Contemporary Australia was birthed on 26th January 1788 when the British Government established a penal colony on the shores of Sydney Cove in Port Jackson, NSW South Wales that was a world away in so many ways from the green fields and industrial cities of England. The convicts who were transported here, the soldiers who came to guard them and later the emancipated convicts who were joined by free settlers, set about making a home for themselves, co-inhabiting - often in physical and cultural conflict - with the Aborigines who had resided there undisturbed for thousands of years.
Sydney, Hobart and other pioneer European settlements were established and fortified using convict labour, and the colonial frontier was expanded by convicts working for free settlers. Often following Aboriginal paths, roads were laid out across NSW by convict workers, who were housed in stockades along the routes.
Only a handful of roads and structures that the early settlers built have survived, the rest has long gone, and evidence of them is no longer visible above ground. Beneath the surface of the pioneer cities, towns, and neighbouring countryside, however, the remnants of the convict landscape still lie and from time to time are uncovered, reveal more about a time in this country's past that has passed into history.
These pages identify the major surviving remnants for Australia's convict past, pinpointing where they are, what you will see there, and what is their significance in Australia's cultural history.