The First Settlement

In spite of the odds stacked against him, Governor Phillip was a forward thinking person who very much shared the belief that Sydney Cove's days as a convict outpost were numbered and it would be only a matter of time before it grew into a thriving community. From the time he first stepped ashore, every act was performed with this in mind and every decision made was a step towards ensuring it happened. The Governors who immediately followed Phillip had other things on their minds and none shared his vision until the arrival of Lachlan Macquarie in 1810 when Sydney would again come under the influence of a Governor who saw the potential of the settlement as a community rather than a prison and was prepared to take on the powers that be to make sure it was realised.
Phillip's far-sighted dream for the penal colony was documented in his "Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay, the official account of the founding of the colony of New South Wales which he wrote for the Colonial Secretary Lord Sydney in July 1788". To Phillip, the creation of a town for the residents to live in and take pride in as their home as opposed to a prison to stop them escaping was his primary goal. "The aim," he wrote, "is to preserve a kind of uniformity in the buildings, prevent narrow streets and exclude many inconveniences which a rapid increase of inhabitants might otherwise occasion hereafter". He recommended the name Albion for the settlement - Sydney at that time was only the name of the cove on which the settlement had been established. The streets of Albion as detailed in an attached plan were to be a uniform 200 ft wide to allow for the "proper circulation of air" and that building allotments be of a standard 60 by 150 feet. Phillip's suggested name was never adopted and the name of the cove around which the settlement grew up came into use more by accident than by design as the name of the settlement.
Augustus Alt, selected before the First Fleet sailed as the colony's first Surveyor General, was assigned an assistant, Lieutenant Dawes, and was given the task of laying out the town in accordance with Phillip's plan. It incorporated a town centre set in a grid pattern on the western hillside above where the tank stream entered the cove. Alt's plan of Sydney Cove dated July 1788 and drawn by Dawes shows a main street running in a south-easterly direction from the eastern shoreline of Sydney Cove where the Tank Stream entered the cove, to the top of the rise where York and Jamison Streets now meet. This street, running through the centre of the grid, was to be a grand avenue which when looked down would give a panoramic view across the waters of Sydney Cove to Bennelong Point. What a majestic sight that would have been today had Phillip's plans been implemented.
Due no doubt to more pressing tasks placed on Phillip's shoulders such as the establishment of order in what was little more than a bush camp, not to mention the lack of manpower, most of Phillip's ideas never got beyond the planning stage. Apart from Lang Street, which has the honour of being the oldest (and first) street in Sydney, and for that matter Australia, none of the streets on Alt's map eventuated. Instead, a rough path trodden down by convicts taking water from the stream to the hospital became the colony's main thoroughfare, and after a succession of name changes, widenings, straightenings and modifications, became George Street. A walkway which lead from the soldiers' barracks to a small bridge across the stream continued up the hill on the other bank in front of the government tents and huts to the top of the next ridge. It became Bridge Street. The area set aside by Phillip for government offices on its southern side is still occupied by Government buildings today.
Phillip also reserved a large area beyond the ridge to the east of the settlement as a common. This area remained set aside but undeveloped until the arrival of Governor Macquarie who, during his tenure, established The Domain, The Botanical Gardens, Hyde Park and Moore Park. All are part of the land that had been allocated for public space by Phillip in 1788.

The First Buildings

The first thing Phillip did after bringing the men ashore was to organise the building of shelters and the planting of vegetables and cereal crops. He quickly found out that this was not going to be an easy task. The few axes that they brought with them were quickly blunted as their blades hit the hard timber of the local trees with a deadening thud. The wood was found to be quite unsuitable for building construction. Furthermore, there were only a handful of people who had any idea about building. Those responsible for organising the First Fleet had given little thought to the type of manpower and the kinds of tools they would need to be able to erect a settlement in the Australian bush. Of the 1,530 people in the First Fleet, there were just a handful of experienced carpenters, one stonemason, one brickmaker, three plasterers and five bricklayers. The majority of the rest of the convicts were city dwellers who knew nothing of farming or building construction.
There were no architects, no designers, no surveyors. Lieutenant William Dawes had learnt a little about building and engineering from his father in Portsmouth, England, and gave what assistance he could. Parramatta's town centre, based on the British symmetrical grid pattern in which streets ran at right angles to each other, was drawn by Dawes, and is the only surviving legacy of his contribution towards the creation of the new colony. Because of the lack of experienced manpower, the buildings constructed in the settlement's formative years were rudimentary in design and built for functionality rather than architectural detail. The majority started to collapse before they were completed and had to be replaced once people with skills in construction entered the work force. The first dwellings were tents brought out from England that were strung between the trees in an area roughly bounded by Loftus Street, Bridge Street, Grosvenor Street, Gloucester Street and Argyle Street. A prefabricated building of timber and oiled canvas which the first fleeters brought with them was erected on a rise beyond the east eastern bank of the stream. It became a temporary government house, but it was neither wind or water proof.
Mud daub huts quickly replaced the tents. The huts were rudimentary in design and construction, and in all probability the campsites of the local aboriginal tribes would have given them a few hints as to the available materials and how best to utilise them had they bothered to observe them. The straight, long trunks of cabbage tree palms, found in abundance in the valleys beyond the colony, were cut and split into lengths for wall panels. These were attached to timber frames made from locally cut she-oak. Mud was daubed over the panels to keep out the wind and rain. Gangs of convicts were assigned to the gathering of reeds from nearby Rushcutters Bay (hence its name) which were used in the creation of thatched roofs, and the cutting of timber, though shingles made from she-oak were later substituted. Most huts were single room dwellings, rectangular in shape, between three to five metres square.
When clay deposits to the south of Sydney Cove were discovered, a rudimentary brickworks was established and the construction of brick buildings commenced. Mortar for the bricks was made from a crushed oyster shell mixture which was in plentiful supply. Shell fish were an integral part of the local Aboriginal's diet, and the mounds of discarded oyster shells left at various sites around the harbour including Bennelong Point became an important resource. When the shell deposits ran out, lime mortar made by fellow convicts at the Norfolk Island penal settlement replaced the local product.
Brickfields, in the vicinity of Haymarket, is the name given to the locality where the first clay deposits were found and brickmaking was commenced during the first months of colonial settlement. A violent storm hit Brickfields Hill in August 1788. In the storm a kiln collapsed, thousands of half dried bricks were destroyed and the huts of the Brickfields Hill community disintegrated. Brickfields has the distinction of being the first area away from the main cove settlement to be cleared and developed. The track beaten through the bush from Sydney Cove to Brickfields became George Street. Hay and Quay Streets follow the path of the satellite settlement's first water supply, a small creek which flowed into Long Bay (later known as Cockle Bay) from marshes which would eventually be drained and cleared to make way for Central Railway Station. It was from Brickfield that Australia's first major cross country thoroughfare, Parramatta Road, was to make its way to Rose Hill (later called by its Aboriginal name, Parramatta), the colony's first inland settlement.
While the soft sandstone of the Sydney basin was a natural canvas for the art of the native population, to the new settlers it was an ideal raw material for the construction of buildings, and in abundant supply. The first fleet's lone stonemason, Samuel Peyton, a Londoner who was transported for larceny, was put to work training a number of unskilled convict labourers in his craft. He established the first quarry on what was to be known as Bennelong Point, and over a period of some 40 years, the hillside was slowly chiselled away to create the sheer rock face that lines the eastern shore of Sydney Cove today. When more stonemasons arrived with the second fleet, quarries were established in Kent Street in The Rocks, on George Street near Cornwall Lane and later at Cockle Bay. By the 1860s, Pyrmont would become the main source of sandstone for Sydney and whilst its quarries left deep scars on the area's landscape, its stone was used to create some of Sydney's finest 19th century buildings.
Gov. Phillip was quick to establish law and order in the fledgling colony. On 7th February, 1788, he mustered the colony to hear Judge Advocate Geoege Collins read Phillip's commission and letters and documents pertaining to the establishment of criminal and civil courts. The colony's first criminal court sat on 11th February, with Collins presiding and 3 naval officers and 3 marines acting as members. Three convicts were brought to trial and all were found guilty. One received 200 lashes for hitting a marine; one received 50 lashes for stealing some firewood; the third was put in irons and marooned on Pinchgut Island in Sydney Harbour for a week for stealing bread.
The first sitting of the Court of Civil Jurisdiction (the Civil Court) took place on 1st July 1788 when convicts Henry Kable and his wife were awarded £20 in damages from Duncan Sinclair, the master of the convict transport Alexander, who was held reponsible for their not receiving clothing belonging to them. This court was the main tribunal for dealing with civil claims until 1814 when a Supreme Court was established to deal with civil matters only. The Court of Civil Jurisdiction was empowered to deal with such matters as disputes over the ownership of land, breach of contract, trespasses of the person, nuisance, defamation, negligence, wills, probate and intestate administration. No jury was allowed and a judge advocate, with two "fit and proper persons" appointed by the governor, adjudicated.

The first farms of Sydney

During the colony's first year, attempts to grow cereal crops were made at various locations around Sydney but most of these plants withered and died, having being planted in the middle of a hot, humid Sydney summer. Records indicate the first produce garden was planted on Garden Island, which gave the island its name. Here, the crew of HMS Sirius planted seeds to grow fruit and vegetables so that they would become self sufficient and not have to draw on the limited suppliess brought out with the First Fleet. Crews of the other ships are believed to have established similar gardens for themselves at other locations at this time though there is no record of how successful they were.
In February 1788, after the Governor's portable canvas house had been erected on the rise to the east of Sydney Cove, the fruit trees obtained by the First Fleet in Rio de Janeiro and the Cape of Good Hope during their voyage from England were planted in a cleared area near where the Intercontinental Hotel stands today. These included orange, pear, apple and fig trees and a grape vine, all of which thrived. Vegetables were also planted and Judge Advocate Collins recorded that the cauliflowers and melons were "very fine of their kind". His comments about the grapes grown here were equally complimentary however the vine was to soon die from the blight disease Anthracnose because of the excess moisture from being planted so close to the water.

Another garden was established on high ground fronting Farm Cove within an area set aside by Phillip as a public domain in what now is the Botanical Gardens. The location of this farm is commemorated today by a memorial vegetable garden planted with similar vegetables to those sown by the First Fleeters. This farm is commonly believed to have been the first farm of the First Fleeters but it is not marked on a map of Sydney Cove drawn by Lieutenant Bradley dated 1st March 1788. It does appear on a map drawn by convict Francis Fawkes dated 16th April 1788, so it can be safely assumed that it was established some time between those dates. Gov. Phillip's valet for the voyage, Henry Dodd, was placed in charge of the farm. Dodd had been an agricultural labourer and had worked on Phillip's farm in Hampshire.
By the end of 1788, eight acres of cereal crops were under cultivation at Fram Cove but the yield, such as it was, proved disappointing. On 28th September, 1788, Gov. Phillip reported to Lord Sydney, "very little of the English wheat had vegetated and a very condsiderable quantity of the barley and many seeds had rotten in the ground ... all the barley and wheat likewise destroyed by the weevil." Planting the seeds at the end of a hot summer had not helped matters and what seeds were not destroyed by the effects of the frequent Autumn thunder storms were eaten by field mice and vast numbers of ants. The lack of skilled farm labourers to assist Dodd was also a hindrance. Phillip's report included a stocktake of supplies which indicated the colony had enough food for one year. By October 1788, a decision had been made to replace the Sydney region farms. Plans were formulated to clear and cultivate land in an area known as Rose Hill (Parramatta) which had been explored and found to be fertile by Phillip and a party of Officers and Marines at the end of April 1788. A detatchment of Marines and convict labourers left Sydney Cove for Rose Hill to establish a redoubt and settlement there on 2nd November 1788.
Over the next two years, the colony's agricultural development was concentrated around the banks of the upper Parramatta River. Consequently Parramatta grew so much faster than Sydney, Governor Phillip built a second Government House there and gave serious consideration to making Parramatta the main settlement and maintaining Sydney only as its port in the same way that Fremantle in Western Australia is the port for Perth. A road was built between Sydney and Parramatta and since its completion in 1788, Parramatta Road has remained one of Sydney's busiest roads. In spite of the success of the Parramatta farms, Phillip new the land could have produced more if he had been given the skilled manpower to make it happen. When he left Sydney, there were only 11 supervisors skilled in farming and mechanics in the whole of New South Wales.
By the end of the first year of colonisation, 55 people had died of illness (four marines, 27 male convicts and 13 female convicts and 11 children), four had been killed by aborigines, five were executed and 14 were lost in the bush or at sea, presumed dead. The latter became a common recording in the official records of the colony. On 1st September 1790, five convicts put to sea in a boat and were presumed drowned. Some years later, their boat was found wrecked near Port Stephens. Four of the escapees were found alive and living with a group of Aborigines. They were promptly rounded up and returned to Sydney. On 28th March 1791, a group of convicts led by William Bryant, a convicted forger, followed the example set by William Bligh by taking a boat laden with provisions and heading for Batavia (Djakarta, Indonesia). Like Bligh, they survived their journey and arrived alive and well in Timor. A group of convicts who tried to emulate Bryant on 12th April 1794 suffered a different fate. Their boat was overturned in a gale and there were no survivors. Official records show that by the end of 1791, the convict population of Parramatta exceeded that of Sydney Town. There were 1,628 people living at Parramatta, a further 1,259 had made Sydney their home. 1,172 people lived on Norfolk Island at a settlement also called Sydney.

Sirius Anchor and Cannon
Location: Macquarie place, Sydney: A cast iron bow anchor and cannon from HMS Sirius, 1780 – 1790 which escorted the first fleet are the only surviving relics from the First Fleet. The cannon was landed shortly after foundation of the colony in 1788. The anchor received from Norfolk Island after Sirius wrecked in 1790, erected 1907. Relics on Norfolk Island include another anchor and guns from HMS Sirius, displayed at Kingston. An array of relics from the wreck is now on display in the Norfolk Island Museum’s Pier Store.

Bible and Prayer Book
Rev. Richard Johnson's Bible and prayer book are presently held by St Phillips Church, Sydney.

Dawes Point Battery
Location: Dawes Point, Sydney, NSW: Lieutenant William Dawes, an Officer of Engineers and Artillery built a simple mud redoubt for the storage of explosives near the observatory. The battery was extended in 1789 and again during the latter years of the Macquarie era (1810-21), when Francis Greenway was instrumental in re-building the fort. In the 1830s, it was further modified to accommodate five mortars, thirteen 42 pounder cannon, a magazine and quarters for a garrison of soldiers and their commanding officer. This fort remained intact until 1929 when the section above ground was demolished to make way for the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Cannon are today mounted on the same spot when Dawes placed his.
Recent archaeological digs uncovered the underground sections of the fort which have been preserved by the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority. The partial restoration and interpretation of the archaeological remains of the fort, including its powder magazine, gun battery and Officers' Quarters gives an impression of the fort's importance in the strategic defence of Sydney. Central to the revitalisation are low stone walls, which create an impression of the fort as it stood in the 1850s, having been upgraded and re-designed to that state by colonial architect Francis Greenway.  Nearby, the footings of the fort's adjoining Officer's Quarters have been exposed, creating a virtual floor plan. One of the fort's five cannon has also been refurbished and reinstated to its original position. The fort's sandstone powder magazine has been fully restored. In June 2001, while restoring the powder magazine, workers uncovered one of the concrete cable-saddles which was used to restrain the two-halves of the bridge during construction.  The remains of the redundant saddle have now been incorporated into the project and remain on permanent public display.

The Frst Government House
Location: Bridge Street, Sydney, NSW: Built on a rise on the east side of Tank Stream, the first Government House was the home, offices and seat of authority for the first nine Governors of New South Wales from 1788; A two storey building of classical Georgian style (symmetrical facade with an even number of windows on either side of the centrally located door), it is believed to have been modelled on Captain Arthur Phillip's former home at Lyndhurst in Hampshire, England. Constructed by convict bricklayer James Bloodsworth, it was poorly designed and had a limited lifespan and had to be demolished in 1845. 5,000 bricks were brought out from England and used in its construction. These were supplemented by some of the first bricks to come from the kilns of Brickfield, the name given to the locality where clay deposits were first found. In all probability, 25 year old convict William Edwards, the colony's only brickmaker by trade, would have been put in charge of the brickmaking facility, with a number of unskilled labourers assigned to work under him.

Caddie Park
Location: Cattai Natiobal Park, Cattai: a small homestead was built and owned by the First Fleet Assistant Surgeon Thomas Arndell. The homestead is now part of Cattai National Park.

Rose Farm House (McDonalds Farm)
Location: 17 - 19 Honour Street, Ermington, NSW: A single storey sandstone and sandstock brick Georgian cottage built in 1820 for Alexander McDonald, a Private of the First Fleet.

Old Government House
Location: Parramatta Park, Parramatta, NSW: This building is a remodelled version of the original building erected by Governor Phillip in 1790 (very little of the original building remains). In 1799, Governor John Hunter made significant alterations and extensions. During Governor Macquarie's tenure, side and rear wings were added (1812-18).