The settlement of Sydney began its life
as a penal colony, with a total of 568 male and 191 female
convicts with 13 children, 206 marines with 26 wives and 13
children, and 20 officials having made the voyage.
Their earliest huts were composed of cabbage-tree palm,
while the convicts were housed in huts made of boards
wattled with slender twigs and plastered with clay. By 1790,
however, there were 40 convicts employed making bricks and
tiles, 50 brickie labourers, and 4 stonemasons.
The total convict population that year was 730 persons, with
413 under medical treatment. In fact free settlers did not
begin arriving until 1793. See The Rocks, for more history
on these early colonial days.
|
