Editing History of Australia (section)

=== The colony of New South Wales ===
{{Main|History of Australia (1788–1850)}}

==== Establishment of the colony: 1788 to 1792 ====
[[File:The perilous situation of The Guardian Frigate as she appeared striking on the rocks of ice c1790.jpg|thumb|''The perilous situation of The Guardian Frigate as she appeared striking on the rocks of ice'' ({{circa|1790}}) – Robert Dighton; depicting the [[Second Fleet (Australia)|Second Fleet]]]]

The [[colony of New South Wales]] was established with the arrival of the [[First Fleet]] of 11 vessels under the command of Captain [[Arthur Phillip]] in January 1788. It consisted of more than a thousand settlers, including 778 convicts (192 women and 586 men).<ref>Alan Frost, ''The First Fleet: The Real Story'', Melbourne, Black Inc., 2011. Rosalind Miles (2001) ''Who Cooked the Last Supper: The Women's History of the World'' Three Rivers Press. {{ISBN|0-609-80695-5}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=6vPOD6Ol15MC&q=first+fleet google books]</ref> A few days after arrival at [[Botany Bay]] the fleet moved to the more suitable [[Port Jackson]] where a settlement was established at [[Sydney Cove]] on 26 January 1788.<ref>Peter Hill (2008) pp.141–50</ref> This date later became Australia's national day, [[Australia Day]]. The colony was formally proclaimed by Governor Phillip on 7 February 1788 at Sydney. Sydney Cove offered a fresh water supply and a safe harbour, which Phillip described as being,<ref>{{cite web|date=9 October 2009|title=SL/nsw.gov.au|url=http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/discover_collections/history_nation/terra_australis/letters/phillip/index.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130203035645/http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/discover_collections/history_nation/terra_australis/letters/phillip/index.html|archive-date=3 February 2013|access-date=14 July 2011|publisher=SL/nsw.gov.au}}</ref>
{{blockquote |text=with out exception the finest Harbour in the World [...] Here a Thousand Sail of the Line may ride in the most perfect Security [...].}}

The territory of New South Wales claimed by Britain included all of Australia eastward of the meridian of 135° East. This included more than half of mainland Australia.<ref name="King-1998">Robert J. King, "Terra Australis, New Holland and New South Wales: the Treaty of Tordesillas and Australia", ''The Globe'', No. 47, 1998, pp. 35–55.</ref> The claim also included "all the Islands adjacent in the Pacific" between the latitudes of [[Cape York Peninsula|Cape York]] and the southern tip of [[Van Diemen's Land]] (Tasmania).<ref>Robert J. King, "Terra Australis, New Holland and New South Wales: the Treaty of Tordesillas and Australia", ''The Globe'', No. 47, 1998, pp. 35–55, 48–49.</ref> In 1817, the British government withdrew the extensive territorial claim over the South Pacific, passing an act specifying that Tahiti, New Zealand and other islands of the South Pacific were not within His Majesty's dominions.<ref name="King-1998" /> However, it is unclear whether the claim ever extended to the current islands of New Zealand.<ref name="Kingston-2006b">{{Cite book|last=Kingston|first=Beverley|title=A History of New South Wales|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2006|location=Cambridge|pages=1–2}}</ref>

[[File:Arthur_Phillip_-_Wheatley_ML124.jpg|thumb|[[Arthur Phillip]], first [[Governor of New South Wales]]]]
[[File:Founding of the settlement of Port Jackson at Botany Bay in New South Wales in 1788 - Thomas Gosse.jpg|left|thumb|''Founding of the settlement of Port Jackson at Botany Bay in New South Wales in 1788'' – Thomas Gosse]]

Governor Phillip was vested with complete authority over the inhabitants of the colony. His intention was to establish harmonious relations with local Aboriginal people and try to reform as well as discipline the convicts of the colony. Early efforts at agriculture were fraught and supplies from overseas were scarce. Between 1788 and 1792 about 3546 male and 766 female convicts were landed at Sydney. Many new arrivals were sick or unfit for work and the condition of healthy convicts also deteriorated due to the hard labour and poor food. The food situation reached crisis point in 1790 and the [[Second Fleet (Australia)|Second Fleet]] which finally arrived in June 1790 had lost a quarter of its passengers through sickness, while the condition of the convicts of the [[Third Fleet (Australia)|Third Fleet]] appalled Phillip. From 1791, however, the more regular arrival of ships and the beginnings of trade lessened the feeling of isolation and improved supplies.<ref name="HttpadbonlineanueduaubiogsAbhtmhiliteArthurPhillip">{{cite book|author=B.H. Fletcher|title=ADBonline.anu.edu.au|publisher=ADBonline.anu.edu.au|chapter=Phillip, Arthur (1738–1814)|access-date=14 July 2011|chapter-url=http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020292b.htm?hilite=Arthur%3BPhillip}}</ref>

In 1788, Phillip established a subsidiary settlement on [[Norfolk Island]] in the South Pacific where he hoped to obtain timber and flax for the navy. The island, however, had no safe harbour, which led the settlement to be abandoned and the settlers evacuated to Tasmania in 1807.<ref>King, Robert J. "Norfolk Island: Phantasy and Reality, 1770–1814." ''The Great Circle'', Vol. 25, No. 2, 2003, pp. 20–41.</ref> The island was subsequently re-established as a site for secondary transportation in 1825.<ref>Macintyre (2020). p. 78</ref>

Phillip sent exploratory missions in search of better soils, fixed on the [[Parramatta]] region as a promising area for expansion, and moved many of the convicts from late 1788 to establish a small township, which became the main centre of the colony's economic life. This left Sydney Cove only as an important port and focus of social life. Poor equipment and unfamiliar soils and climate continued to hamper the expansion of farming from Farm Cove to Parramatta and [[Toongabbie]], but a building program, assisted by convict labour, advanced steadily. Between 1788 and 1792, convicts and their gaolers made up the majority of the population; however, a free population soon began to grow, consisting of emancipated convicts, locally born children, soldiers whose military service had expired and, finally, free settlers from Britain. Governor Phillip departed the colony for England on 11 December 1792, with the new settlement having survived near starvation and immense isolation for four years.<ref name="HttpadbonlineanueduaubiogsAbhtmhiliteArthurPhillip" />

==== Consolidation: 1793 to 1821 ====
[[File:WilliamBligh.jpeg|left|thumb|Governor [[William Bligh]]]]

After the departure of Phillip, the colony's military officers began acquiring land and importing consumer goods obtained from visiting ships. Former convicts also farmed land granted to them and engaged in trade. Farms spread to the more fertile lands surrounding [[Parramatta|Paramatta]], [[Windsor, New South Wales|Windsor]], [[Richmond, New South Wales|Richmond]] and [[Camden, New South Wales|Camden]], and by 1803 the colony was self-sufficient in grain. Boat building developed in order to make travel easier and exploit the marine resources of the coastal settlements. Sealing and whaling became important industries.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Karskens|first=Grace|title=The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume I, Indigenous and colonial Australia|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2013|isbn=9781107011533|editor-last=Bashford|editor-first=Alison|location=Cambridge|pages=90–114|chapter=The early colonial presence, 1788-1822|editor-last2=MacIntyre|editor-first2=Stuart}}</ref>

[[File:View_of_Sydney_Cove_-_Thomas_Watling.jpg|thumb|View of [[Sydney Cove]] ([[Australian Aboriginal languages|Aboriginal]]: ''Warrane'') by [[Thomas Watling]], 1794–1796]]

The [[New South Wales Corps]] was formed in England in 1789 as a permanent regiment of the [[British Army in Australia|British Army]] to relieve the marines who had accompanied the First Fleet. Officers of the Corps soon became involved in the corrupt and lucrative rum trade in the colony. Governor [[William Bligh]] (1806–1808) tried to suppress the rum trade and the illegal use of Crown Land, resulting in the [[Rum Rebellion]] of 1808. The Corps, working closely with the newly established wool trader [[John Macarthur (wool pioneer)|John Macarthur]], staged the only successful armed takeover of government in Australian history, deposing Bligh and instigating a brief period of military rule prior to the arrival from Britain of Governor [[Lachlan Macquarie]] in 1810.<ref>{{cite book|author=A.G.L. Shaw|title=ADB.online.anu.edu.au|publisher=ADB.online.anu.edu.au|chapter=Bligh, William (1754–1817)|access-date=14 July 2011|chapter-url=http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010111b.htm?hilite=william%3Bbligh}}</ref><ref>Macintyre (2020). p. 65.</ref>

Macquarie served as the last autocratic [[Governor of New South Wales]], from 1810 to 1821, and had a leading role in the social and economic development of New South Wales which saw it transition from a [[penal colony]] to a budding civil society. He established a bank, a currency and a hospital. He employed a planner to design the street layout of Sydney and commissioned the construction of roads, wharves, churches, and public buildings. He sent explorers out from Sydney and, in 1815, a road across the [[Blue Mountains (New South Wales)|Blue Mountains]] was completed, opening the way for large scale farming and grazing in the lightly wooded pastures west of the [[Great Dividing Range]].<ref name="Kingston-2006a"/><ref>Karskens, Grace (2013). pp. 115–17</ref>

Central to Macquarie's policy was his treatment of the [[emancipist]]s, whom he considered should be treated as social equals to free-settlers in the colony. He appointed emancipists to key government positions including [[Francis Greenway]] as colonial architect and [[William Redfern]] as a magistrate. His policy on emancipists was opposed by many influential free settlers, officers and officials, and London became concerned at the cost of his public works. In 1819, London appointed [[John Bigge|J. T. Bigge]] to conduct an inquiry into the colony, and Macquarie resigned shortly before the report of the inquiry was published.<ref>{{cite book|author=N.D. McLachlan|title=ADB.online.anu.edu.au|publisher=ADB.online.anu.edu.au|chapter=Macquarie, Lachlan (1762–1824)|access-date=14 July 2011|chapter-url=http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020162b.htm?hilite=lachlan%3Bmacquarie}}</ref><ref>Macintyre (2020). pp. 54–59</ref>

==== Expansion: 1821 to 1850 ====
[[File:Map NSW 1850 SLNSW FL3688835.jpg|thumb|Map of the south eastern portion of Australia, 1850]]

In 1820, British settlement was largely confined to a {{convert|100|km|mi|adj=mid|-radius}} around Sydney and to the central plain of Van Diemen's land. The settler population was 26,000 on the mainland and 6,000 in Van Diemen's Land. Following the end of the [[Napoleonic Wars]] in 1815, the transportation of convicts increased rapidly and the number of free settlers grew steadily.<ref>Macintrye (2020). pp. 55, 60, 77</ref> From 1821 to 1840, 55,000 convicts arrived in New South Wales and 60,000 in Van Diemen's Land. However, by 1830, free settlers and the locally born exceeded the convict population of New South Wales.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=McCalman|first1=Janet|title=The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume I|last2=Kippen|first2=Rebecca|year=2013|pages=297|chapter=Population and health}}</ref>

From the 1820s [[Squatting (Australian history)|squatters]] increasingly established unauthorised cattle and sheep runs beyond the official limits of the settled colony. In 1836, a system of annual licences authorising grazing on Crown Land was introduced in an attempt to control the [[pastoral farming|pastoral industry]], but booming wool prices and the high cost of land in the settled areas encouraged further squatting. By 1844 wool accounted for half of the colony's exports and by 1850 most of the eastern third of New South Wales was controlled by fewer than 2,000 pastoralists.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Ford|first1=Lisa|title=The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume I|last2=Roberts|first2=David Andrew|year=2013|pages=128–135|chapter=Expansion, 1820–1850}}</ref><ref>W.P. Driscoll and E.S. Elphick (1982) ''Birth of A Nation'' p. 147-48. Rigby, Australia. {{ISBN|0-85179-697-4}}</ref>

In 1825, the western boundary of New South Wales was extended to longitude 129° East, which is the current nominal eastern boundary of [[Western Australia]]. As a result, the territory of New South Wales reached its greatest extent, covering the area of the modern state as well as modern Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and the Northern Territory.<ref>''[[Historical Records of Australia]]'', Series III, Vol. V, 1922, pp. 743–47, 770.</ref><ref name="Kingston-2006b"/>

By 1850 the settler population of New South Wales had grown to 180,000, not including the 70,000–75,000 living in the area which became the separate colony of Victoria in 1851.<ref>Ford, Lisa; Roberts, David Andrew (2013). p.138</ref>