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…
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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 1788 to 1820. Grounded in historical rigor, it aims at providing accurate information to supplement the existing research of family and social historians.
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…
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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…
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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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‘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…
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Maligning Molly Morgan:A Convict Woman of ‘Dominant Influence’, Sexualised and Stereotyped:
Article Published in the Journal of Australian Colonial History, Vol 21, January 2020. Abstract: Molly Morgan, who survived the voyage of the Second Fleet vessel ‘Neptune’…
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The colony’s first free settlers:
Challenges in business are a given, but it’s our response to them that defines our trajectory. Looking beyond the immediate obstacle, there lies a realm of…
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Colonial Australia's Early History 