BY 1776, a thousand convicts each year were being spared the gallows and transported to the American colonies, a practice begun in 1614, but abruptly ended by the American Declaration of Independence.
‘Hulks’, prison ships moored in the Thames, offered only a temporary solution. Fortunately, in 1770 James Cook had charted the southeastern coast of Australia, and the ‘First Fleet’, carrying a thousand convicts, landed at Port Jackson, New South Wales, in January 1788.* Forty years later, some fifty thousand had moved to the other side of the world.
After initially neglecting the colony, London relaxed trade restrictions and a mutually beneficial trade in wool and gold brought wealth and settlers. In 1840, New South Wales refused further transportations, which ceased altogether in 1867.
In 1850, New South Wales, Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia were granted self-government, with Western Australia following in 1890.* National independence came with the establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia and a federal Parliament at Canberra on 1st January, 1901.*
Following the Admiralty’s Instructions, Captain Phillip originally landed at Botany Bay and intended to found the colony there, but quickly moved it to a more promising location, now Sydney. See The First Fleet.
The Act also created the Colony of Victoria. New South Wales was a little left behind by the Act of 1850, but put that right soon afterwards with a strongly-worded petition. See Mischievous Interference.
Parliament met at Melbourne, Victoria, until Canberra was ready in 1927. For an extract from Sir Henry Parkes’s historic speech urging federation, see The Crimson Thread. Australia now has six states: New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia; and two major mainland territories: the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory.
Précis
Australia began as a British penal colony in 1778, but within fifty years it had established its own prosperous economy. From 1850 onwards, Australia gradually moved towards self-government, first for each of the individual states, and then as a single nation, which in 1901 was granted its own autonomous federal parliament as the Commonwealth of Australia. (53 / 60 words)