CLAIM A CONVICT http://users.bigpond.net.au/convicts/index.html